Whitley Heights 101

History of Whitley Heights

6658 Emmet Terrace

6658 Emmet Terrace was built in 1922 by architect B.B. Horner and builder/owner Claude F. Hale. The two-story Cape Cod home contains 2,400 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Horner, who built the Outpost Building, located on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Las Palmas Avenue in 1927, also built the Cape Cod next door with Hale. Hale and his family resided in this home through 1924. 6658 Emmet is located on a downslope on Emmet Terrace and is part of the Whitley Heights Historic District.

Theater actor Frederick Raymond (pictured below) and his wife, Milliet, resided in this home in 1926. Raymond, who was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1897, performed in several theaters in Los Angeles, including the Majestic Theater and his wife also performed, singing at the Hollywood Bowl in 1930. Raymond ended up working as a sound technician at MGM Studios. He worked on The Merry Widow (1934) starring Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier (another Whitley Heights resident). Raymond also worked on King Vidor’s, An American Romance in 1944 and Slightly Dangerous in 1943, starring Lana Turner. Raymond’s film career was cut short in 1944 as he died at the age of 47 from a heart attack.

Artist Wilson Silsby rented the home in 1930. Silsby was born in 1883 in Chicago and moved to Los Angeles in 1913 and worked as an art director for Universal Pictures Corporation. He later worked for several other Hollywood movie studios. He was known for Into the Light (1920), The Millionaire Pirate (1919) and With Davy Crockett at the Fall of the Alamo (1926). Silsby was an etcher, lithographer and painter, known especially for his invention of the no-ground etching plate and for his stage-set designs for the theater and motion picture industry. In the 1920s, he began etching and wrote two books on the subject: Etching Methods and Materials and Dry Points of Wilson Silsby. During the 1930’s, Silsby’s etchings and drypoint engravings were exhibited at the Ebell Salon, Los Angeles, the Paris Salons and at the Golden Gate Exposition of 1939. Although he never married, Silsby adopted a 12 year old boy in 1908, who was only 13 years younger than he. His son, Clifford, began his career in acting and then transitioned to painting. Wilson Silsby died in Los Angeles in 1952.

Both father and son’s paintings continue to sell today for thousands of dollars. Below, is one of Wilson Silsby’s paintings, “Paris in the Winter”, followed by his 1935 etching called “Boats in the Harbor”.

In 1931, actor Charles Crockett and his wife, Willa, resided in the home. Crockett was born in 1870 in Baltimore, Maryland and moved to Los Angeles in the 1920s for movie roles. He had minor roles in: Winds of Chance (1925), starring Anna Q. Nilsson and Viola Dana, The Gingham Girl (1927), The Princess from Hoboken (1927), Guilty Hands (1931), and The Cat and the Fiddle (1934), starring Ramon Navarro and Jeanette MacDonald. Crockett died in 1934 in Los Angeles and had 22 movie credits from 1924-1934.

In 1937, artist Henry Raymond Harry and his family lived at 6658 Emmet Terrace. Harry was born in 1882 in Woodson, IL and was known as a landscape and mural artist. Henry graduated from the Chicago Art Institute where he met and married Isabella Page Pierce. Subsequently, they moved to Los Angeles, California, where Henry was a decorator, designer and artist. His landscapes were chosen to decorate the salons and drawing-room cars of the Southern Pacific Railroad and his paintings became trademarks of the railroad for many years.

Harry Raymond Henry’s work has been offered at auction multiple times, which have been sold for up to $9,600. Henry died in Costa Mesa in 1974. Below is his painting, The Grand Canyon from Union Pacific Grand Canyon Lodge, which he painted in 1939.

The last notable tenant was writer Mortimer Braus in 1940. Braus, who was born in New York City in 1907, became a screenwriter from the 1940s through the 1980s. He was known for: The Prodigal Returns (1939), Let’s Make It Legal (1951) and The Son of Dr. Jekyll (1951). Braus specialized in drama, comedy, and romance and also wrote short stories. Let’s Make It Legal starred Claudette Colbert, Macdonald Carey, and Robert Wagner. He also wrote Three Loves Has Nancy (1938), starring Janet Gaynor, Robert Montgomery, and Franchot Tone (another Whitley Heights resident). He was credited for 28 films before his death in 1988. Below is Braus when he attended Cornell University in 1927.