Whitley Heights 101

2225 Fairfield Avenue

2225 Fairfield Avenue was built in 1933 by owner William Hurlbut who designed the home. Hurlbut built the two-story English style home that had a total of 1,887 square feet with two bedrooms and three bathrooms. The residence was located on Fairfield Avenue between Odin Street and Cahuenga Boulevard. Below is the residence in 1935; there was also a one car detached garage to the right of the home.

William Hurlbut was born in 1878 in Belvidere, Illinois before moving to New York and started his career writing stage plays in 1909 until 1929. He then moved to Hollywood circa 1933 and was living at 1923 Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake area while he was building this house. During this time, Hurlbut was working for Universal Studios and writing screenplays for films which starred Gloria Stuart, Fay Wray, Claudette Colbert, Joan Bennett, and Jeanette MacDonald. Perhaps, his most notable film was when he co-wrote “The Bride of Frankenstein” with author Mary Shelley starring Boris Karloff and Ella Lanchester.

After that hit, Hurlbut completed 9 more films until 1941. A Belvidere newspaper dated May 27, 1941 entitled “Will Hurlbut is Doing Splendidly in Hollywood” indicated:

Hurlbut moved out of the house prior to 1945 when it was put up for sale and advertised as a vacant 2-story Colonial with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and servants quarters. However, in 1950, the house went up for auction to be sold and moved due to the Hollywood Freeway construction. Luckily, a local artist named Roy Gordon bought the home and moved it only 0.2 miles to 2403 Pilgrimage Terrace, just under the Hollywood Cross.

Pilgrimage Terrace consists of only two residences-this house and the house behind it, 2145 Pilgrimage Terrace which was built in 1925. There are two houses to the left which sit on the corner of Pilgrimage and Cahuenga Terrace and both use Cahuenga addresses.

However, there is a house on the next street over, 2323 Lorenzo Drive, which used the address of 2420 Pilgrimage Terrace when it was built in 1924 by actor Wallace Beery. Beery remained in the home until August of 1927 when the house and its contents were auctioned off. The “Grand Hotel” actor called this house “Hilltop Manor” and had just married actress Rita Gilman before they moved in.

Hilltop Manor changed owners several times before musicians Max and Irene Rapp purchased the home in 1936. Max was a composer at Universal Studios, 20th Cen­tu­ry Fox, RKO, Unit­ed Ar­tists, Pa­ra­mount and Met­ro Gold­wyn May­er (MGM). He worked on the soundtrack “The House of Frankenstein” in 1944. According to family stories, Rapp would often invite his friends, Nat King Cole and Henry Mancini over to the house. Irene Taylor Rapp, a concert pianist, was previously married to musical conductor Leonard Wegner and they had 10 children together.

Her son Robert Wegner, an actor, resided in this home for several years. Wegner was a character actor who worked in films starring Ronald Colman, Alan Ladd, Ray Milland, Gene Tierney, Jack Palance, Van Johnson, and Hedy Lamarr. Just prior to 1960, the address to this house was changed to 2323 Lorenzo Drive which made sense as there was no direct access to this property from Pilgrimage Terrace. After Max died in 1960, Wegner bought the home where he lived until his death in 1968.

Just behind this area on the top of the hill sits the Ford Theater, was once called the Pilgrimage Theater, and was originally erected in 1920 by Christine Wetherill Stevenson. A year after her death in 1922, a 40-foot wooden cross was erected in her honor on a hilltop above the Pilgrimage Theatre. It was illuminated with 1800 incandescent light bulbs during summer evening performances of the Pilgrimage Play below and during Easter sunrise services at the Hollywood Bowl across Cahuenga Blvd.

Following the Stock Market Crash and the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929, a fire swept through the area and burned down the Pilgrimage Theater, and endangered several homes in the area. The theater was rebuilt which opened in 1931 and was later renamed the Ford Theater. Gordon put 2403 Pilgrimage Terrace up for sale in 1953 where it remained on the market for two years.

This residence was mentioned in “Architecture in Los Angeles” 1985 edition written by David Gebhard and Robert Winter. In the Central Hollywood, Cahuenga Pass section, they estimate the house to have been built in 1928 but mentioned, “at first, this seems to be a Queen Anne house, but closer inspection suggests a later date, perhaps even later after our guess”. Below, the one car garage that sits in the rear of the property, had been converted into a studio prior to 1988.

As the house escaped demolition in 1950, all was quiet in the neighborhood, or so the owners thought in 1965. Shortly before the sun rose to greet Easter Sunday, residents in the area heard an explosion and saw the 40 foot tall Pilgrimage cross burst into flames. Five fire departments struggled to lay hose 1,200 feet up the hill to extinguish the burning cross. The blaze was visible for much of the Hollywood area and the valley.

At first, arson investigators thought vandals set the cross on fire as a broken bottle was found near the cross and they thought the bottle contained some sort of chemical. However, they soon discovered that the fire was caused by a “short circuit in wiring” of the crosses neon lights. Perhaps is was some sort of sign by god to the Angelenos. The Whisky a Go Go just opened a year before and perhaps too many people were sinning.

After raising money to rebuild, the cross was replaced with non-flammable material: steel and plexiglass!

Once again, there was calm in the neighborhood. The little yellow “Anne of Green Gables” house remains under the Pilgrimage Cross sin-free! It last sold in 1989 for $495,000 and is now worth almost $1.7 million. William Hurlbut would be pleased.