1502 ROYAL BOULEVARD
GLENDALE
Style: Colonial Revival
Year of Completion: 1965
Original Building Permit: #92442, issued by the City of Glendale on April 14, 1965 for a two- story, seven-room residence. The house, to encompass 3,380 square feet, would have walls of brick and wood siding over a wood frame and a roof covered with cedar shingles. The City indicated there was already a garage at the rear of the lot.
A copy of this permit is attached on pages 20 and 21.
Cost to Build: $42,000—a typical cost for a house of this size at the time.
Architect: Gerard R. Colcord, a celebrated Los Angeles architect. Please see the attached biographical materials on pages 5 through 16.
Builder: The Nelson Brothers, Glendale. Additional biographical material is attached on pages 17 through 19.
First Owner: Thomas O. Brown, a trucking company sales manager, who shared the house with his wife Arlene M. Brown.
Thomas Owen Brown (1913-1999) was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of William Young Brown, a railway supervisor, and Florence Mary Ann (Francis) Brown, a native of England.
Thomas attended Washington University and the University of Texas. He then found employment as a traffic manager for the A. P. Green Firebrick
2 Company of St. Louis where he lived with his widowed mother. After service in World War II as an Army captain, Mr. Brown married the former Arlene Mildred Darling of Cherokee, Iowa (1919-1991). She was the daughter of Lloyd B. Darling, a grain elevator manager, and Belle (Kuipers) Darling.
By 1954 Mr. and Mrs. Brown were living in Los Angeles where Mr. Brown was an employee of the Coast Counties Express Company.
They had moved to Burbank by 1957 and resided there before moving into their new Glendale home. The Browns later relocated to Escondido, where Mrs. Brown passed away at age 71. Mr. Brown lived to age 86 and is interred at Forest Lawn. The Browns evidently had no surviving children.
Other Building Permits: This house has remained virtually unchanged since it was first built.
The building permits on file with the City are mostly for maintenance.
A permit was issued in May 1966 for a lawn sprinkling system.
A new 137,000-BTU forced-air heating unit and an air-conditioning compressor were installed in September 1977.
The house was re-roofed with cedar shingles in August 1984 for $10,900.
The house was re-roofed again in July 2007 for $9,000. Class A composition shingles were to be used.
A permit was issued in May 2022 to replace kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities with no changes in fixtures or to the exterior of the house. This permit was later marked “expired.”
(Note: Permits for very minor alterations, such as water heater replacement, are not included.
Also not included are permits missing from the file or whose microfilmed or digital copies are indecipherable and not otherwise recorded or described in Assessor’s records.)
Assessor’s Records: The Los Angeles County Assessor first visited the property on November 8, 1948 and recorded a newly-built 620-square-foot building at the rear of the lot that housed a rumpus room and a workshop. The structure, valued at $900, had a concrete foundation, walls of wood siding over a wood frame, and a shingled hipped roof. The workshop, measuring 12 by 20 feet, had a concrete floor, gumwood walls, and no ceiling. The adjoining rumpus room, measuring 18 by 20 feet, had an asphalt-tile floor, a board ceiling, and combed plywood walls. The lot also contained a 20-by-40-foot asphalt badminton court, two double- reflecting light standards, and a brick barbecue.
The Assessor returned on November 4, 1966 and recorded a newly-built two-story, Colonial- style residence. It had a raised concrete foundation, wood-frame walls covered in wood siding, wood and brick trim, a medium-pitched roof covered in wood shingles, and double-hung and casement windows. Heat was provided by two fireplaces and a forced-air perimeter heating
3 system. There were fourteen plumbing fixtures, including a wet bar. The Assessor rated the architecture, workmanship, and general quality of the house as “good.”
The Assessor estimated the square footage of the house at 2,530. On the first floor were an entry hall; a living room with “good” molding and detailed wood paneling; a dining room with built-in cupboards; a den with paneled walls, cupboards, and a beamed ceiling; a half-bathroom; a utility room with built-in cabinets; and a kitchen with 14 linear feet of white pine cabinets, ceramic-tile counters, a “special” cooking fireplace, and built-in appliances. The second floor contained two bedrooms, and one and three-quarters bathrooms. There was also a screened porch with a brick floor and a stucco ceiling and a patio that had a brick floor, a gabled shingled roof, and one wall of wood.
The Los Angeles County Assessor still currently estimates the square footage of the house at 2,530 with two bedrooms and three bathrooms.
Copies of the Assessor’s building records are attached on pages 22 through 27.
Some Other Owners and Residents: By 1995, the owner was the Edward B. Boudaghian Trust. Mr. Boudaghian, a native of Iran, resided in the house with his wife Seda Boudaghian.
Helen Arzouman and Jasmine Hasmik Champagne had gained title by 2022.
