Whitley Heights 101

2116 Fairfield Avenue

Built in 1940, 2115 Fairfield Avenue was probably one of the last homes built in the area where Whitley Heights was divided due to the 101 Freeway construction. Fortunately, it survived demolition and was relocated to Woodland Hills in 1950. The residence still exists today but is unrecognizable due to additions to the front and rear of the property. If the house was not relocated, it would have been across the street of to the right of the 2133 Fairfield Avenue home that is present today in Whitley Heights. The house was built on Lockland Place Tract on lot 37 on a 53 x 123 lot that had a 12 foot sloping terrace below the road. Mr. and Mrs. Darr Smith hired builder Clarence Marter to build the one story house that had a detached garage.

The one-story home consisted of a central living room with two porches on two sides, a kitchen with a breakfast nook, a den with adjoining bathroom, and in the back, two bedrooms and one bathroom. The home appeared in the September 1941 issue of California Arts & Architecture and was dubbed “Bermuda House”. Ralph A. Vaughn, one of the first well known African-American architects of the area designed the home, Greta Magnusson-Grossman decorated the interiors and Dunckley Murray was responsible for the exterior landscaping. According to the California Arts & Architecture article, the step-down living room had a ceiling of silver and blue hues with a sun porch in yellow and rattan along the west wall, featuring a 12 inch round post with flower shelves. The exterior trim, including the shutters are in off-white and east porch contains a barbeque area. There was a separate detached garage built on the property.

The owner, Joseph Darr Smith was born in Long Beach in 1914 and attended Woodrow Wilson High School and Long Beach Junior College and then spend six months in the Army. He then returned to to Los Angeles and worked for the Metropolitan Aqueduct for about two years. Finally, Smith landed a job for the Los Angeles Daily News as a copy boy taking a major pay cut from $10 per day to $10 per week. However, he was able to work up the ranks of the editorial department.

In 1939, the 25 year old editor married Paula Salemson Walling, a divorced woman who was 8 years older than he and had a five year old daughter. Walling had been a Hollywood Correspondent for a French newspaper. Born in Chicago, her parents moved she and her brother to Paris when they were children. Her mother, Mary Salemson, remained in Paris until after their father died and then moved to Hollywood in 1931. Mary, who learned how to speak French, began a career in Hollywood as the French teacher to the movie stars. Her career started as a favor. Her son, Harold, went to go visit director Robert Florey, whom he knew in Paris. Florey had recently married an American girl and he wanted her to learn French and asked Harold if his mother could help. Sure enough, Mrs. Salemson would visit the new bride and teacher her to speak French. When French director, Jean Renoir came to Hollywood from Paris, Mrs. Salemson helped him learn English. From there, she taught French lessons to several celebrities including; Burgess Meredith, Norma Shearer, Paulette Goddard and Tallulah Bankhead. When Darr and Paula married, Paula with living with her mother and brother several houses down from where they would build their dream house at 2167 Fairfield Avenue.

While Darr and Paula were residing at 2116 Fairfield Avenue, Darr was writing editorials about movie reviews and about the lives of different movie stars for the Daily News. Paula followed in her mother’s footsteps and became Shirley Temple’s French teacher. Below is Shirley Temple with her English teacher, Chinese Teacher, and Walling, her French teacher during the filming of “Stowaway” in 1936. Paula once described Shirley Temple as a “vocabulary wizard”. After that job was finished, Walling became a dialogue director for the movie, “The Southerner” (Jean Renoir was the director and owned his own production company). A year later, Walling was the dialogue director for “The Diary of a Chambermaid” starring Paulette Goddard and Burgess Meredith. Once again, Renoir directed the film. Finally, in 1947, Walling was the dialogue director for “The Woman on the Beach” starring Joan Bennett with Renoir directing.

With the push to get the 101 Freeway built through Whitley Heights, the Smiths were forced to leave their dream home in November of 1948. They settled across Cahuenga Boulevard up towards Universal Studios at 3428 Blair Drive. They needed a bigger house now that they had their 2 year old daughter, also named Darr Smith and Paula’s 17 year old daughter from her first marriage, also named Paula Walling. In addition, Paula’s mother would be moving in with them so the upgrade from a 2 bedroom to a 4 bedroom home was necessary.

Unfortunately, 2116 Fairfield Avenue would “haunt” Darr for the next few years. The following June of 1949, Darr received a printed notice from the Los Angeles tax collector that he was delinquent on 2116 Fairfield Avenue of the amount of $130.81, the house he no longer owned. The kicker was the notice stated that if he did not pay the delinquent taxes and other penalties before June 30, 1949, then the house would be sold to the state. Darr was livid-he was forcefully evicted from his home and had to pay the taxes? Then in 1950, he actually saw 2116 Fairfield Avenue being moved. He was driving home shortly after midnight when traffic on Cahuenga Boulevard was slow and merging into one lane. That is when he saw a large house being moved and he noticed it was his old house. Reminds me of this photo of a Spanish style house being moved across the boulevard at Whitley Terrace in Hollywood becoming a massive blockade. As a result, thousands of cars had to be re-routed, as indicated by the two signs which are directing the northern and southern flows of traffic. Photo dated: March 13, 1951.

Poor Darr. Things did not get better for him after that. In the early 1950s he was fired from his job at the Daily News after being accused of being a communist. During a 1950 hearing of Communist Infiltration of Hollywood, several people claimed Darr had been a member of the Communist party. Darr denied the allegations but he was blacklisted as with many other movie industry people. Between 1951 and 1953, Darr was able to get minor roles in 5 films and a television show. In 1951, he was the Pinkerton man in “Crazy Over Horses”, the 24th Bowery Boys movie. That same year, he was the counsilman in “The Girl on the Bridge”. In 1952, Darr had a minor role in “Sailor Beware”, starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis and then played a police officer in the television series “Police Squad”. Finally, in 1953, he had a minor role in “Thy Neighbor’s Wife”. Darr died in Los Angeles in 1963.

2116 Fairfield Avenue was moved to 22913 Burbank Boulevard, Woodland Hills in 1950. By observing the photograph above, the house may have been placed where the original entry is on the left side of the property and one that was on the east side of the home, is now in the front. In 2015, an addition was built to add a bedroom, family room, laundry room, and bathroom to the rear of house. The pool was added in 2017.