Whitley Heights 101

6533 Cahuenga Terrace

Hollywood 1924. Visit the Hollywood Electrical Home: An attractive home of distinct Mediterranean type architecture in a magnificent setting-nestled in the hills of Hollywood-made servantless by the proper application of electricity and the practical use of electrical appliances. Builder Howard S. Reed, owner of Reed & Company erected this 4 bedroom home in the Hollywood Dell on the newly constructed Cahuenga Terrace. Caheunga Terrace was not new, this house did not have a house number when it was built. Originally called 6601 Cahuenga Terrace, the number switched to 6533 after 1926.

Architect J.S. Powell built the small palace as a replica of “Petit Trianon”, a Neoclassical style château located on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles in France. Petit Trianon was built between 1762 and 1768 during the reign of King Louis XV of France. Marie Antionette would often stay at the palace to escape from her royal responsibilities. After the French Revolution, Napoleon restored the palace which was later turned into a museum.

The Hollywood Electrical Home was erected with a basement, with the second floor consisting of three bedroom suites, each with their own bathroom and dressing room, with the fourth bedroom, a guest suite on the ground floor with its own separate garden entrance.

Reed hired Barker Brothers to furnish the estate and then began showcase it with daily visiting hours in 1924. They promoted the modern convenience of electricity inside with new appliances, including the “Kelvinator”, an electric refrigerator, convincing housewives that electricity would be the “universal servant”. Further stating that the demonstration home was built out in Whitley Heights, it was complete with an electrical roof garden on top. Back then, there was one stipulation about the electric home-the house was not for sale. Newspapers suggested Reed would not accept any offers as he had a vision of something bigger: making The Hollywood Electrical Home a nationwide phenomenon.

Reed wanted to show Hollywood the appeal of taking away servants with the press of a button. The modern housewife would be able to automatically clean the floor, wash the clothes, light the house, and even beat an egg. Reed’s goal was to get 100,000 people to visit the home.

He hired Frank Smith for public relations to ensure the people would visit Hollywood’s Electrical Home. Smith enticed the public to come to the house using celebrities as “tour guides”. He hired actresses Pauline Garon and Kathleen Key. Garon started her career in the 1920s as a body double for Dorothy Gish and was “discovered” by Cecile DeMille who cast her in “Adam’s Rib”. During the late 1920s, Garon was getting lead roles in “B” films. By 1928, Garon’s career began to decline dramatically and seemed to vanish from film by 1934.

Actress Kathleen Key got her big break when she was cast in “Ben-Hur” in 1925. She was credited for 34 roles between 1920 and 1936, but was never able to reach full stardom. She was probably best known for being actor Buster Keaton’s mistress during the 1930s who was married at the time. At one point, Keaton tried to end the affair and Key flew into a jealous rage, ransacking his MGM dressing room which caused her to be blacklisted from the movie industry.

Still trying to reach his 100,000 visitor goal, Smith recruited the public school system and had Los Angeles School students visit the electrical house on field trips. The educational angle was for the students to understand how electricity worked. Students were able to observe the built-in electric refrigerator, which made ice, the electric dishwasher, egg beater, drink mixer, meat grinder, cream whipper, cake and biscuit mixer, electric buffing and polishing motors, and an electric range.

However, their goal of 100,000 visitors was never reached and Reed was offered work in Arizona. He sold his home around the corner on Holly Drive and put the Hollywood Electrical Home up for auction in March of 1926.

The house was sold to a doctor and his wife, Roland and Marjorie Cummings. Dr. Cummings was somewhat of a celebrity doctor, the physician of Blanche Sweet, Hal Roach’s wife, Louis Wolheim, and Edmund Lowe during the 1920s. Later, he became one of the physicians of the Motion Picture Relief Fund and made news when he was treating actress Sylvia Sidney for a nervous breakdown. One of the first things, Mrs. Cummings did to her new house was build a sewing room and three more closets!

During the next 20 years, the house would change ownership several times with restaurant owner Nick Tsoneff purchasing the home during the 1940s. Tsoneff actually used the house as a rental and lived around Hollywood in smaller homes. Tsoneff was the divorced owner of a busy restaurant called “The Italian Kitchen” once located at 6225 Hollywood Boulevard. In 1942, he rented 2017 Holly Hill Terrace, in Whitley Heights.

Tsoneff rented this palace to film executive Bernard Williams and his wife, Margaret, who in turn, may have been renting out some of the rooms. Tsoneff filed an eviction notice which ended up in court in 1946. Williams claimed that he was not renting the rooms, just having house guests. The judge sided with the Williams citing Tsoneff did not serve them a proper eviction notice.

The 1946 newspapers claimed that 6533 Cahuenga Terrace was the former house of Rudolph Valentino. Before they made such claims, perhaps they should have done their own research. Valentino died in August of 1926 and his last known property was Falcon Lair, 1436 Bella Drive in Beverly Hills. Valentino purchased the vacant land and built the estate in 1925. At the time of his death, he still owned his home in Whitley Heights, 6776 Wedgewood Place which he bought in December of 1921. 6533 Cahuenga Terrace was not sold until March of 1926 to Dr. Cummings. It is very unlikely that Rudolph Valentino lived in this house.

One technique real estate agents use to sell a Hollywood house is claim that the house was once the home of a former movie star. Sometimes it is true, but sometimes it is based on a rumor or completely made up. When 6533 Caheunga Terrace was on the market in 1918, the claim was that not only did Rudolph Valentino live in the home, but was built for silent screen actress Theda Bara. As we now know, this house was built as a demonstration house. Bara’s married British film director Charles Brabin in 1921 and they owned a Beverly Hills home on N. Alpine Drive by 1930 where they lived for over a decade. The only claim to fame for 6533 Cahuenga Terrace was it was the original “Hollywood Electrical Home”!