Whitley Heights 101

2214 Fairfield Avenue

2214 Fairfield Avenue (center above) was built in 1919 by a builder named George Harris who sold the 7 room bungalow to a widow and her family by 1920. Harris described the house in 1920 as:

The house was situated in the Lockland Place tract on lot 22 on Fairfield Avenue near Odin Street and one block from Highland Avenue in Whitley Heights. 2214 Fairfield Avenue can be seen looking down from Wedgewood Place circa late 1920s. Odin Street can be seen in front of the property.

2214 Fairfield Avenue had four previous tenants before Jack (52) and Nellie (45) Riportella moved into the home in 1940 with their three children: Lillian, 23, Mary, 10 and Jackie Jr., who was seven years old. Both Jack and Nellie were born in Sicily before they migrated to New York City about the same time and married before their oldest daughter, Lillian was born in Brooklyn in 1915. By 1921, the family moved to Charleston, North Carolina and lived in the basement of the famed Francis Marion Hotel (below) where Jack worked as a barber.

In 1926, they lived at the Hotel Halcyon (below) in Miami Beach where he also worked as a barber before returning to the Francis Marion Hotel. Both Mary and Jackie, Jr. were born in Charleston. 

The Riportellas decided to move to Los Angeles and first moved to a house in Van Nuys before purchasing 2214 Fairfield Avenue in 1940. Jack continued to make a living as a barber and owned his own barber shop. Lillian worked at a movie studio when they first moved to Los Angeles, but eventually took a secretary job after they settled in Whitley Heights. All seemed great for the Riportella family living in Hollywood in a great residential area where children could safely play in the streets and return home by dinner time. 

However, on the summer evening of July 30, 1940, soon after the family settled in the home, little Jackie did not return home for dinner. After calling out for him and asking the neighbors, Jack called the police who began a extensive 9 hour search of the area. Unfortunately, around midnight, little Jackie’s sister, Lillian discovered his body floating in a pool in the backyard of 6845 Odin Avenue, located on the other side of Highland Avenue, adjacent to the Hollywood Bowl. The owners, Louie and Elsie Neustadter, had no idea that Jackie entered their backyard until Lillian discovered him in the pool after several of the neighbors had remembered seeing him playing near the Odin Street residence. After only a few months of moving to Whitley Heights, Jack and Nellie’s seven year old son had died from an accidental drowning. 

Somehow little Jackie had wondered down the street, crossing a busy Highland Avenue and ended up in the backyard. Above is the area where Jackie wondered to on Odin Street. This area was demolished to make more room for the Hollywood Bowl parking lot in the 1950s.

The devastated family had a Rosary the following evening at the W.M. Strother Mortuary Chapel located on Hollywood Boulevard and Jackie Riportella was buried at the Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles the next day. Nellie, his grieving mother would join him less than four years later in 1944 at the age of 50. Jack and his youngest daughter, Mary would remain at 2214 Fairfield Avenue until they were forced to move due to the construction of the Hollywood Freeway.

2214 Fairfield Avenue was auctioned by the state of California in 1949 and sold to Oliver and Beatrice Harris and relocated to 9571 Grandee Avenue in the Watts area of Los Angeles where the house remains today.

Below are photos of the interior of the residence before it was remodeled circa 2019. The wood trim is most likely from the original structure.

Below, the blue arrow is the area where 2214 Fairfield Avenue once stood and the red arrow is the approximate location where little Jackie drowned, both now cement parking lots.