Whitley Heights 101

2038 N. Las Palmas Avenue

Joseph and Alice Taylor hired W.F. Nelson & Company, formerly located at 5641 Sunset Boulevard to build the English Tutor cottage which was completed in 1924. The three story house had an attached two-car garage and an attic on the third floor. The 1,971 square foot home was comprised on three bedrooms and two bathrooms to complete the six room house. Taylor was listed his work in advertising sales before retiring and by the end of the 1931 in which he decided to either sell or rent the home. Below is a photograph of the home with what appears to be three people and a dog on the balcony above the garage. The car in the driveway was made in the 1940s?

In 1932, Alex J. Kelley and his wife, Alberta, lived in the home. The couple had been married since 1920 and were married in Chicago but lived in Denver. The scandal about their marriage was that when they got married Alex was only 22 years old and Alberta was almost 30 years older than he! Alexander J. Kelley, Jr., was born in 1898 in Marengo, Illinois and was the third oldest of 8 children born to Alexander and Carry Kelley. Alex Kelley graduated from Marengo High School in 1915 and moved to Wyoming and worked as a clerk in a clothing store. By 1918, he was drafted into the army and left on the ship Buford in 1919 to fight World War I. After returning from the war, Alex moved to Denver to work for his uncle who owned an oil company. Alex met the much older woman in Denver and they started a 3 month “whirlwind” romance and decided to get married.

Above is Leila “Alberta” Berlin in 1920 taking a picture for her passport which listed her age as “51”. The Denver socialite inherited her father’s estate when he died in 1918 which, at the time, was valued at $150,000 (would be worth 3.2 million today). Berlin was born in 1868 in Oakland, Tennessee to Isaac and Emma Berlin, and the family moved to Denver in the early 1900s to start a chain of grocery stores. Alberta lived with her parents, and a maid, chauffeur and cook. After Alex and Alberta married, they resided in her family home until they moved to Los Angeles in the late 1920s. After renting from two apartments the first two years of living in Los Angeles, they settled in his home. However, Alex suffered an unfortunate death in 1933 and Alberta buried his body in Denver but returned to Los Angeles where she died in 1936. Her body rested next to her husband’s at Fairmount Cemetery in Denver.

Between 1934 and 1940, a retired teacher named Ella Duncan, moved into 2038 N. Las Palmas Avenue with her daughter, Grace Duncan, and at times, her son, Rex Duncan. Ella Dowler married Charles Duncan in 1875 in Des Moines, Iowa. They had four children: Grace (born 1877), Avis (born 1879), Rex (born 1887) and Fanchon (born 1889) and had settled in Lincoln, Nebraska. After her husband died, Ella moved with Grace, Rex, and Fanchon to Los Angeles circa 1906. By that time, Avis was married with two children and remained in the midwest. Grace, like her mother, became a teacher, eventually becoming a school administrator. Rex became a physician. Fanchon was the “problem child” of the family.

Grace never married and would live with her mother, Ella until her death in 1951. Grace started teaching for the Los Angeles School District in 1909 and eventually became the principal for Alta Loma School for 25 years. In 1945, Grace Duncan was honored at the Alta Loma School during a tree planting ceremony.

Rex Duncan received his doctorate in medicine at University of Southern California in 1909 and granted his physician license to practice medicine in California that same year. In April of 1909, Rex was appointed the second health officer with the Los Angeles Health Department and was put in charge of the vaccination of school children. In 1910, he became one of the surgeons at the Aviation Hospital while continuing his duties as the assistant health officer. In 1913, Rex became engaged to Pansy Hill of Corona and they married on March 20th. Rex eventually opened his own practice, specializing in radiation therapy for cancer and built his own office building. In 1925, Pansy filed for divorce after Rex informed her that he felt more like a brother to her than a husband. In 1927, Rex sold his office building for $1.2 million and bought property in Santa Barbara where he would build a horse ranch.

In 1929, Rex opened his own corporation with family involvement. He was also leasing hundreds of acres of the land he owned in Santa Barbara to an oil company further adding to his finances. Rex continued to ride horses and got involved with polo matches during the 1930s playing on Will Rogers’ team. In 1931, Rex married for the second time to Beverly Hills socialite Margaret Hunter. They married at the historic Mission Inn in Riverside. In 1946, Rex died after a long undisclosed illness, leaving his mother and sister, Grace behind.

