Whitley Heights 101

6788 Whitley Terrace

6788 Whitley Terrace was built in 1923 by famed architect Benjamin B. Horner. Horner was responsible for designing several other homes in Whitley Heights including actor/director William Wellman’s house located at 6747 Milner Road and 4 other homes on the same street. This home and Wellman’s house were both featured in the June 1925 issue of House Beautiful. 6788 Whitley Terrace was built for industrial engineer Ernest McCready. McCready purchased two adjacent lots on Whitley Terrace and in February of 1923, McCready and his wife became the owners of tract 6225 in Whitley Heights.

After the McCready’s built this house on the lots, they built another house on lot 2: 6786 Whitley Terrace was erected in 1925. Below: 6786 Whitley Terrace is the house on the right; Valentino’s house was the house on the left, located at 6776 Wedgewood Place. 6788 Whitley Terrace was located next to 6786 Whitley Terrace on the other side. Directly below these home was Fairfield Avenue. The Cahuenga Pass can be seen in the distance.

6788 Whitley Terrace was a 2-story Spanish style home that was on a downslope on Whitley Terrace. The top floor comprised of two bedrooms and a bathroom. The main entry was from the patio on Whitley Terrace.

The lower floor included the living room, dining room, kitchen, laundry room and a 1/2 bathroom.

In 1935, the lower (basement) floor was expanded and a tiled roof was put over the basement door. Below is the rear side of the home with 6786 Whitley Terrace next door on the right. In 1937, another house would be built on the other side of 6788 Whitley Terrace.

Below are images of 6788 Whitley Terrace taken during the 1920s.

Actor Donald Cook resided in the home in 1932. Cook started his acting career in vaudeville and on the stage. During his 1930 summer stock engagement at Elitch Theatre, Cook met and fell in love with Frances Beranger, another member of the company. “We were in love, and she urged me to go to Hollywood,” Cook said. “I did, and we were married when she returned to the coast from Denver.” The marriage lasted six months. However, Cook was grateful he was married because the publicity landed him a job at Warner Brothers. The 1932 Los Angeles City Directory lists Donald and Frances residing in this house.

Cook started his film career in Hollywood at the age of 29 when he co-starred with Ruth Etting in a short film called “Roseland”. In 1931, he was awarded 9 minor roles, including in: “The Public Enemy” starring James Cagney and Jean Harlow and in John Barrymore’s “The Mad Genius”. The following year, he got 6 more roles including in: “The Man Who Played God” starring George Arliss and Bette Davis and starring opposite Joan Bennett in “The Trial of Vivienne Ware”. Other films during the 1930s included: Baby Face (1933) starring Barbara Stanwyck, Brief Moment (1933) starring Carole Lombard, The Night is Young (1935) starring Ramon Navarro. and Showboat (1936) starring Irene Dunne.

Finally in 1933, Cook got the leads in “Fury of the Jungle” and “Fog” and in 1934, he starred in “The 9th Guest” all for Columbia Pictures. That same year, he was also cast in “Viva Villa!” starring Wallace Beery and Fay Wray. Cook only had 7 small role during the 1940s before he moved to television during the 1950s with his last role, Too Young to Go Steady, a short-lived tv series in 1959, which starred Joan Bennett and himself. Perhaps he is best known as the first actor to play Detective Ellery Queen in “The Spanish Cape Mystery” in 1935.

Cook had two more marriages. He married married radio singer/dancer Maxine Dailey Lewis in 1934, which lasted only six months. They had a daughter, Donna Dailey Cook, who was born in May of 1934. In 1937, Cook married Princess Gioia Tasca di Cuto and they remained married until his death in 1961. However, Cook began a relationship with actress Joan Bennett (both pictured above) in 1956 and she referred to him as “the love of her life”. Cook had been separted from the Princess just prior to his death as he and Bennett may have been planning to spend their lives together.

