Whitley Heights 101

6738 Wedgewood Place

6738 Wedgewood Place was built in 1922 by architect Arthur S. Barnes and socialite Eleanor Kinsey DeWitt and her father, William Kinsey. The three story Mediterranean home consists of 2,040 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. DeWitt would later buy two plots of land on Watsonia Terrace and build 2074 Watsonia Terrace (Villa Vallombrosa) in 1928 and 2075 Watsonia Terrace in 1937. Below, the second downslope residence is 6738 Wedgewood Place prior to development of Watsonia Terrace. Her two other homes would be directly below her Wedgewood Place property.

Eleanor and her father moved into the house after they had it built. William Kinsey moved to Long Beach from Iowa in 1913 and settled in a seven room bungalow located at 2315 E. 2nd Avenue. Tragedy struck the home in 1921, after Eleanor’s sister, Charlotte Wood, a 36 year old recent widow, had just moved from Billings, Montana, into the home where her father lived. Eleanor split her time between her father’s house in Long Beach and New York and happened to be in New York at the time of her sister’s visit. Charlotte went into the bathroom to light a portable heater. Apparently, there was an open gas valve which caused the explosion that destroyed most of the home. Charlotte was set on fire and later died in a hospital. William was asleep in an adjacent bedroom, only suffered minor cuts from glass and debris.

Eleanor Vaughn Kinsey was born in 1878 in West Union, Iowa. She moved to New York sometime in the early 1900s to pursue an acting career in vaudeville. Pictured above is Eleanor in 1904 while she performed at Proctor’s 23rd Street Theater in “Wanted: A Groom”. The theater, below, was formerly at the address of 139-145 W. 23rd Street in the Manhattan district.

Eleanor had also fallen “head-over-heads” for a young Yale graduate named Clarence DeWitt, who was 5 years younger than she. Clarence was a promising football star at Yale, but could not play his entire college career due to his father’s death and getting typhoid fever. After he graduated, he went into the banking business in New York. They got married on January 8, 1906 in Fayette, Iowa; this was apparently her second marriage, according to the marriage ledger. A 1920 Federal Census listed Eleanor living with her father in Long Beach and being divorced; she continued to use the Dewitt name until her death. Her father died in 1927 while they were both living at the Wedgewood property.

6738 Wedgewood Place is the second downslope residence just off of Whitley Terrace. Eleanor would later buy 2074 and 2075 Watsonia Terrace, both properties that are literally behind the 6738 Wedgewood Place. The home was originally built with only 2 or 3 bedrooms and one bathroom because in 1926, Eleanor added one bedroom and one bathroom to the home. In 1929, she converted a porch into another room. All records last list Eleanor in the Wedgewood property around that time as both of her Watsonia homes had been built. She would later live in both of the Watsonia properties and died in 1959 in Los Angeles. Below is the rearview of 6738 Wedgewood Place that can be seen from Watsonia Terrace.

Baron Aldoph de Meyer either purchased or rented the property in 1939. In 1913, Adolph de Meyer was Vogue magazine’s very first fashion photographer and a major pioneer in fashion photography. He later worked for Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar. He was also an “in demand” portrait photographer for his time and photographed many celebrities including; Mary Pickford, Billie Burke, John Barrymore, and Lillian Gish. He also photographed King George V and Queen Mary of England. While living here, he changed his name to “Gayne” and would sometimes use the last name “Meyer”. His wife, Olga, a portrait model, would often be photographed by him. After the death of his wife in 1931, Baron de Meyer became romantically involved with a young German, Ernest Frohlich (born circa 1914), whom he hired as his chauffeur and later adopted as his son. The latter went by the name Baron Ernest Frohlich de Meyer. They lived here from 1939-42. Meyer, pictured below, died in 1946.

6738 Wedgewood Place may have changed owners several times since DeWitt. There was an furniture estate sale on the property on 1988 and the house went on the market in 1990 and presumably purchased at that time by producer Michael Besman. Besman produced several movies including, Seven Years in Tibet (1997), Bounce (2000), About Schmidt (2002) and Georgia Rule (2007). In 2003, Besman (below) remodeled a bedroom and bathroom.

An interesting antidote, is that in September of 1947, a newspaper article listed producer Alan G. Holms, living that this residence. The 31 year old producer was sitting in car on the corner of Hollywood Blvd. and Ivar St. with a 30 year old salesman named Darrell E Williams late at night. Two police officers approached car and as a joke, Holms pulled out a wooden studio submarine gun and shoved it at one of the officers and said, “I’m going to shoot you”. The police officer knew the gun was fake and did not react (luckily). Both men ended up getting arrested for suspicion of robbery. Had this event happened in the year 2022, it may have ended in a deadly shooting by a police officer.

A studio apartment has been available for rent and has a separate entrance that leads down a set of stairs to the back of the property.

The entryway to the studio apartment is a back door that sits on the bottom floor of the property and off of a patio.

There is a spectacular view of Watsonia Terrace that can be seen from outside the studio apartment.

Once inside the studio, apartment, a separate set of interior stairs are located.

Finally, there is a bathroom located off the studio room, which may still have the original tile and design of the bathtub.