PLEASE SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES





  • Built in 1926 on Lot 4 in Tract 5640
  • Original commissioner: Sarah A. Jones, wife of physician and surgeon Edward Douglass Jones
  • Architect: Aloysius F. Mantz
  • On April 22, 1926, the Department of Buildings issued permits to Sarah Jones for the construction of a 14-room house and a 22-by-32-foot garage at 334 Rimpau Boulevard
  • In addition to designing houses and theaters, Aloysius F. Mantz was, in the early 1920s, an art director and production designer at Metro Pictures; he left the film industry to pursue his invention of a window-sash balance mechanism intended to replace traditional systems using lead weights. The innovation, marketed by his Acme Spring Sash Balance Company, was a success. By 1937 the company became known as Duplex, Inc., this evolving into the Paramount Acme Duplex Corporation, which continues to manufacture Mantz's design in San Bernardino
  • Douglass and Sarah Jones raised their two sons and two daughters at 334 Rimpau Boulevard, remaining in the house until 1942. That year, in an unusual move east to an eclipsed downtown neighborhood rather than to the west side of the city, the Joneses took up residence in the former home of prominent plumbing contractor Thomas Haverty—he had plumbed more than a few Hancock Park houses—at 414 Shatto Place, built in 1925 to the design of John and Donald Parkinson (demolished in 1986)
  • Occupying 334 Rimpau Boulevard from 1942 until the early 1950s was longtime Chevrolet dealer Gordon Warren; Warren had opened his namesake agency on developing Hollywood Boulevard in 1923. (Between Bronson Avenue and Gower Street, the business became Lew Williams Chevrolet after Warren's retirement in 1954. The site is now home to a Toyota dealership.) It is unclear as to whether Warren owned or rented 334
  • On May 8, 1943, Gordon Warren's stepdaughter Margarita Harrison was married to London-born Andrew McLaglen at St. Brendan Catholic Church nearby, with a reception afterward at 334 Rimpau. The marriage does not appear to have lasted
  • In 1952 Gordon Warren and Teresa Terrazas Harrison Warren moved into a new apartment building at 10401 Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood; the couple decided to move back to Hancock Park within a few years. On August 23, 1955, Gordon Warren was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety for a new single-story house at 241 Rimpau Boulevard in the street's newly developed cul-de-sac a block north of 334. Before 241 Rimpau was completed Gordon Warren died suddenly at home on Wilshire Boulevard on November 22, 1955, following a heart attack. (A permit for a swimming pool at 241 Rimpau was issued posthumously to him on November 29; Teresa Warren remained at 241 for several years after the house was completed)


As seen in the April 11, 1949, issue of the trade journal Broadcasting


  • Engineer and manufacturer George Alexander Starbird and his wife Ruth Benson Starbird purchased 334 Rimpau Boulevard in 1952. Starbird organized Starbird Electronic Products in early 1938 with a factory on Mariposa Avenue in Hollywood. At first producing radio parts, the firm quickly became know for Starbird's own design of a studio boom stand intended for large broadcast spaces and recording studios, one which quickly became an industry standard and is still made in updated form today by Triad-Orbit. Renamed Meletron Corporation by 1945, Starbird's firm focused postwar on manufacturing mechanical pressure switches for aeronautical and industrial applications
  • On April 27, 1953, the Department of Building and Safety issued George Starbird a permit to remodel the front entrance of 334 Rimpau Boulevard, an alteration that involved the installation of a new cornice and trim; on May 29, 1953, Starbird was issued a permit for an exterior sandblasting, often performed on stucco-veneered Los Angeles houses in the smog era
  • On the evening of December 29, 1953, a major fire destroyed the Meletron plant at the southeast corner of Highland Avenue and Romaine Street in Hollywood. Within two weeks Starbird had resumed production in temporary leased facilities nearby; in July 1955 construction of a new plant in the Valley was announced
  • George and Ruth Starbird appear to have remained in possession of 334 Rimpau Boulevard until their deaths, he on March 14, 1984, at the age of 78 and she on January 10, 1986, a week shy of her 71st birthday
  • With an asking price of $737,500, 334 Rimpau Boulevard was on the market by April 1986; the property was sold that year to its current owners, who continue to maintained it beautifully as of 2024


As seen in the Los Angeles Times on April 6, 1986


Illustrations: Private Collection; Broadcasting; LAT