Whitley Heights 101

2021 Holly Hill Terrace

2021 Holly Hill Terrace was built in 1922 with the original address listed as 2005 Holly Hill Terrace. Owner Ted McClellen hired Hollywood Architectural Service Company to design and construct the 1,766 square foot house that has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The house is similar to most of the homes on Holly Hill Terrace as Hollywood Architectural Service designed and built the majority of the homes on the street during the 1920s. The one story house sits on an upslope directly behind Whitley Avenue and there is a one car detached garage on the left side of the property.

In April of 1925, McClellen put the 6 room house up for sale for $21,000 unfurnished. According to the Los Angeles Times advertisement on April 12, 1925, the house was built by the owner as a permanent residence and “no corners were cut to make it the finest and most complete house of its size possible. The hillside lot has a “commending view of the entire city”. The house remained on the market until May of 1927 when Larkin and Catherine Brown (pictured below) purchased it for $25,000.

Larkin Brown was a retired cotton mill professional from Knoxville, Tennessee, where his only child, Clarence Brown, graduated from high school and went on to earn two degrees in engineering at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Clarence, however, was interested in the growing field of movies and entertainment in the early 1920s and became the famed director at Universal and MGM Studios until he retired in the mid-1950s. During his career, he directed over 50 highly acclaimed movies with many A-list actors and actresses including, Rudolph Valentino, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lionel Barrymore, Norma Shearer, Marie Dressler, Beulah Bondi, Charles Boyer, Mickey Rooney, Anne Revere, Gregory Peck and Jane Wyman. Barrymore and Revere won Oscars for their performances in one of Brown’s movies.

While residing at 2021 Holly Hill Terrace, it was reported that Larkin attended a Bohemian party on Cahuenga Blvd. that was hosted by artist Madame Ivy Verley, who also resided in Whitley Heights with her husband, British actor Vesey O’Davoren. That same year, Larkin’s had was broken by a process server who was serving him an eviction notice, but it happened to be to the wrong Brown family. Finally, in 1936, it was reported that both Larkin and Clarence were members of the Hollywood Horseshoe Club, an exclusive all men’s club in the area. In addition, Larkin attended a party at his son’s Malibu residence where party goers such as Warner Baxter, Darryl Zanuck, Jack Mulhall, Melvyn Douglas, Hedda Hopper, Aileen Pringle, Beulah Bondi, and Anna Q. Nilsson.

At six, Clarence Brown holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations for Best Director without a win. He was nominated for Anna Christie (1930), Romance (1930), A Free Soul (1931), The Human Comedy (1943), National Velvet (1944) and The Yearling (1946). Brown had directed 6 Greta Garbo films: Flesh & the Devil (1926), A Woman of Affairs (1928), Anna Christie (1930), Romance (1930), Inspiration (1931), and Anna Karenina (1935), as he got to know Garbo’s aloof personality. He even threw her a party at his Calabasas house in 1937, which she failed to show up for (see below).

Brown was married a total of four times. His first marriage was to Paul Herndon Pratt in 1913 in Washington D.C., which lasted until their divorce in 1920. The couple produced a daughter, Adrienne Brown. Brown filed for divorce because he was “tired of being married”. Shortly after their daughter was born, he sent her on a trip to visit her family. Three months later, she borrowed money from his parents to return to him in New York and apparently Clarence was furious at her return. He sent her back to her family in Washington DC and then filed for divorce charging desertion. The courts gave Pratt custody of their daughter. His second marriage was to Ona Wilson (both pictured below), which lasted from 1922 until their divorce in 1927.

He was engaged to actress Dorothy Sebastian in 1928, who had a minor part in “A Woman of Affairs” in 1928 and actress Mona Maris, although he did not marry either of them, with Maris later saying she ended their relationship because she had her “own ideas of marriage then. He married his third wife, actress Alice Joyce (both pictured below) in 1933 in Virginia City, Nevada, separated in 1942, and they divorced in 1945. Joyce had retired from acting in 1930 after appearing in over 200 films. In 1945, Joyce sued Brown for divorce charging “extreme cruelty”. His last marriage was to Marian Spies in 1946, which lasted until his death in 1987.

Larkin and Catherine Brown remained at this house in Whitley Heights until Larkin’s death in 1942. In 1934, Clarence Brown was listed as living at this residence while he was married to Alice Joyce. They then found a home on Beverly Drive. Perhaps they were between residences. When Brown first moved to Los Angeles, he rented an apartment at the Garden Court Apartments located at 7021 Hollywood Blvd. in 1920, which were demolished in 1984 (see below). Designed by architect Frank S. Meline in the Beaux Arts style and built in 1917, the classical structure consisted of 190 two and three room suites composed of hardwood and tile. The apartment building was intended to accommodate prominent members of the movie industry. Among its residents were Louis B. Mayer, Mae Murray, and John Gilbert.

Brown would travel between Los Angeles and New York to work on various films during the 1920s. Between 1930 and 1931, he lived at the Ronda Apartments at 1412 Havenhurst Drive in West Hollywood (see below).

Between 1935 to 1948, Brown purchased King Gillette’s ranch in Calabasas (see below). Brown made some changes to the ranch, adding a movie projection room, a swimming pool and a small airstrip. When he retired from the film industry in 1952, Brown sold the ranch property to a Catholic religious order, the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, more commonly known as the Claritins.

Brown also purchased 100 acres of the Amestoy Ranch in Encino in 1944, commercial property in Los Angeles with actor Lionel Barrymore in 1947, 700 acres in Topanga Canyon, and 170 acres in Palm Springs with Louis B. Mayer in the 1950s. During his later years, Brown lived in a modest home located at 961 Gretna Green Way in Santa Monica before his death in 1987 (see below).

Katherine Brown sold 2021 Holly Hill Terrace to Dr. Chester and Belle Foster in 1943, who had three sons: Dale, Kerry, and Marvin. That same year, their middle son, Kerry, a police officer, married Carla Ford, and then welcomed a son in 1949. Soon after, Kerry and Carla separated and he moved back to Whitley Heights. On May 8, 1950, Dr. Foster received an alarming phone call from Carla indicating she was going to kill herself and wanted Dr. Foster to adopt her son. Dr. Foster immediately called authorities who went over to the house on Parrot Street and went through a window to save her life as Carla had turned on the gas stove. When the police asked Carla why she tried to take her life, she smiled and said, “Ask my husband”.

Kerry eventually found true love and remarried in 1956. However, tragedy struck the family in 1963. Thirty-eight year old Kerry and his second wife, thirty-seven year old Joanne, were killed in a boating accident in Clear Lake. They stopped their cabin cruiser 100 feet from the shore in Soda Bay, which was hit by another boat driven at excessive speed by a 24 year old who was charged with involuntary manslaughter. Joanne’s 12 year old son was also on the boat, but was not near them and escaped serious injuries.

The Fosters put 2021 Holly Hill Terrace up for sale after Carla’s suicide attempt. Since then, the house has had multiple owners but the property has been left the same except for an additional bathroom that was put in by Larkin Brown when he lived here in 1927.