The current owners are Mark and Susan Saklawi.
4 Sources:
City of Glendale, Building Department
Los Angeles County Assessor (Sylmar district office)
Los Angeles Public Library
Gebhard, David and Robert Winter. An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles, 6th ed.
Santa Monica, Angel City Press, 2018.
McAlester, Virginia Savage. A Field Guide to American Houses. 2nd ed.
New York, Knopf, 2013.
City Directories: 1965-
Internet Resources, including California Index, California Death Index, Gale Biography Master Index, Ancestry.com, and Historic Los Angeles Times Database.
Tim Gregory
The Building Biographer
400 East California Blvd., #3
Pasadena, CA 91106-3763
626-792-7465 (office)
626-241-4471 (cell)
[email protected]
www.buildingbiographer.com
Copyright December 2023
by Tim Gregory
5 GERARD R. COLCORD
Architect
Sometimes referred to as “Hollywood’s society architect,” Gerard Rae Colcord was born into a wealthy family in St. Louis, Missouri on November 1, 1900. His father Walter was the proprietor of the Colcord-Wright Machinery & Supply Company, a dealer in metal- working machines, and his mother Meta was an artist.
After graduating from the Culver Military Academy in Indiana, Gerard moved with his family to Beverly Hills around 1920 and enrolled in the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture where he belonged to the Architecture Club. In 1923, he traveled to Europe, touring England, Italy, and France, participating in a one –year apprenticeship program at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts at Fontainebleau. It was here he learned the skill of blending various architectural features from different historical eras into a unified design.
In 1924, Gerard (or “Gerry,” as he was often referred to) returned to Southern California.
Having been granted a Provisional Certificate from the State Board of Architectural Examiners, he apprenticed with well-known architects Asa Hudson and John C. Austin. He received his State Certificate in 1930, whereupon he established his own office. He never let his staff grow very large, but made use of foreign-born artisans and craftsmen who were looking for work. His office was at 275 South Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills, but by the 1970s it was located at 9538 Brighton Way.
Colcord must have inherited his mother’s artistic talents, for his drawings were exact and detailed even when prepared quickly. Although he is most remembered for his Eastern farmhouse designs, often featuring fieldstone-veneered walls, gabled dormers, and spacious front porches (“Pennsylvania goes west,” as one critic put it), Colcord was equally adept at a multitude of styles, including Spanish, Monterey, Italian, English, French, and Hollywood Regency. His property types ranged from comfortable, cozy family-oriented homes to grand estate-sized authentic interpretations of Old World traditions. He himself was largely a traditionalist whose output included few contemporary works. Many of his design ideas were said to have been inspired by what he had seen pictured in architectural journals and popular home magazines. He often supervised the construction of his own projects and dealt with builders and vendors who knew exactly what this perfectionist architect wanted. He worked closely with property-owners and is said to have been flexible in incorporating elements into his designs that he himself did not particularly fancy in order to accede to clients’ wishes.
Colcord’s work was publicized by the Barker Brothers home furnishings chain who asked him to come up with idealized “dream home” designs for their displays, by the Los Angeles Times which often highlighted his plans in its home sections, and by the Architectural Digest which featured lavish photographic spreads of the exteriors and interiors of over 23 of his residences—a record for that magazine. Photos reveal that Colcord preferred formal, stately
6 interiors for his large homes, but used much wood paneling and unique touches like antique hearths for his farmhouse styles.
In the early 1930s Colcord married the first of his three wives: Jeanne Marie Dumas. They were prominent on the Southern California social scene and belonged to the Bel-Air Bay Club. In 1944, while assisting the war effort with the design of industrial buildings for Douglas Aircraft, Colcord divorced Jeanne and married Mary Akin Carewe. She died in 1954.
By the end of the 1940s, Colcord had become a “brand name,” his signature “farmhouse” residences (sometimes called “Country Colonials”) becoming popular with well-to-do business people and celebrities (such as actors Alan Ladd and Debbie Reynolds) in communities like Bel- Air, Holmby Hills, and Beverly Hills. His fame also spread beyond California, with clients calling on him from such places as Georgia, Texas, and Florida. His interiors were even used as inspiration for set designs for such television programs as I Love Lucy, Leave It to Beaver, and Father Knows Best.
By the end of his career, Colcord had designed nearly four hundred homes and about one hundred residential remodels. As his health slowly deteriorated in the 1970s, he hired Liza Kent who became his skilled assistant, finishing the plans and supervising the construction of houses he was too ill to attend to. Gerard Colcord died in Encino on February 19, 1984 at the age of 83.
He had no children but was survived by his third wife Virginia Alice Singer whom he had married in 1960. No obituary was published for him in the Times. Ms. Kent closed his office permanently in 1989 but maintained the Colcord archives. Passionate followers of Colcord’s work are still much in evidence today. One Realtor commented that Colcord’s houses “have a great sense of proportion and a level of craftsmanship and quality that isn’t easy to find these days.”
