PLEASE SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES





  • Built in 1922 on a 224-by-200-foot parcel comprised of Lots 6 and 7 in Tract 3668
  • Original commissioner: box manufacturer Richard Woodsworth Pridham
  • Architect: Lewellyn Jones Smith, a designer, contractor, and developer whose work also includes the Lewellyn Manor apartments and the Rampart Theater, still standing next door to one another on Temple Street between Rampart Boulevard and Benton Way
  • On September 26, 1922, the Department of Buildings issued R. W. Pridham permits for a 16-room, 2½-story residence and a 24-by-27-foot garage and servant's room at 115 North Rossmore Avenue
  • Arriving in Los Angeles in 1882 via Chicago and San Francisco, Canadian-born Richard Pridham founded the bookbinding, printing, and box-making firm of R. W. Pridham Company that year; soon joined by his brother James, the firm became for a time Pridham Brothers before reverting to its original name. Pridham became a Los Angeles County Supervisor in 1908 and was active in the efforts of the Chamber of Commerce and the Community Chest, serving terms as president of both during the '20s. His wife Althea, with whom he had his daughter Marjorie in 1910, died in 1915 at their home in South Pasadena after 24 years of marriage. Fourteen months later Pridham married Parnel Patton, a widow with two sons, in the Pasadena parlor of her cousin, Los Angeles real estate investor Arthur H. Braly. By 1918, Pridham's firm had become part of, and he a director of, the Paraffine Companies, Inc., makers of paints, roofing, linoleum and other building products as well as boxes


The R. W. Pridham Company's sixth location was at the northerly intersection of Main and Alameda
streets; its founder was caricatured in the good-natured As We See 'em": A Volume of Cartoons
and Caricatures of Los Angeles Citizens, published in 1905. Pridham was 82 when he died at
home in Hermosa Beach, April 27, 1938. He'd built his house there at 2317 Manhattan
Avenue in 1919 to the design of architect Richard D. King; it remains standing.


  • The Pridhams decided to call their new house the "Villa Marnel," which was presumably a combination of "M" for Marjorie and the last five letters of Mrs. Parnel's first name
  • In March 1926, two years after firing his chauffeur for the attempted theft of a camera, Pridham and his family received two death threats in the mail, the first also attempting to extort $5,000. The disgruntled former employee was easily found by the police and spent 10 months in jail
  • On October 15, 1931, Marjorie Pridham was married quietly at home to insurance investigator Otto Bobington Patterson; the Times noted that owing to unspecified illness in the family, there were no guests at the ceremony, which was performed by the Reverend George Davidson of St. John's Episcopal Church on Adams Boulevard. A wedding breakfast was held afterward at the Wilshire Country Club clubhouse just up the street from 115; the couple was divorced before the end of the decade
  • The Depression naturally affected those who built big Los Angeles houses such as the "Villa Marnel" during the 1920s, although, now retired and well into his 70s, Richard Pridham had decided to move full-time to the family's house at Hermosa Beach. The deacquisitioning of an elaborate house and its equally elaborate furnishings in a slow market was not easy. Large auction advertisements ran in the press in late February 1933 for an event to be held on March 1 that appears to have resulted in dismal sales; the Pridhams were stuck with their white elephant for the time being. Trying again two years later, another large display ad appeared in papers for what was basically the same sale, this one taking place on May 13, 1935


Similar advertisements appeared in the Los Angeles Times on February 26, 1933, and May 12, 1935


