Whitley Heights 101

History of Whitley Heights

6611 Emmet Terrace 1921

6611 Emmet Terrace (1921)

6611 Emmet Terrace started to be built in 1921 by Thompson & McMillen. The Mediterranean 2-story home started with three bedrooms and one bathroom. In 1923, the garage was added. In 1928, a bathroom was added to one of the downstairs bedrooms. Finally in 1954, a den was added to the house. Below is an advertisement in 1927 to auction the home with 8 rooms.

Stage, film, and television actor, Edward Earle resided at 6611 Emmet between 1926-27. Earle started his career at the Edison film company and immediately hit stardom. He worked on over 400 silent and talking films by the time he retired 40 years later. He also worked at Vitagraph, Famous Players, Metro, Warners, and Columbia. He was known as the “O Henry Man” after his long series of two reel productions of O Henry. Earle was a bit of daredevil and also raced cars and flew airplanes. Earle is seen in below photo.

Actress Mary Jane Higby, her mother Caroline Higby and her step-sister Rita Huston lived at this home from 1936-38. The family lived across the street at 6614 Emmet Terrace (a duplex) when her father was alive from 1927-34. He died in 1934 having 29 years of stage experience in New York. Her father was silent screen actor, Wilber Higby and her mother, Caroline was in real estate. The Higby’s also lived in another Whitley Heights residence, 6603 Padre Court, from 1922-24. The Padre Court house was demolished to build an apartment building. Below is the duplex at 6612-14 Emmet Terrace, which is just across the street.

Mary Jane was always very active as she was an excellent swimmer, played the piano, and even hunted. In 1929, she went on a hunting trip to the Grand Canyon (see article below):

Mary Jane worked on most of the radio network shows in Hollywood through the 1930’s. She then moved to New York where she appeared on nearly 50 (radio) soap operas and starred on ‘When a Girl Marries’ for 18 years. The show had the highest audience of any daytime serial- over 7,000,000 listeners in five years. Mary Jane married French-born radio star Guy Sorel in 1945. She continued to work all the way up to 1970, when she starred in The Honeymoon Killers. Mary Jane Higby is in the photo below.

Academy Award winning director, Robert Parrish, lived here when he was 21 years old in 1938. As a child he appeared in films during the early 1930s, such as City Lights (1931) by Charles Chaplin and Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). Chaplin sent an assistant to a Hollywood school to find a “mischievous-looking” boy. The assistant came back to the studio with Robert and a few days later, he was throwing peas at Chaplin on the set of City Lights. Below, Parrish in a scene of City Lights with Charlie Chaplin.

As an editor, Parrish won an Academy Award for Body and Soul (1947). Parrish also worked on All the King’s Men (1949) which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Parrish then moved on to direct films during the 1950s and 1960s. Among his best received works was the western Saddle the Wind (1958). Parrish is the son of actress Laura R. Parrish and his sister, Helen, also became an actress. His other sister, Beverly, died at the age of ten after only completing one film. Helen and Robert are seen in the photograph below.

6611 Emmet Terrace has been bought and rented my many and started to get neglected. (See photo below).

Just prior to its last sale in 2017, the house had a major restoration, keeping all alterations to code as Whitley Height’s is a historic district.

The primary suite is on the first floor and there are two bedrooms on the second floor. The front facing bedroom has a romantic, step-out terrace and roof balcony.