Los Angeles Historian Charles E. Fisher, on a recent visit to the house speculated that the Spanish Revival style house may be the work of Architect George Wyman, most noted for the design of the Bradbury Building. The house was built by Durex Quality Homes, a division of the F.P. Fay Company, headquartered at the Third and Hill F.P. Fay Building, where, according to Charles Fisher, George Wyman kept his office, a stone's throw from the Bradbury Building.
When the home was built in 1929, Durex was already a thirty-year old company founded in 1899. A 1929 sales brochure calls the home, "The Home of Your Dreams", recalling the days of the Dons, when ranchos stretched from the mountain to the sea, when life was leisurely and the end of the day of sheep-shearing meant "Fiesta". (It was apparently a model home; the brochure furthur indicates that the house was "staged" by the Broadway's Home Furnishing Studio).
The home became the property of the Beaton family at some point in time. William Beaton was President and Chairman of the Board of KIEV AM Radio from 1961 until his death in 1985. Beaton's two sons, Fred and Ron, took control of the station after their father's death. I purchased the home from the Beaton family in 1992 and renamed it "La Casa Contenta" in 2010; the house is the "Home of My Dreams."
Located at 3410 Amesbury Road in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles.
We now know that the architects for this house were Harry G. Koerner and William J. Gage, who are best known for the design of the Beverly Hills City Hall in 1932. Koerner and Gage had been retained by the F. P. Fay Company to design homes for the Durex company.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I thought of George Wyman was because he had designed the Downtown Los Angeles office building for the Fay Company, which was demolished a few years ago.
Beaton had three sons, not two. The third son was Jr.
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