page_title: Historic West Adams
section_title: Buildings
hierarchical_section_title: Historic West Adams / History / Development and construction / Buildings
caption_attribution_description: English: Well-dressed children pose on a bench in St. James Park, Los Angeles, 1909, in the upscale West Adams district (in the area later described as University Park).
context_page_description: Historic West Adams is a residential and commercial region along the route of the Rosa Parks Freeway, paralleling the east-west Adams Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. With variously described boundaries, the area was an exclusive residential district In the late 19th and early 20th centuries for many wealthy and influential people. It underwent a period of deterioration, but many of its stately old buildings have been and are being rehabilitated and preserved.
context_section_description: Historic West Adams is home to one of the largest collections of notable old houses west of the Mississippi River. The West Adams area was developed between 1880 and 1925 and contains many diverse architectural styles of the era, including the Queen Anne, Shingle, Gothic Revival, Transitional Arts and Crafts, American Craftsman/Ultimate Bungalow, Craftsman Bungalow, Colonial Revival, Renaissance Revival, Mediterranean Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival, Mission Revival, Egyptian Revival, Beaux-Arts and Neoclassical styles. West Adams boasts the only existing Greene and Greene house left in Los Angeles. Its historic homes are frequently used as locations for movies and TV shows including CSI, Six Feet Under, The Shield, Monk, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Of Mice and Men. Singer Ray Charles's business headquarters, including his RPM studio, is located at 2107 Washington Boulevard.
  The intersection of Washington Boulevard and Westmoreland Boulevard, at the studio, is named "Ray Charles Square" in his honor.
  1905. West Adams Terrace, which in 2003 became a Los Angeles historic preservation overlay zone, was platted in 1905 from what had been called the Bauer tract. This area on the north side of Adams west of Western Avenue fell under the control of a syndicate headed by William Miles, president, and Charles McKenzie, H.R. Callender, S.J. White and C.G. Andrews. Said to be "the last piece of available elevated land [with] a magnificent view of the valley and surrounding foothills", it was divided into 235 lots with building restrictions ranging from $2,500 to $3,000.
  1906. "The growing popularity of apartment houses is causing them to encroach on grounds heretofore exclusively reserved for high-class residences", a Los Angeles Times reporter wrote in September 1906. He was reporting on "one of the handsomest apartment-houses in the city", which was designed by Thornton Fitzhue and was to be built on the southern side of St. James Park, "with a north frontage on the botanical gardens". All would have servants' quarters. Landowner John R. Powers completed another apartment building in St. James Place in 1909, with an entrance also on Scarff Street. Designed by George W. Wryman, it was divided into four apartments of seven rooms each; the venture represented an investment of $35,000.
  1921. On June 26, 1921, the Automobile Club of Southern California announced it would build a new home on a site purchased the year before on the southwest corner of Figueroa and Adams streets. It was to be of Spanish architecture and would feature an octagonal domed lobby extending up three floors. Locker rooms and showers were planned for both men and women. The third floor would contain a dining room, with kitchens, a men's lounge and smoking room, a large assembly room and a directors room. Sumner Hunt and S.R. Burns were the architects and Aurele Vermeulen the landscape architect.
  1924. Ground was broken on September 28, 1924, for the Church of the Advent, Episcopal, on the corner of Longwood Avenue in the Glen Airy district at the end of the West Adams streetcar line, with Bishop J.H. Johnson present. The brick structure with heavy wooden beams was to replace a temporary structure. Plans called for a parish house at the rear of the lot.
  1989. Construction began on the West Adams Foursquare Church, 2614 South LaBrea Avenue, after six hundred people joined in a groundbreaking ceremony in August 1989.
  1990-91. An 82-year-old Mediterranean Revival house at 3320 West Adams Boulevard, Jefferson Park, became the center of attention in 1990 and 1991 when members of the West Adams Historical Association, or WAHA, strove to protect and rehabilitate it over the equally strong (and eventually successful) desire of the predominantly black Holman United Methodist Church to tear it down as part of its plan to build a modern campus. The pastor, James M. Lawson, wrote in his church bulletin that "WAHA is a white organized and led organization. They are largely the sons and daughters of the generation which did not want ethnic people in this area, forme
caption: Children on a bench in St. James Park, 1909.
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