On Saturday, August 14, more than a hundred members and friends of WAHA came together to bring back the Ice Cream Social. It was such a success, that I thought we should share the event with all of you. You may not even realize that WAHA has it's own facebook page, which provides all of us another way to share and stay in contact. If you are on facebook, be sure to add West Adams Heritage to your favorites list.
Just click on the link below to view the fun on facebook!!!
And if you're interested in lending a hand to help organize some of our upcoming WAHA Events, please drop us a line to . We would love to bring in some more folks to join our Events Committee. Whether for a single project, or to help with several, we'd really like to hear from you!!!
The Living History Tour is Saturday, September 25th. At the moment, we're looking for professionals willing to coach our volunteer actors in advance of the tour itself.
Then on Friday, October 15th, Pasadena Heritage Craftsman Weekend will be touring five wonderful West Adams homes as a special excursion to their weekend's activities. We need lots of people to volunteer as docents to help guide our guests, and to fulfill the role of WAHA ambassadors to folks coming into Southern California from all over the country. This will be a great opportunity for us to let a lot of new people know why we consider West Adams such a wonderful place to call home!!!
So it you're available on Friday, October 15th, or any of the other dates coming up on WAHA's calendar we'd be very pleased to have you join in.
If you could meet the suffragettes responsible for women getting the vote, what would you ask them? What if you could interview the first "front page gal" who worked at a Chicago newspaper, in 1878? Or, what would you like to learn from the first African American to win an Oscar, or the first female African American police officer in the nation?
Meet these fascinating females, and more, at WAHA's annual Living History Tour, which takes place every autumn at Angelus Rosedale Cemetery. Amid the elaborate headstones and monuments, costumed actors bring to life - and tell the often-riveting stories of - a half dozen residents from Los Angeles' earlier times. This year's tour is slated for Saturday, September 25, and we invite your participation.
The July 30 Los Angeles Times carries a well-illustrated story on one of the two winners of WAHA's 2010 garden contest. Emily Green, the Times' garden specialist, writing under the title "The Dry Garden: A Water-Wise Winner in West Adams," offered a text and photo tour of this Jefferson Park treasure. The garden was designed by well-known low-water landscape artist
Renee Gunter for homeowners Marina Moevs and Steve Peckman. Green begins:
"The West Adams Heritage Assn. celebrates the preservation of historic houses, but earlier this month, a markedly modern installation in Jefferson Park shared its “best garden” prize. Look at the home of Marina Moevs and Steve Peckman, and it's obvious why: Few gardens could do a better job accenting but not overwhelming their lovingly restored Craftsman home.
"After having taken pains to strip, then stain the clapboard for a weathered, muted effect, the first criterion that Moevs and Peckman put to a local garden designer was to keep the plants low. Herbs would be welcome, but they didn't want any specimens taller than 3 feet. Furthermore, they didn't want to water -- or at least water often. Finally, they wanted to capitalize on a cash-for-grass program that offers rebates for replacing turf with a low-water alternative."