Bret Parsons in his book on Colcord (see “Sources” section) includes historical and contemporary illustrations of seventeen of the architect’s most well-known works ranging from 1930 to 1972.
Sources:
Parsons, Bret. Colcord Home. Santa Monica, Angel City Press, 2008.
Los Angeles Times: October 3, 2004; February 4, 2005; October 11, 2008
Internet Resources, including California Index, California Death Index, Gale Biography Master Index, Ancestry.com, and Historic Los Angeles Times Database.
Tim Gregory
The Building Biographer
400 East California Blvd., #3
Pasadena, CA 91106-3763
626-792-7465
[email protected]
www.buildingbiographer.com
Copyright June 2016
by Tim Gregory
7 Los Angeles Times: November 3, 2004
Continued…
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Los Angeles Times
February 24, 2005
Continued…
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16 Los Angeles Times
October 11, 2008
17 THE NELSON BROTHERS
Builders
The Nelson Brothers was a partnership between Martin Nelson and Nels Hans (known as Hans) Nelson–siblings who had been born in Sweden. (They also had an older brother Per Algot Nelson who evidently did not participate in the company.) Martin, who was the youngest brother, seems to have taken the lead in organizing the firm and remained the head of it until his retirement.
Martin Nelson, born in November 1885, immigrated to the United States in 1906. He later became a naturalized citizen. His first six years in America were spent largely in Minnesota and Colorado. He came to California in 1912 where his first job appears to have been as a gardener for a Los Angeles hotel. Martin and Hans formed Nelson Brothers Construction while living in San Francisco. By 1922 Martin had arrived in Glendale and was identified by directories of that era as a builder and contractor. He lived at 622 North Jackson Street with his wife Betty, also a native of Sweden. The family later lived at 1428 Andenes Drive. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson had three sons: Martin Phillip–known as “Phil” (born 1914), Hugh Kermit (1920-1956), and Francis M. (born 1933). Hugh became a well-known baritone soloist in musical comedies who appeared in national road companies and a number of times at the Greek Theater in Griffith Park.
By 1925, Martin had become the sole owner and operator of Nelson Brothers. The firm specialized in single-family residential construction in the Glendale/Burbank area. It was said that Nelson Brothers built over two hundred homes and was listed as one of the seven leading sub-dividers of the Glendale foothills in 1926. Martin Nelson was active in his profession, serving on the board of the Building Contractors Association of California in the late 1930s and as president of its Glendale-Burbank chapter. He was also a member of Rotary, the Elks, and the First Lutheran Church. Mr. Nelson served as president of the Swedish Club of Los Angeles and was active in the California Lutheran Hospital Society.
Following an education at U.C. Berkeley and service in World War II, Phil Nelson joined his father in the family construction business. Martin died in May 1958 at the age of 72. His obituaries from the Los Angeles Times and Glendale News-Press are attached. Martin’s brothers Hans and Per, having moved elsewhere in California at an unknown date, appear to have also both died in the 1950s. Phil Nelson continued to operate the business until 1975 when he retired from construction to pursue a real estate investment and sales career. He passed away in 1998.
As well as working with professional architects or building designers, the Nelsons were also responsible for the planning of many of their own houses–both those they built on speculation and those custom-built for clients. They may have purchased or “borrowed” plans and specifications from publications. A number of residences appear to have been influenced by designs published in house pattern-books and in popular magazines including Good Housekeeping, The Ladies’ Home Journal, and House and Garden. Once the plans were purchased, builders might then embellish them according to their own or their clients’ tastes.
18 Some builders were known to consult with established architects who, for a set fee, might quickly sketch out a few ideas for the builder to enlarge upon, without taking credit for the actual design. In other instances, the builder might engage the services of a non-professional designer or perhaps an un-licensed architect who, for one reason or another, wished to remain anonymous. (By the mid-1920s, state licensing laws prevented un-certificated designers from putting their names on building permits.) Some very successful builders employed architects on their staffs, but unfortunately their names were rarely included on the plans or building permits. Often these were designers just starting their careers, many of whom would later set up their own private practices. A number of important Southern California architects, such as Wallace Neff and Paul Williams, began their professional lives working for builders and real estate developers.
However, it must be emphasized that many experienced and talented builders, like Nelson Brothers, did not always engage architects but did their own design work. A builder who had worked with a number of well-known architects might “borrow” stylistic elements that he fancied or felt were marketable and incorporate them into his own buildings.
Tim Gregory
The Building Biographer
400 East California Blvd., #3
Pasadena, CA 91106-3763
626-792-7465
[email protected]
www.buildingbiographer.com
Copyright
June 2014
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