Whitley Heights 101

2121 Whitley Avenue

2121 Whitley Avenue was built in 1925 by architect Nathan Coleman and bought by John M. Ormond and his wife, Lucy who had just moved from Toledo, Ohio in 1926. The home is currently for sale for 1.65 million as of yesterday. The property sits on the east side of the Hollywood Freeway and is one of four homes on that side of Whitley Avenue, just below Iris Circle. The two-story house consists of a studio apartment on the bottom floor and a one car garage. The top floor is the main residence with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Ormond, a retired lawyer, hired Henry Westby as his chauffeur and caretaker after his wife died in 1930. Westby lived in the studio apartment. In 1932, Ormond decided to take a month trip to visit family in Ohio. Westby befriended a Indian film extra named Laurence “Tex” Comanche who stayed with him while Ormond was out of town.

On October 18, 1932, the bodies of Henry Westby and Tex Comanche were discovered by a neighbor peering through the window of the studio apartment and called the police. The neighbor, Felix DeVere, who resided behind the home at 6626 Iris Drive, was requested to check out the home by his wife who observed their kitten “whining around the house” the last several days and then it turned up dead due to starvation.

When the police arrived, they smashed through the apartment window and discovered the two men, who were in their 20s, lying nude next to each other in the bed both with a gunshot wound in their heads. The gun was located beside the bodies in what they thought was a suicide-murder situation as there was no evidence of foul play. Below is the interior of the studio apartment where the incident occurred. In the first photograph, the entrance to the studio apartment is where the second stairway with the window to the right.

The investigators concluded that Comanche must of shot Westby first and then turned the gun on himself based on the location of the gunshot wounds and where the gun was found. Not much was known about Comanche other than he was born in Massachusetts in 1901 and was listed as a chauffeur one year before at 334 S. Flower Street. Based on the fact he was staying with Westby, he may have been homeless; the newspaper called him “semi-invalid” suggesting he had some type of disability. It is not clear how long the two were having a relationship but it seems that they may have just met as Westby had a full-time job taking care of Ormond. Perhaps their reason was that they could not have a romantic relationship that they wanted and decided to end their own lives. The fact that both were lying next to each other naked showed that there was no evidence of a fight as the police did not mention anything out of place in the apartment. Obviously, Ormond could not handle living at the residence any longer and the home was bought by Hollywood dentist, William Sherman in 1934.

Between 1935-1936, the studio apartment was rented out by Anna Barsky who left her husband due to his infidelity and cruelty towards her. Anna and Isaac Barsky migrated to New York from Poland in 1913 and the two married in Vishgoff, Poland. At some point, they moved out of Los Angeles, probably in the 1930s. During this time, Anna filed for divorce claiming that she would have to wait in a parked car while her husband was allegedly selling insurance to the same woman every night. She found out that he was paying the women’s rent and he told Anna that she was too old for him (she was only two years older) and he needed to be with a younger woman. Good riddance Anna!

During 1940-41, playwright and screenwriter, Samuel J. Warshawsky and his wife, Eva, rented the property. Their son, Curtis, was a college student at the time. Warshawsky wrote the Broadway plays, Steadfast and A Woman of Destiny. He also wrote the following screenplays: Gambling in Souls (1919), Night Waitress (1936), 23 1/2 Hours Leave (1937) and Can’t Help Singing (1944), starring Deanna Durbin. Samuel immigrated to the United States from Poland as a boy and was one of nine children. His brother, Abel, was an Impressionist painter who studied at the Cleveland School of Art and at the Art Students League and National Academy of Design in New York City before moving to Paris in 1908, living there until 1939. In 1939, he moved to Monterey, California. His brother, Alexander, was also a well-known painter and studied at the Cleveland School of Art and then at the National Academy of Design in New York City. In 1916, he moved to Paris, and spent the last twelve years of his life in California. Samuel was also a fiction writer as well as an advertising executive and publicity director with various motion picture firms.

Between 1942 and 1946, Louis and Sadie Adler moved into the home with their son, Hilliard “Jerry” Adler. Not only was Jerry in the army, he was a talented harmonica player and would perform on the radio. In 1943, he and a group of soldiers, performed in a two day venue at the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium.

In more recent years, the property owners have replaced the tile in the bathrooms, repaired the foundation and installed a shut off gas value in the event of an earthquake. The structure of the house remains in tact as when it was built in the 1920s other than updates to appliances and cabinets in the kitchen.