Just south of the 10 Freeway, east of Western Avenue on Hobart Blvd., there stand a
stretch of marvelous old houses. Usually what they looked like in their heyday a century
ago is left to the imagination or at best one or two snapshots of the exterior. What a
prize, then, when a descendant of one of the original owners approached us with an amazing
album of 8 X 10 photos, more than fifty of them, not only of the exterior but of every
room in one of the grandest of these homes, at 2241 S. Hobart. This 4,946 square foot
Craftsman mansion was built in 1910 by Los Angeles merchant Benjamin Johnson, one of the
founders of what is today the Grand Central Market on Broadway in downtown. Benjamin
Johnson's great granddaughter, Katharine Free Liappas, received the album from her mother,
Sarah Elizabeth Brown Free, and her grandmother, Estelle Marie Johnson Lovett. She
estimates from the age of her grandmother in one of the photos that they were taken within
a year of the house's construction, in 1910 or 1911. Today the house is owned by the First
African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Obviously proud of their new home, the Johnsons had meticulous photographs taken of
each room, of the backyard, and of the street. Large and detailed, though some showing
their age with some striping and fading, the photos are almost a time machine window into
a lost age. Most of the rooms are empty of people, but the collection is made poignant by
the hundred-year-old picture of Estelle Marie Johnson as a vibrant teenager, the shot of a
bedroom with a child's doll that belonged to a long gone little girl, and two of the
exterior photos where a little girl in a white dress is standing, with a big bow in her
hair. This is Dorothy Johnson, Estelle Marie's little sister and Katharine Free Liappas's
great aunt. There is one photo in the set taken about ten years earlier than the others
and in a different house. This is a late nineteenth-century portrait showing Minnie Barnes
Guiteau Johnson with her elder daughter, Estelle Marie, as a very young child.
Below is a brief account of the life of Benjamin F. Johnson by his great
granddaughter.
-- Leslie Evans
* * *
Benjamin F. Johnson, b. 1871, St. Paul, Minnesota, d. 1918 New York, New York
By Katharine Free Liappas
Benjamin Johnson built the house at 2241 S. Hobart Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90018, in 1910.
The name of the architect is unknown. Benjamin Johnson and his wife, Minnie Barnes Guiteau
Johnson, with their two daughters, Estelle Marie Johnson and Dorothy Johnson were the
first residents. They lived in the house until the death of Benjamin Johnson in 1918.
Benjamin Johnson was a merchant who was educated at Los Angeles High School and USC. He
arrived in Los Angeles at the age of five in 1876 when his father, Gen. Edward P. Johnson,
moved the Johnson family from St. Paul to Los Angeles. After completing his education,
Benjamin Johnson served in all departments the Los Angeles Furniture Company, of which his
father had part ownership. Benjamin Johnson rose to the position of president of the
company, which he held for two years until he sold his interest in 1909. Then with his
brother, Edward P. Johnson, Jr, he founded the Los Angeles Public Market Company, which at
that time was one of the largest wholesale public markets in the world, covering eighteen
acres of land. The market extended from Sixth Street to the Santa Fe Railroad and from
Alameda to Mills Street. It was the clearing house for all types of produce grown in
Southern California. The remnants are now known as the Los Angeles Grand Central Market on
Broadway. The Los Angeles Public Market stabilized and standardized central trading point
prices and developed new methods for handling crops. Benjamin Johnson took a leading part
in these accomplishments and was credited with advancing the development of California
commerce throughout the United States.
Among his many other interests, he was an avid fan
of theatre and had partial ownership in the original Belasco Theatre on Main Street where
a repertory company was established. The company included the young Leo Carrillo who went
on to a distinguished career as a character actor in film and television. The company
actors and guest artists, like the great tragedienne, Helena Modjeska, were often guests
at the Johnson home at 2241 S. Hobart Blvd.
Benjamin Johnson was a veteran of the Spanish American War, where he served as captain and
quartermaster in Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders. In that war, he saw action in both Cuba
and the Philippines. At the time of his death of a heart attack at the age of forty-seven
he had reenlisted in his regiment and was preparing to embark with the regiment for the
European theatre of war. He received a funeral with full military honors.
This Old House magazine has just made it official: West Adams is the best neighborhood in California for old house lovers.
In its third annual, state-by-state survey, the popular monthly chose West Adams as the state's top neighborhood "where the historic homes (and life-affirming DIY challenges they bring) are rivaled only by the community spirit that surrounds them."
WAHA recently commented on a Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for Washington Square , a mixed-use project proposed for a nearly 8-acre site at Washington Boulevard and 10th Avenue . As a historic preservation advocacy organization, WAHA routinely responds to land-use initiatives, particularly when projects such as Washington Square appear to be out of character with their surroundings and/or threaten historic resources.