PLEASE SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES


  • Built in 1924 on Lot 39 in Tract 3668
  • Original commissioner: L. Milton Wolf, a builder, apparently as a speculative investment 
  • Architect: L. Milton Wolf, per the original building permit
  • On April 5, 1924, the Department of Buildings issued permits for a 10-room house and a 20-by-25-foot garage at 255 South Rossmore to L. Milton Wolf, who is noted as owner, architect, and contractor on the documents
  • The view above appears to date from a point in 1924 when 255 South Rossmore was nearing completion and only just landscaped. Though unreadable, the sign at right may be that of the builder, offering the house for sale; the lawn sign is that of Haverty Plumbers, who would have been making final connections
  • Milton Wolf sold 255 South Rossmore to Armin H. Wittenberg, founder and president of Mission Hosiery Mills. Wittenberg would remain at 255 for two decades
  • On June 3, 1931, the Department of Building and Safety issued Armin Wittenberg a permit to add a sleeping porch an a bath to the house. On May 2, 1933, he was issued a permit to extend the west side of the garage 13 feet; on December 2, 1935, a permit was issued for a 5½-foot addition to the front of the garage
  • 1931 was a busy year for Armin Wittenberg, both at home and office. In addition to his alterations to 255 South Rossmore, he was organizing a vast expansion of Mission Hosiery's facilities at 37th Place and South Broadway Place (a street that until November 19, 1930, had been known as a stretch of Moneta Avenue; Broadway itself, a block west and originally ending at Pico Street, was extended south, opening in the spring of 1931 to connect with—already having usurped the name of—Moneta Avenue just south of 41st Street)
  • In the weeks after receiving his permit for additions to 255 in early June 1931, Wittenberg began to receive both written and telephoned death threats; 36-year-old George Freese, a destitute truck driver who had applied to Mission Hosiery for a job unsuccessfully, was attempting to extort $700 to feed his family. A dummy package of money was organized, with which police detective Eddie Nolan, assigned to guard Wittenberg, was able to lure and capture Freese. (This would be Nolan's last arrest before going to jail; on June 17 he was witnessed by six people as he used his gun, fists, and feet to beat to death his girlfriend, the mother of two, in a jealous rage during a drinking party in room 815 of the Lankershim Hotel. Nolan would be found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in San Quentin.) Also in June 1931, there was the case of Jacques de Vries, allegedly a viscount and "the scion of an ancient French family" but more likely a grifter, charged with receiving 2,400 pairs of silk stockings stolen with the help of a Mission Hosiery employee. (Apparently having wangled his way out of serious consequences, De Vries married actress Ruth Corbin, she divorcing him in short order, charging him with spending her earnings and earning nothing himself)
  • Over the weekend of July 20, 1940, with the Wittenbergs away, 255 South Rossmore was burglarized, netting the intruders $5,389 worth of clothing, jewelry, and silver, per Armin Wittenberg's account to the police as reported in the Times on July 23rd
  • Not long after the sudden death of Armin Wittenberg in New York on April 23, 1944—he was just 53—his wife Babette left the house. It is unclear as to whether Mrs. Wittenberg sold the house to the Belmont Company, purveyors of loans on real estate, or whether she was taking out a mortgage on the property to finance major repairs. In any case, the Belmont Company was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety on July 12, 1945, for repairs to the house's foundation. Mrs. Wittenberg would be moving to Beverly Hills around this time
  • 255 South Rossmore was rented briefly after the departure of Mrs. Wittenberg by Reva Oken, wife of tailor Nat L. Oken; in June 1949 he was found on a roof three floors below his room at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital




The commerce that built and sustained Hancock Park included silk
stockings and automobiles: Armin Wittenberg produced his "Mission-Knit"
hosiery in his factory at Moneta Avenue—today South Broadway Place—and
37th Place, seen here in the 1920s. Per the Times "the only plant west of Chicago
handling raw silk," in 1931 Wittenberg greatly expanded Mission Hosiery across 37th
Place with Moderne-style facilities that are today the Antex Knitting Mills; the original
Spanish-style factory above was demolished in 1958. Having gotten his automotive
start with a used-car lot downtown, Fletcher Jones's new-car empire began with
a dealership on Crenshaw Boulevard—the showroom of which still stands at
46th Street—as announced prominently in the Times on July 15, 1949.



  • Russell Paul Jones and his family were occupying 255 South Rossmore by May 1948. Trained as a lawyer at the University of Iowa, Jones retired from the bond business in Des Moines after the war and moved west with his wife Edythe and two grown children, R. Fletcher Jones and Virginia D. Jones. Fletcher Jones's name would soon become well-known in the Southland as an automobile dealer. Leaving his law studies at U.S.C., he opened a used-car lot in downtown Los Angeles in 1946; three years later, apparently having impressed the Chrysler Corporation, he opened a new-car dealership, Fletcher-Jones Chrysler-Plymouth, on Crenshaw Boulevard at 46th Street. According his Times obituary 45 years later, Jones was "omnipresent in the early days of television advertising, smiling and cuddling puppies and kittens on camera and offering to send a portion of his auto sales profits to animal shelters." Fletcher Jones Jr. joined his father in the business, which has grown into the Fletcher Jones Automotive Group, dealers in multiple makes with outlets in Newport Beach, Beverly Hills, Ontario, the Bay Area, Las Vegas, Chicago, and Hawaii. The company apparently holds title as the top seller of the Mercedes-Benz brand in the country

  • Still living at 255 South Rossmore Avenue, Russell P. Jones died at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital on July 17, 1960. Afterward, Virginia Jones, who had married James Dale Going Jr. in Las Vegas in October 1958, moved into the house with her mother; Mrs. Going was associated with Art Linkletter Productions for over 30 years. The family retained ownership of 255 until 1972, after which there was a move to Newport Beach
  • Attorney Dwight Lindholm, his wife Loretta, and their five children moved into 255 South Rossmore in 1972 for 25-year stay. The Lindholms were notably philanthropic, as was unblushingly detailed in their well-distributed obituaries in 2017 and 2014, respectively. While the effort to prevent the replacement of the neighborhood's signature lamps with modern lighting had perhaps as much to do with the negotiating skills of the late Marguerite Byrne, president of the Hancock Park Homeowners Association, and to the efforts of architect and board member Jim Wolf, Mrs. Lindholm is noted in her tributes as being the board member who "got installed the ornamental street lights in Hancock Park [for that effort receiving] a Los Angeles City Council commendation"
  • According to the online history of permits issued by the Department of Building and Safety, 255 South Rossmore remains structurally largely as it was built in 1924


Illustrations: Private Collection; USCDL; LAT