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400 South June Street




  • Built in 1926 on a parcel comprised of Lot 15 and the northerly 30 feet of Lot 14 of Tract 7040. (Tract 7040 was a re-subdivision of Tract 6388; 7040's Lot 15 was originally Lot 153, Lot 14 originally Lot 154 of Tract 6388)
  • Original commissioner: real estate operator Charles Gordon Andrews as his own home
  • Architect: Clarence J. Smale
  • On April 20, 1926, the Department of Building and Safety issued Charles G. Andrews permits for a two-story, 11-room residence and a 1½-story, 22-by-43-foot garage at 406 South June Street, as the property was originally addressed
  • The history of Southern California is one of successive swells of Midwesterners, men living in a huge swath from eastern New York State to the Great Plains, seeking ever more space and opportunity for their families, just as their forebears had once moved inland from the eastern seaboard. Born in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, on May 20, 1876, Charles G. Andrews arrived in California at the turn of the 20th century; on his way west he married the widowed, five-years-older Mary Carney Moran, daughter of a millionaire Wisconsin lumberman, in Denver on March 31, 1902. Once they settled in Los Angeles, he took up his line of real estate, in 1903 joining Wright & Callender, founded six years before and one of the city's fastest-growing real estate firms. Andrews's quick rise after a year to the vice-presidency of Wright & Callender called for a new house. Perhaps it is a given that real estate men, especially in the ever-metastasizing City of Angels, sought investment return over permanence—perhaps Andrews could somehow foresee that Wilshire Boulevard would inevitably rise beyond its residential roots and turn commercial. He wisely chose the prime northwest corner of Berendo Street and Wilshire, both still unpaved, purchasing a lot there in April 1907 and building on it a very modern, big-gabled Craftsman house addressed 3301 Wilshire Boulevard. The house faced Berendo Street but would have been quite close to the boulevard, which put everything from Model Ts, coming to the market a year or so after the Andrewses moved in, to Packards and Cadillacs practically in its front parlor, especially once Wilshire was paved and widened. Perhaps development came faster than Andrews anticipated and the attendant traffic roar had become too much by 1917, after which Charles and Mary decamped for a stay on Benton Way before, in the way of real estate men, it was ever onward to grander precincts. (As were some houses themselves: The Andrewses' Wilshire Boulevard house would be moved to 602 South Windsor Boulevard in Windsor Square and be demolished in late 1956.) After a stop at the Ambassador, it was on to Windsor Square, where they briefly occupied 525 Lorraine Boulevard before stopping for a few years at 626 South Windsor Boulevard, which Andrews had a hand in marketing in conjunction with its builders. Then finally there was the decision to settle in Hancock Park. Andrews could afford to move up continuously: In 1919, he had brokered the sale of the nearly 3,300-acre Wolfskill Ranch to Arthur Letts, founder of The Broadway department store (and backer of John G. Bullock in his first retail endeavor). The ranch was developed into Westwood within a few years. Wright-Callender-Andrews, as the business was renamed in 1912, was dissolved in 1921, with Andrews then opening his own successful property firm. If not quite in the cinematic way of some, the man was perhaps the archetype of the early-20th-century Los Angeles booster: a head for opportunity, the California Club, the Country Club, and, above all, self-made
  • The Andrewses lived quietly at 406 South June Street through the 1930s. With his health deteriorating, Charles decided to retire, turning his operations over to his associate Philip M. Rea in 1938. Apparently somewhat suddenly, Mary Andrews died on April 28, 1939; the couple may have already decided to sell 406 by then, with plans to move to the Chateau Élysée on Franklin Avenue (now the Church of Scientology's Celebrity Centre International), where Charles would live in his widowhood. He was still there when he died at the age of 68 on July 24, 1944
  • An item in the Times on July 23, 1939, noted that 406 South June Street had been sold to mining engineer Francis William Maclennan for $45,000, the equivalent of $1,000,000 in 2023. Values of Hancock Park houses would not recover until well after V-J Day in 1945; in 1930 the property had been valued at $100,000, the modern equivalent of which is $1,800,000