  • It is unclear as to whether 115 North Rossmore Avenue was sold in 1935, or whether Pridham was forced to rent it. Mississippi-born real estate broker Charles W. Gunter and his Louisiana-born wife Louise and their children occupied the house briefly after the departure of the Pridhams; it could be that Gunter, given his profession, bought the house intending to flip it if he didn't lease it. In any case the Gunters soon bought 449 South Plymouth Boulevard several blocks away in Windsor Square
  • Trophy, silverware, and jewelry manufacturer Ray Edgar Dodge was in residence at 115 North Rossmore Avenue by the spring of 1938. Oregon-born Dodge married his first of three wives at age 18 in 1918; this did not last. A champion middle-distance runner, he competed with the U.S. team in Paris at the 1924 Olympic games and afterward won a number of international events; settling in Chicago, he, Vernon Ascher, and other members of the 1924 Olympic track team organized Dodge & Ascher, manufacturers of high school and college jewelry. Dodge married again; Mildred Dodge was 10 years his junior, but the marriage was another short-lived one. Selling his shares of Dodge & Ascher in 1930, Ray organized Dodge, Inc. of Illinois and Dodge, Inc. of California. Moving west, his athletic fame cut him a swath in Hollywood and caught the eye of actress Ada Williams, a one-time Miss Florida who was also the wife of William T. Ince, son of director Thomas Ince, whose 1924 death after a trip on William Randolph Hearst's yacht, the Oneida, remains a mystery. With divorces arranged, Ada, a month shy of her 22nd birthday, and Ray, 34, were married in Beverly Hills on May 3, 1935, a publicist feeding gossip columnists details of every step to the altar. Actress Nancy Carroll was Ada's matron of honor and among Ray's ushers was cowboy star Hoot Gibson. After a few years in a West Hollywood apartment that included the birth of their daughter Diane Ada on February 2, 1937, and with another child expected, the Dodges decided a big house was in order and set their sights on 115 North Rossmore. Darlene Rae Dodge was born on April 30, 1938. In the meantime Dodge Inc. was expanded through the acquisition of competitors and the opening of warehouses on the East Coast; the firm produced the Oscar statuette from 1936 to 1983


Ray E. Dodge and Ada Williams Ince seen not long before their marriage


  • On June 21, 1938, the Department of Building and Safety issued Ray Dodge a permit to add a 20-by-50-foot swimming pool to the property, which overlooked the south fairway of the Wilshire Country Club
  • Dodge reported his 30-foot cabin cruiser, the Rada, missing off Catalina over the Fourth of July weekend of 1938; found within a day, it turned out that Dodge's skipper, alone in the boat, had become stuck in a kelp bed 
  • On May 18, 1940, actress Anita Louise married producer Buddy Adler at 115 North Rossmore, hosted by the Dodges; wedding attendants included actresses Ida Lupino, Wendy Barrie, and Joan Perry and rising entertainment attorney Greg Bautzer
  • Although they appear to have retained ownership of 115 North Rossmore until at least 1958, the Dodges began spending considerable time at their Valley ranch and at residences in Palm Springs and Miami. During the war years the house at 115 North Rossmore was rented to, among others, radio evangelist Dr. John Matthews, who called himself the "Shepherd of the Air." In newspaper advertising Matthews offered "Extraordinary Bible Classes," open to the public at 115. Other of Matthews's ads included fire-and-brimstone phrases such as "The World is Crumbling Under Our Feet" and asked questions including "Are food ration books the 'Mark of the Beast?'" and "Are blood transfusions transmitting changes in human personality and in the fundamental traits of the American people?" 
  • Ray and Ada Dodge decamped to Florida more or less permanently in late 1950, renting 115 North Rossmore during the next few years


Lewellyn Jones Smith also used the heavy dentilation under the house's eaves on the garage, as seen
through the porte-cochère. Landscaping was just getting underway in this early view of 115. 


  • Belmont J. SanChez and his new wife moved into 115 North Rossmore by Christmas 1950. Denver-born Sanchez was selling Ford trade-ins in Baltimore before moving west by 1937 to sell Pontiacs for a downtown Los Angeles dealer, opening his own agency in Highland Park soon after. He would later handle Studebaker in Long Beach and invest in wheel-oriented real estate including the 1947 Harvard House Motel (still standing at the northwest corner of Hollywood and Harvard boulevards) and a mobile-home park in Hemet. He also became involved in broadcasting and in newspaper publishing when he acquired the Palm Springs Limelight-News. The recently divorced, 41-year-old SanChez had married 27-year-old actress Betty Jo "B. J." Daniels on April 1, 1950. Their daughter Blair SanChez was born on August 9, 1952
  • An item in the Times on December 29, 1950, offers a glimpse into the inanity of the paper's social columns of the era such as "Skylarking with James Copp" and into the Dodges' interior decorating: "... saw some people do the Charleston this week... It happened at B. J. and Monte San Chez's [sic] cocktail party in the Ray Dodge mansion on N Rossmore Ave. (where they're staying during the Dodges' absence)... Party centered in the cozy, Tahitian-style playroom behind the swimming pool...or perhaps you'd call it voodoo—with all those skull steins at the end of the room."


Belmont J. SanChez sold cars in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Baltimore before
moving west to sell Pontiacs; later he sold Studebakers in Long Beach,
opening a Los Angeles dealership for the make in 1954. The
advertisement seen above, for SanChez's Leimert
Park Studebaker agency, appeared in
the Los Angeles Times on
October 22, 1954.


