Whitley Heights 101

2002 Whitley Avenue

2002 Whitley Avenue is a three bedroom, two bathroom Spanish style house that was built in 1923 by building contractor, Charles R. Fargo, who used the services of Hollywood Architectural Service Company to draw up the plans. There is a fourth bedroom which is used as office space. The residence is located on the southwest corner where Whitley Avenue meets Whitley Terrace and Grace Avenue. Below: 2002 Whitley Terrace is on the other side of the trees; its gate is seen to the right for car access into the property. There is another gate on the left side that has access to the property on foot.

Fargo, also built the Beverly Gardens Apartments, located at 9379-9383 W. Olympic Blvd. in Beverly Hills circa 1930. The 16 unit courtyard complex still exists today and is designated a cultural historic place. After the apartment complex was completed, Fargo moved into one of the units with his family and managed them.

Fargo also built an estate on Cove Way in 1922 which was located near Charlie Chaplin’s house on Summit Drive. In 1923, Fargo sold land in that area to Chaplin for $500. Chaplin’s estate began construction in 1922 and he used his studio carpenters for cheap labor. His estate was known as the “Breakaway House” , pictured below, as it quickly began to fall apart. The carpenters who built the house were used to designing buildings that were only supposed to last for the length of a film’s shooting. The first house he really owned, he picked the location at Summit Drive (then Cove Way) because it was right across from his best friends Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford’s 18-acre estate Pickfair. For a time, Fargo resided near them at 1010 Cove Way before he sold the land to Chaplin.

Fargo’s daughter, Dorothy Mae Fargo (1717-1984) did some acting and was one of the 6 stunt doubles for Vivian Leigh in Gone in the Wind in 1939. She was also Carole Lombard’s stunt in Nothing Sacred. Below, a flesh colored bathing suit preserved the modesty of Dorothy Fargo, 19, as she portrayed the Lady Godiva in Los Angeles in 1937. It was the 900th anniversary of the original Lady Godiva’s ride, where the Lady Godiva rode through the streets of Coventry to protest the high taxes levied by her husband. Dorothy Fargo acted in the role of Lady Godiva in David Selznick’s comedy film, Nothing Sacred.

Fargo sold 2002 Whitley Avenue after it was completed to Wesley and Mary Russell, who resided in it until 1942. They had added another bathroom near the screened porch. In September of 1931, Wesley was in New York City, where he often visited for work as he was the former operator of the Associated Press. On the evening of September 15, 1930, Russell went for a walk in the city and then headed back to his hotel room where he had a heart attack and died at the age of 59. Mary, now a widow, continued to reside at 2002 Whitley Avenue their 14 year old son, Walter. Their daughter, 21 year old Helen Russell, pictured below, had married musician Roy Fjastad, that same year.

Roy Fjastad was of Swedish decent but grew up in New York and then moved to Los Angeles in the lat 1920s to further pursue his music career. During the 1940s he was hired at Paramount and was credited for Cecil DeMille’s film “Unconquered” starring Gary Cooper and Paulette Goddard. Fjastad died in 1957 and at the time, was the head of Paramount’s music department. Roy was head of the Paramount Pictures music department for three years. He entered the film industry in 1927 as an assistant director and interpreter for First National Studios. He also worked at the Corinne Griffith Studio and United Artists. Helen and Roy had one son named Roy Jr. who became a well-known drag racing racer and innovator. He was the first to build what is known today as “cookie cutter cars”. The drag racing legend died in 2018 after a long 60 year career that began when he was 19 years old.

Between 1950 and 1954, screenwriter and playwright William “Lynn” Starling resided at 2002 Whitley Avenue. Starling was credited for 45 films between 1930 to 1953 including; The First Year (1932) starring Janet Gaynor, Backstreet (1932) starring Irene Dunne, Torch Singer (1933) starring Claudette Colbert, Thanks for the Memory (1939) starring Bob Hope, and Moon Over Miami (1941) starring Don Ameche and Betty Grable. He worked at Fox, 20th Century and MGM over the years.

Between 1989 and 1997 television writer and producer Carla Jean Wagner (1942-2004) resided at 2002 Whitley Avenue. Wagner is probably best known for writing several television movies including; Code Name: Dancer (1987) starring Kate Capshaw, The Man in the Brown Suit (1989) starring Rue McClanahan and Tony Randall, Murder by Moonlight (1989) starring Bridget Nielsen and Julian Sands, Where’s the Money, Noreen? (1995) starring Julianne Phillips, Alien Cargo (1999) starring Jason London, and her last was one episode of the tv series, “Sheena” starring Gina Lee Nolin.

In the late 1990s comedian Caroline Skakel and her husband, cameraman Michael Pinkey, purchased the residence and did a complete interior remodel of the home. The two married in 1994. Skakel’s aunt and uncle were Ethel and Robert Kennedy and her cousin was Michael Skakel who is currently incarcerated for the murder of Greenwich teen Martha Moxley that he allegedly killed when he was a teenager.

Michael Pinkey is credited for 25 films and television shows since 1993 working in the camera department including the television movie “Sweet Temptation” in 1996 starring Beverly D’Angelo, who at one time, lived a few houses away on Whitley Terrace. Pinkey worked for Warner Brother’s and was the camera operator in the film, “Conspiracy Theory” starring Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts. He also worked on films, Blade (1998) starring Wesley Snipes, Along Came Polly (2004) starring Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston, Meet the Fockers (2004) starring Robert DeNiro and Ben Stiller, Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) starring George Clooney, Flightplan (2005) starring Jodie Foster, Mission Impossible III (2006) starring Tom Cruise, Live Free or Die Hard (2007) starring Bruce Willis, and Stepbrothers (2008) starring Will Farrell and John C. Reilly. In the 1990s, Caroline Skakel worked in the costume department and worked on the television series “The Tommyknockers” where she met her husband. They worked together in 1996 for the film “Sweet Temptation”.

The Pinkeys were one of the residents that fought with the WHOZ, who had ordered her to remove a gate that she put up. Skakel was quoted in a 1999 Los Angeles Times article saying, “If you do something they don’t like, you go to war on it” when she tried to relocate the gate. Since then, it has been quiet at the residence-the gate still there.