Author: Nathan Marsak

As legend has it-which, like all legends, ranks somewhere between a lie and an untruth-as legend has it, this was one of the first houses built in the Laurel Canyon area, and the man who built it in the 20s would fly his biplane o’er and pelt the lazy workers with tomatoes. Until he crashed the plane into the half-finished house.

By 1947, 8444 had entered into the aforementioned contretemps with Madge and Gianaclis.

(The castle motif is not original to the house, but was added after Northridge.)

You can see why they’d fight over the thing, the views being pretty spectacular.

Although we should assume goats were not involved at that time.

And then there’s Madge herself. Sure, she comes off as no stranger to unsavory characters. But- the story continues, involving as it does Earl Warren, the California Assembly, and that little slice of heaven we call Tehachapi- but I’ll let another illuminate that.

suggested reading: Storybook Style: America’s Whimsical Homes of the Twenties

As was the case with yesterday’s post, I came up shy when confronted with the necessity of photodocumenting over the fence at the pool in back. Apparently there are laws against that sort of activity.

Nevertheless, here is the Sibert home. I pity the poor Siberts. My Goodness the vexation one has with placement services! And then to have a domestic go and drown on you. Normally, it would be the butler’s job to fish the corpse out of the pool. Do you see the conundrum?

One must wonder, if the Butler Atkins could not swim, is it possible he was instructed to jump in, as ordered by a Sibert? To do the swimming for them? In which case, he has done his duty, and ranks as a fine butler indeed.

Suicide, huh.

So she went to kill herself. By going swimming. No mention in the paper whether she, like some Barney Barnato, decided to, I don’t know, eat something, not wait the Biblical halfed-hour, and then leap in the deep end.

“The [Babalon] Working began in 1945-46, a few months before Crowley’s death in 1947, and just prior to the wave of unexplained aerial phenomena now recalled as the ‘Great Flying Saucer Flap’-Parsons opened a door and something flew in.”

-Kenneth Grant, O.T.O.

Rocketry! Space craft! Unspeakable rites unleashing Neosatanic magickal Gnostic deities! Ah, Devil’s Gate, the import of your name is lost on no-one.

(Taken from the historic, abandoned Flint Canyon Bridge.)

Jack “Belarion” Parsons and pals experimented with rocketry here, in the very spot-unbeknownst to them-Goddard had. (Now JPL, aka Jack Parson’s Lab, stands a stone’s throw to the north.) Parsons lived nearby on Orange Grove-where the cops were often called to break up parties where nude pregnant women danced in fire (and L. Ron Hubbard was shtupping everyone’s girlfriends).

The Gate is also known for multiple unsolved child disappearances. That, and the dangers of motoring near it when the blast from a solid-fuel booster (or tentacle of Cthulhu) can knock you into the Arroyo.

You know him as ol’ Buck House Schindler. Kings Road Schindler. Maybe even Tischler Schindler. But not Sex Shoppe Schindler.

Sardi’s was one sexy restaurant once all right, with an attached pharmacy (note the neon that reads “prescriptions” in the window) should you need to pick up some antacid after a particularly heavy lunch. Not that antacid works to combat butterfingered acid-toting stock clerks.


Of course now, should you venture into the distrubingly named Cave, you risk being splashed with far worse.

Check out those rounded corner windows. I’m guessing 1938-40 on this one. I know I should go down and pull records, but while ars longa, you know, vita brevis.

Slight eaves with dentils–and those full-height pilasters–give this a Classical touch, but the sort of faux corner tower and arched dormer makes me itch with French Eclectic. Bet Solly boy died on hardwood floors near a nicely tiled bathroom. Now I’m itching to get in a take a look-see.

Poor Sol. As is often said, any friend who would shoot you in the crotch is no friend at all.

As legend has it, on New Year’s Day, 1917, Hubert Eaton, aka The Builder, stood on a hilltop overlooking the small country cemetery of fifty-five acres which had just been placed in his charge. As he gazed at the sere and brown hillside, at once a vision came to him-that he should build a Memorial-Park worthy of Evelyn Waugh’s mockery.

By 1947, he had done just that-Forest Lawn stood magnificently and The Loved One was published. Some have argued that Gus succumbed to mortification, while others feel he had served The Builder’s Dream proudly and, having done so, left the body.

In any event, here’s the pond, under the charmingly picturesque eye of the Tudor manor house (seemingly derived from Warwickshire’s Compton Wynyates, especially in the half-timbering) that serves as Administration Building and Mortuary.

And now, a vintage photo of the cob himself:

Do-gooders are forever obsessed with installing traffic lights. As if our freeways weren’t slow enough, they have to slow down our surface streets, the only viable way to traverse town. They seem to ignore the fact that automobiles long to kill in driveways and yards, not asphalt.

And why aren’t they taking on the real killer? Mayonnaise. Didn’t we learn anything from our GIs KIA’d in France?

Stevie Barrett’s home on Pennswood:

Note the kid out front. He and his family may learn the hard way that Dame Fate tempers her unremitting brutality with cruel irony. Of course, the family has built barricades to stop homicidal, mayonnaise-containing Chryslers.

Ellis Keim was hit May 23 in this driveway:

Well, tough to get a bead on where that was, until you turn 180 degrees and see what the neighborhood used to look like.

This is the home from which Scher fled, to the safety of his fruit stand:

Maybe Scher liked the quietude of his fruity pals, away from Mrs. Scher. Or maybe he feared for his life back home-hence the necessity of discharging firearms at Mrs. Scher’s minions.

In any event, the Wonder Shipping Center and its fruit stand are gone, although the tree was certainly there in 1947. The strangely pre-Columbian Pasadena Sheraton was built on the site in 1974.

So ol’ Lester (nix with the rhyming gag, I get it) snowed the Pizzuti in an effort to snag the fair Angelina. Well, good for him. Ageism is one of the last bastions of intolerance to be toppled in America. Or at least that’s what I’ll tell the judge.

Their love-digs on Iola have vanished in toto:

In 1947, homes and neighborhoods were being bulldozed left and right for freeways. Today, they fall to schools and apartment complexes. 1960, though, was a swinging year in need of a golf course; hence the Whittier Narrows GC, designed renowned and unbelievably prolific California golf course designer William Bell. To be fair, Iola is now the site of the Recreation Area to the south, which is full of artificial lakes and trap ranges and terrifying inline skaters. The whole works pre-Iola was the Rancho Potrero Chico (which had previously been the Gabrielino village of Ouiichinga). RPC was owned by Juan Sanchez, whose 1845 adobe still stands a mile to the southwest. It was built with and still maintains an escape tunnel in case the house is attacked by Indians or, presumably, inline skaters.