  • The SanChezes appear to have left 115 North Rossmore in 1953—their marriage would hit the rocks later in the decade—with the Dodges putting the house on the market that year
  • Well-known nightclub impresario Frank Sennes, born Francesco Senise in southern Italy in 1903 and arriving in the U.S. in 1914, and his wife Mary were living at 115 North Rossmore Avenue by 1958. After a stint in Los Angeles managing the Hollywood Gardens Ballroom and Dancing Studio on Vine Street in the early '30s—where he is cited in some sources as having given Betty Grable her first break, despite her having already achieved success in films as a Goldwyn Girl—Sennes set himself up as an orchestra and floor-show booker based in Cleveland, eventually organizing the entertainment for several Las Vegas clubs including one at the new Desert Inn, opened in 1950. Meanwhile Sennes opened opened offices in Miami Beach (1949), New York (1952), and, in 1953, in Beverly Hills, where he settled that year as he prepared to open his Moulin Rouge nightclub in the renovated Earl Carroll Theater Restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, said to be the largest such venue in the country. The indefatigable Sennes would be commuting weekly between Los Angeles and Las Vegas for many years; it may be that he and Mary rented 115 North Rossmore before purchasing it
  • It is unclear as to whether it was the Dodges or the Senneses who sold the northerly 34 feet of their property to William Pereira to be added to his Lot 5, creating a parcel for the architect's own home at 135 North Rossmore Avenue, a Modernist residence built in 1960


Earl Carroll opened his Hollywood Theater Restaurant on December 26, 1938; its façade featured a
neon silhouette of his girlfriend, singer Beryl Wallace. Flying from Los Angeles to New York,
Carroll and Wallace died in the crash of a United Air Lines DC-6 in Pennsylvania on
June 17, 1948; Frank Sennes retained Wallace's image when he took over
the facility and opened his Moulin Rouge in 1953. The building,
still standing at 6230 Sunset Boulevard and seen here
in a 1956 postcard view, became the
Aquarius Theater in 1967.


  • While the Senneses were in Europe in the summer of 1961, they rented 115 North Rossmore to producer Ben Schwalb to use as the title character's recently purchased Beverly Hills house in The George Raft Story. The film's cast included Ray Danton (as Raft), Julie London, Frank Gorshin, Barbara Nichols, Robert Strauss, Herschel Bernardi, Neville Brand (reprising his role as Al Capone in television's The Untouchables), Jack Albertson, and Jayne Mansfield as Raft's girlfriend Lisa Lang—a fictional relationship said to have been based on Raft's relationship with Betty Grable. Danton as Raft intones that his new residence is "more than a house.... [It's] a dream come true." No doubt it was the publicity department that egged on Mansfield's characteristic narcissism when she reportedly stopped traffic on Rossmore Avenue as she slowly crossed the street and lawn from her mobile dressing room to the rear of the house in a bikini. Police, according to press reports, "demanded that hereafter the star's dressing room be parked on the other side of the thoroughfare or she wear a robe over the g string.") Images from The George Raft Story appear below
  • The Senneses appear to have retained 115 North Rossmore until the early '70s. It was on the market in early 1972 for $360,000
  • Polish-born businessman Fred Hendeles and his wife Betty acquired 115 North Rossmore in 1974. According to the fall 1979 edition of The Historical Observer (then the official publication of the Windsor Square–Hancock Park Historical Society), the couple had spent the previous 15 years living in Japan, Fred Hendeles being an expert in pearls. Among his business interests in California were a partnership in controversial nursing homes in Downey and San Francisco with his brother Lazare—he lived at 684 South June Street—and, for a time, cattle raising. Soon after moving into 115 North Rossmore the Hendeleses carried out an extensive renovation that included the addition of an elevator and the conversion of the poolhouse into a succah (the latter per a permit issued by the Department of Building and Safety on July 31, 1974). Still living at 115, Betty Hendeles died on April 1, 1999, Fred Hendeles on September 15, 2003. The Hendeleses' daughter Brenda Gozdzik appears to have retained ownership of the house until its sale to landscape designer Jay Griffith in March 2018






The first of three images of 115 North Rossmore Avenue from The George Raft Story (1961) is a view
from the street, with Hancock Park standing in for Beverly Hills; second and third are the rear
façade and its opposite view over the south fairway of the Wilshire Country Club,
with Herschel Bernardi, 30-year-old, 6-foot  Ray Danton as 60-year-old,
5-foot-7 George Raft, Jayne Mansfield, and Frank Gorshin.



Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT; USCDL; CSL; LOC; Allied Artists