Fanchon was the youngest of the Duncan’s four children and perhaps the most difficult to raise. The aspiring actress found employment as a dancer and would often hang out at the movie studios hoping to get a big break. Fanchon was making headlines, but not the type that her mother would be proud of. Fanchon graduated from North Platte High School in Nebraska in 1905. She found work at a car distributer’s office but the job did not last for more than a year. Then the family moved to Los Angeles in 1906. Two years later, 20 year old Fanchon married Edwin Larson in San Francisco on July 3, 1908. Larson was 31 years old and happened to be her uncle-yes, his sister was Ella Duncan! The married couple moved to New York City were they lived for two years when it was reported to the San Francisco judge that married them. Judge Van Nostrand voided the marriage on October 18, 1910.

After the marriage was voided, Fanchon returned to Los Angeles and met a young car salesman in the pursuit of wanting to buy her own car. William Mackay White, 25, offered to take the 22 year old for a ride in his company’s car. The young married couple’s love affair made headlines in the Los Angeles Times on November 19, 1910. White worked for the Premier Automobile Company of Indianapolis and arrived in Los Angeles in October of 1910. Duncan wanted to buy a car and White took her out in one of the Premier vehicles. The next day, White took her for another demonstration. While White was only supposed to be in Los Angeles for one week, he extended his stay and continued to take Duncan on car rides. White informed Duncan that he had to return home after one of their lengthy car rides and were resting in her parlor. The telephone rang and White answered the phone. It was a newspaper reporter who got wind of their daily car rides asking White if they were engaged. White denied they were engaged while Duncan was listened to the one sided conversation. After White hung up the telephone, Duncan asked him about the telephone call. He told her that the greatest newspaper heard a rumor that they were engaged and then stated, “Be mine” which is all that it took for the couple to get into the car and race to the courthouse to obtain a marriage license.

Two days later, White received a telegram from his office in Indianapolis insisting he return, which he did. Before he left Los Angeles, he handed the marriage license to Duncan to keep as a memento of their time together. Duncan, however, wanted to make good on the marriage so she and her mother left for Indianapolis in search of the young automobile salesman. They were immediately married in Indianapolis. Unfortunately, the marriage did not last and Duncan returned to Los Angeles and found work as a stenographer and moved back in with her mother, sister, and brother. Things were quiet for several years. Fanchon wanted to become an actress so she started hanging out some of the movie studios and met Howard Gaye. Gaye left his wife, Julia, whom he married in New Zealand in 1907, and headed for Hollywood to take his acting career to the screen.

For Gaye, Julia was “out of sight, out of mind” while he was living in Los Angeles. It is not clear if he ever divorced Julia, but on March 19, 1914, he married Ida Stalmann in Los Angeles for she was pregnant with his son. Gaye worked for Lasky Studio and was in films with Lillian Gish, Douglas Fairbanks, Dorothy Gish, and Norma Talmadge. In 1921, Gaye taught a motion picture acting class at the Egan School and at several other schools in Los Angeles.

Sometime in 1922, Gaye met Fanchon Duncan at the movie studio and they had an affair. Gaye took Duncan on a trip to England in December of 1922. When they returned to Los Angeles, he deserted Duncan so she turned him in for violating the Mann White Slave Act. Gaye was arrested in May of 1923 and bonded out of jail for $2,500. Duncan claimed to have paid for the trip overseas. In June of 1923, Gaye was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury and was served with a new warrant. He was charged with traveling with Duncan from Montreal to New York, then from New York to Los Angeles, then back to New York and then to France, registering in several hotels as “man and wife”. To make maters worse, Duncan was not divorced from White and Gaye was still married with a child. Their affair must have been going on for over a year. On January 17, 1922, the two arrived in Plymouth, England from Halifax, Nova Scotia on the Red Star Line ship “Finland” (see below):

In November of 1923, Gaye’s charges were dropped due to the death of Fanchon Duncan at the age of 34. Duncan was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale and her cause of death was not disclosed by family. Gaye had returned to England to film “The Life of Lord Byron” and then returned to Hollywood in December of 1923 to begin filming “Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall” starring Mary Pickford and was filmed at the Pickford-Fairbanks Studio. Gaye then signed a contract with Fox Studio to play Virgil in the film production of “Dante’s Inferno”.

However, Gaye’s legal issues were far from over. In February of 1924, authorities were seeking to deport Gaye back to England as an “undesirable alien”. In the Deportation Hearing in March of 1924, the sole witness, Fanchon Duncan, died shortly after the indictment was obtained. On May 10, 1924, Gaye was escorted by car to the city of New Orleans. From there, Gaye will be brought to New York by boat, where he will board another boat to England as he was being deported. Dante’s Inferno would be his last film in the United States.

As for 2038 N. Las Palmas Avenue, the house was put up for sale in March of 1940 for $7,500. The new owners remodeled the house into a triplex, with each apartment on a separate floor. The attic has been rented out as a 825 square foot, 1 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom loft apartment. The owner also rents out the second floor apartment.