In 1935, writer Kay Van Riper lived at 6788 Whitley Terrace (pictured above). In 1937, she began working for MGM as a scenarist, contributing to the Andy Hardy franchise as well as several of the studio’s biggest musicals, from “Babes in Arms” to “Strike Up the Band”. She also collaborated with Mary C. McCall Jr. on “Kathleen”, the film that would bring Shirley Temple out of her brief retirement. While living in Whitley Heights, Van Riper claimed that Valentino haunted the area. On the day she moved in, she was handing pictures when the door bell rang. She went to the door and nobody was there. She went back to her task, when the door bell rang again with no one outside. The 1938 article in “The Independent” falsely had her living in Valentino’s house.

Van Riper had suffered from spinal pain that radiated into her legs for more than 20 years, and by early 1948, it had gotten so bad that Van Riper had to give up her career. After endless doctor visits, she gave up hope for any cure. Van Riper died on New Year’s Eve of 1948 after overdosing on sleeping pills in her Glendale, California, home. Her mother, who was living with her at the time, found her body sitting next to her bed. No note was found, but the coroner classified the death as a suicide.

Between 1936 and 1936, novelist and screenwriter Paul Schofield resided at 6788 Whitley Terrace. Schofield worked on 44 films between 1920 and 1940, some directed by famous directors such as D. W. Griffith, John Ford, Archie Mayo, Frank Lloyd, and Herbert Brenon. His credits include: Just Pals (1920), directed by John Ford, The Street of Forgotten Men (1925) directed by Herbert Brenon and featuring Louise Brooks in her screen debut, That Royle Girl (1925) directed by D. W. Griffith and starring W. C. Fields, and his last film, Wells Fargo (1937) directed by Frank Lloyd.

The very last owners were child actor Wesley “Freckles” Barry and his wife, Julia. Julia’s mother, Maud Wood, purchased the house in 1940 and moved her 80 year old mother, Elizabeth Boggs, in with Barry and Julia. Maud also built a duplex in Whitley Heights, 2132 Fairfield Avenue in 1938. She would move into the upper unit in 1950. Wesley began his acting career at the age of 8 when he appeared in the short film, The Phoney Cannibal. Two years later, he would appear in Mary Pickford’s “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm”. For the next several years, Wesley appeared exclusively in Mary Pickford Company films. In 1919, Blanche Sweet Productions hired Wesley to appear in The Unpardonable Sin and A Woman of Pleasure.

By 1919, Paramount Pictures hired him to appear in Cecil DeMille’s Male and Female which costarred Gloria Swanson. In 1922, Wesley was cast as the lead in Penrod, produced by Marshall Nielan Productions. That same year, Warner Brothers cast him as the lead in Rags to Riches and Heroes of the Street. During the 1930s, the now adult Wesley Barry would get minor roles with his final role as a reporter in Ladies Day in 1943. In 1946, Wesley was hired as an assistant director for Monogram Pictures working on the Charlie Chan pictures. Wesley turned to directing televison series during the 1960s including; The Mod Squad from 1968 to 1969.

Wesley met Julia Wood when both were performing on vaudeville. They married in 1926 when Wesley turned 18 years old; Julia was 23. Wesley still had to get consent from his parents in order to get married. The two would remain married until Julia’s death in 1985; Wesley died in 1994 in Fresno. The Barry’s resided at 6788 Whitley Terrace for 10 years. From 1943 to 1945, Wesley was in the Navy during World War 2 and returned to the home in October of 1945. Below, Whitley Terrace circa 1931; 6788 Whitley Terrace would be located to the left of the closest building.

In 1950, the Barry’s decided to sell the house to the state due to the Hollywood Freeway construction. They purchased the house next door, 6796 Whitley Terrace and moved it down the street to 6692 Whitley Terrace where is remains today. They lived at 6692 Whitley Terrace until 1960. 6788 Whitley Terrace was put up for auction in September of 1950, but there is no record of the home being demolished or relocated. It would not be surprising if the house was sold “under the table” by one of the state employees as many were living in the abandoned homes that did not sell up until the hill was divided by the freeway.