Whitley Heights 101

2300-2302 Fairfield Avenue

2300 Fairfield Avenue was built in 1920 on lot 19 of Lockland Place Tract, close to Cahuenga Blvd. Retired dentist Julia Carman decided to build the 10 room duplex, where each unit had 5 rooms, with 2 bedrooms upstairs. A common chimney was shared for both residences that had their own fireplace in their living room. Julia had been residing at 6661 Odin Street while waiting for the duplex to be built. Julia moved into one side: 2300 and rented out 2302. This location was ideal as the Hollywood Bowl and French Village was just around the corner on Highland Avenue while Rudolph Valentinos and Francis X Bushman lived above in the hills.

Julia was able to rent out the other side, 2302 Fairfield Avenue to a nurse, Jessie Struve and a teacher, Edith Woodham, both in their 40s. Struve made the news in 1911 when she and a fellow nurse, traveled to Europe for a years long trip with president of Imperial Oil Company, Charles Victor Hall, who was in his 60s. Hall left his family and paid for the two nurses expenses. Hall’s wife was not surprised at her husband’s actions as she had been trying to make the marriage work for 30 years. She even tried to file for divorce prior and wanted to use “statutory offenses” but her millionaire husband refused. Hall’s son indicated his father was “crazy about girls”. Hall ended up “squandering a small fortune” on the trip to Europe, but the experience had a “lasting impression” on Struve who ended up returning to Europe in 1929, this time with her roommate, Edith Woodham.

Carmen sold the duplex to shoe manufacturer Claude Smythe and his wife, Dorothy, who was a secretary for city counsel. They also resided on the 2200 side of the property and rented out the other side. In 1936, the Smythes renewed the concrete under existing piers with no structural changes. In 1940, the widowed Dorothy Smythe, handled the termites. No other permitted work had been completed on the Fairfield duplex.

Below, the duplex can been seen from Whitley Terrace and Wedgewood Place from Valentino’s house (far left).

In 1950, the 2300-02 Fairfield Avenue went up for public auction to move moved for the Hollywood Freeway construction. In 1951, the duplex and the two garages that once sat in the rear of the property were moved to 4920 Venice Blvd. in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles where it stands today.

The only structural change to the duplex occurred in 1951 when the duplex was relocated, a one room store was added to the front of the property which is currently used as a Mexican take-out restaurant. Another Whitley Heights home saved!