  • On July 14, 1939, the Department of Building and Safety issued F. W. Maclennan a permits for a number of alterations to 406 South June Street including a change to the front door entrance, interior updates such as paneling in the library, and an expansion of the terrace; architect Gordon B. Kaufmann was hired for the designs 
  • Born in Cornwall, Ontario, on October 14, 1876, Canadian-born Frank Maclennan was an internationally known mining engineer who came to live in Los Angeles after many years in Arizona as an executive with the Miami Copper Company. Educated at McGill and with ties to Los Angeles long before settling there, he'd married Kansas-born Alta May Clack at the Hotel Van Nuys on August 7, 1919. The Maclennans were among the fair number of couples who chose to retire to impractically big houses in Hancock Park; they would remain until Mr. Maclennan's death at Good Samaritan on January 28, 1947, age 70. His obituary in the Times noted his business success and his professional and social affiliations including the California and Los Angeles Country clubs, emblems of membership in the local downtown establishment. Mrs. Maclennan put the house on the market immediately and made plans to move to San Diego, where she died at 90 on July 7, 1977
  • Brooklyn-born builder and developer Irving Siegel bought 406 South June Street from Alta Maclennan and was in residence with his Michigan-born wife née Mildred Irene Johnson and their adopted son Richard by the summer of 1947
  • On July 22, 1947, Irving Siegel was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety for interior alterations including bathroom and closet revisions
  • Irving Siegel did not last long at 406 South June Street; he died at home on January 4, 1949, age 47. His obituary in the Times noted his affiliation with several firms including the Aetna Construction and Stocker-Crenshaw Building companies, to name only a few of the entities he had operated on his own and with various partners since arriving in Los Angeles in 1927. Siegel was also credited as being one of the founders in 1948 of the newly reconstituted Brentwood Country Club, which had originally been established in 1916. Mildred Siegel and Richard remained at 406 until moving to 101 South Hudson Avenue nearby by early 1956
  • It was with the next owner of the property that 406 South June Street was redesignated 400 South June Street; reasons other than the stronger sound and look of "400" are unclear. Industrialist Herbert Ziegler, his wife, née Miriam Goldstein of Philadelphia, and their three children were in residence by early 1956 having moved from Los Feliz. (The Zieglers had built 3829 Amesbury Road there at the edge of Griffith Park, occupying it by mid 1949.) Born in Huntington, West Virginia, on June 4, 1911, Ziegler came west in 1942 seeking treatment for tuberculosis at City of Hope in Duarte; he managed to work for the Office of Price Administration during World War II specializing in steel pricing. He founded Ziegler Steel Service Corporation in 1945 and ran it for many years; his son George was later the firm's principal, running it into the 2010s. The Zieglers did not stay at 400 South June for long. The house was on the market in the summer of 1961, with ads by the fall indicating that the price had been reduced and that it must be sold
  • Clarke A. Nelson, vice-president of the Albers Milling division of the Carnation Company, was the next owner of 400 South June Street. On February 17, 1962, the Nelsons were welcomed to Hancock Park at a party given by the Clyde Burrs of 325 North Las Palmas Avenue
  • By the summer of 1987, 400 South June Street had been purchased by film producer David Kirschner and his wife Liz, who would occupy the house for 20 years. Per an item in the Times on October 22, 2006, Kirschner created Chucky, "the animatronic doll turned cult star," and had been a producer of the Chucky and Curious George films and of Miss Potter, released that year. Per permits issued by the Department of Building and Safety, the Kirschners added a pool to the property in 1987, enclosed a porch in 1988, and then in 1990 and '91 made two sizable, architecturally compatible south-side additions to the house
  • Owners since December 2006 have carried out interior remodelings


Illustration: Private Collection