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401 South Rossmore Avenue
 


  • Built in 1912 at 620 South Western Avenue (on a parcel comprised of Lot 5 and half of Lot 6 in the Kensington Place Tract) by attorney and real estate developer Clarendon Bennett Eyer as his own home
  • Architect: J. Martyn Haenke, per the Saturday Record Real Estate Bulletin supplement of The Los Angeles Record, February 17, 1912. The Los Angeles Express reported on March 1 that permits had just been issued to C. B. Eyer for an 11-room house and a garage on his Western Avenue parcel
  • C. B. Eyer had his house moved from Western Avenue to Hancock Park in 1920; on May 13 of that year he was issued a permit for the building's relocation to a parcel comprised of the corner Lot 36 and the northerly 10 feet of Lot 35 in Tract 3446, where a new foundation had been prepared. In charge of the operation and any necessary repairs to the structure was the architecture firm of Walker & Eisen. Albert R. Walker and Percy A. Eisen were at the time in partnership with Charles M. Hutchison. (In 1927, on his own, Hutchison designed 500 Muirfield Road, around the corner from 435)
  • Clarendon B. Eyer died—"suddenly" per his obituary in the Los Angeles Times the next day—at 401 South Rossmore Avenue on July 26, 1928, having just turned 63. His widow, née Cora Knowlton, made plans to sell the house soon after and to move into the Women's Athletic Club on Flower Street downtown
  • The family of José Luis Tejada Sorzano, described in the Times as an "international lawyer and business man, heavily interested in tin mining in Bolivia" and the "possible next president" of that country, was occupying 401 South Rossmore with his second wife Lucila, six children, and Mrs. Tejada's mother, Elisa Flores, by early 1930. The family retained the property until early 1940, although Tejada Sorzano spent most of his time in South America. He was elected vice-president of Bolivia on March 5, 1931; on November 29, 1934, he become president. Deposed on May 17, 1936, after a military coup, he fled to Arica, Chile, where he died on October 3, 1938. (Curiously, Tejada Sorzano appears as a Bolivian leader in the videogame Hearts of Iron IV, although he is depicted anachronistically as the head of a later administration)


José Luis Tejada Sorzano, as photographed by Luigi Domenico Gismondi in La Paz circa 1934;
three of his children appeared in the Los Angeles Times on December 1, 1934, at the time
 of his assumption of the presidency of Bolivia. They lived at 401 South Rossmore
 Avenue primarily in the care of their maternal grandmother, Elisa Flores. 
 

  • During the ownership of the Tejada family, permits were issued by the Department of Building and Safety for measures to mitigate basement flooding (to Mrs. Flores March 2, 1932) and to replace termite-damaged lumber (to J. L. Tejada on May 17, 1938)
  • Architect W. Douglas Lee—not to be confused with noted theater architect S. Charles Lee, no relation—was the owner of 401 South Rossmore Avenue by early 1940. Lee was known for his designs of the Pacific Knitting Mills/Catalina Swimwear Building (completed 1924) and of the Bendix Building, the Chateau Marmont, and the El Royale apartments—the latter five blocks north of 401—all completed in 1929. In a departure from his period designs, Lee, in practice with his son Everett, would go on to build the 22-story glass Lee Tower at the northwest corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Cochran Avenue, which opened in March 1961. (On March 9, 1958, The New York Times referred to the building as Los Angeles's first skyscraper)
  • On April 2, 1940, Douglas Lee was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety for a refurbishment of 401 South Rossmore including the alteration of some door openings. Lee and his wife, Lois, put 401 South Rossmore on the market in the summer of 1961. They would be taking an apartment in the Park La Brea complex but spending much of their time in Newport Beach. Lee died of a heart attack while playing golf there on August 14, 1965
  • Eugene C. Calhoun, manager of the Los Angeles office of the Local Loan Company of Chicago, was the owner of 401 South Rossmore by 1962; his family would remain for over 30 years. Still living at 401, Calhoun died on March 9, 1986, after a fall at home. Mrs. Calhoun—Veronica—was issued permits by the Department of Building and Safety in 1994 and 1995 for repairs after the Northridge earthquake in January 1994. She died on March 25, 1996, after which the house was sold
  • Over the past 20 years, the current owners of 401 South Rossmore have built a retaining wall around the front and north side of the property, added a pool, and made a large rear addition to one of the oldest houses standing in Hancock Park, the façade of which retains the same visage as designed for its Western Avenue lot in 1912  


Illustrations: Private Collection; Luigi Domenico Gismondi; LAT