Santa Monica City Council
June 14, 2022

City Planning Division (310) 458-8341
Planning and Community Development Department www.smgov.net 09/18
CITY OF SANTA MONICA – CITY PLANNING DIVISION

DESIGNATION APPLICATION
Landmark Structure of Merit
Applications must be submitted by appointment at the City Planning public counter, Room 111 at City Hall, located at 1685 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401. To schedule an appointment or if you have any questions completing this application please call City Planning at (310) 458-8341. GENERAL INFORMATION PROJECT ADDRESS:

Land Use Element District: Zoning District:

Assessor Parcel: - - Lot Size:

APPLICANT
Name:

Address: Zip:

Phone: Fax:

Email:

CONTACT PERSON (if different) (Note: All correspondence will be sent to the applicant) Name:

Address: Zip:

Phone: Fax:

Email:

Relation to Applicant:

PROPERTY OWNER
Name:

Address: Zip:

Phone: Fax:

Subject improvement is generally known as:

Existing use(s) of site:

Rent control status:

Status: Occupied Unoccupied
Recognized in the Santa Monica Historic Resources Inventory: Yes No Condition: Excellent Good Fair Deteriorated Ruins Unexposed Threats: None Private Development Vandalism
Public Works Project Zoning Other:

This part to be completed by City staff
Received By: Amount Paid: $
Date Submitted: Check No.:

NOTES TO

APPLICANT
Please complete all
applicable sections
of this application
and submit all
required materials.

Incomplete
applications will not
be accepted for
filing.

Landmarks
Commission meets
on the second
Monday of each
month.

The applicant,
representative, or
legal owner familiar
with the project must
be present at the
Landmarks
Commission
meeting.

A decision on
designation is
rendered at the
hearing. All
decisions by the
Landmarks
Commission are
subject to a 10-day
appeal period. An
official appeal form
and fee schedule is
available at the City
Planning Division
Public Counter.

Appealed projects
will be scheduled for
a hearing before the
City Council.

Scott Albright 851.90
05/20/2021
21ENT-0125

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
~ Please Note ~
The following property and historical information identified below must be provided in order for your application to be determined complete by the City Planning Division.

You may provide information on additional sheets of paper.

PROPERTY INFORMATION
Description of site or structure, note any major alterations & dates of alterations:

Statement of architectural significance:

Statement of historic importance:

NOTES TO

APPLICANT
For more information
on designation
procedures, refer to
SMMC Section 9.56.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Person(s) of historic importance:

Local State National
Statement of other significance:

Documents and publications that relate directly to proposed improvement (bibliography):

FOR STRUCTURES ONLY:

Date of construction: Factual Estimated
Source:

Architect/Designer/Engineer:

Contractor/ Other builder:

Architectural Style:

Historic Use of Structure(s):

Present Use of Structure(s):

Is/Are structure(s) on original site: Yes No Unknown
Is/Are structure(s) threatened with destruction: Yes No Unknown If yes, state reason:

APPLICATOIN REQUIREMENTS
APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS – all items must be provided
Completed Application.

Payment of Fee, if applicable.

Payment of Fee is WAIVED for Non-Profit Organizations. Documentation demonstrating Tax-Exempt Status must be included with this application and at the time of filing to be eligible for a Landmark/Structure of Merit Designation Application fee waiver.

Staff will confirm non-profit organization status prior to deeming this application complete.

Eight (8) sets of labeled Color Photographs of the building elevations or improvement on 8½" x 11" paper (Color photocopies are acceptable).

Any information you feel would be of assistance in reviewing the application, such as original plans, old photos, or other historical information.

For structures only: if applicant is requesting approval of modifications, please submit all materials requested for a Certificate of Appropriateness Application.

I hereby certify that the information contained in this application is correct to the best of my knowledge. ____________________________________________________
Applicant’s Name (PRINT)
_________________________________________________________ Applicant’s Signature Date
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 631 Colorado Avenue – A.B.C. Distributing Company
Property Description
Description
The subject property includes two parcels, lots K and L in block 193 of the Town of Santa Monica Tract, on the northwest corner of Colorado Avenue and Seventh Street. It is developed with two brick, Art Deco/Streamline Moderne style light industrial buildings built in 1937 and 1941, that sit like bookends on the east and west edges of the parcel as viewed from Colorado Avenue. The east structure, built in 1937, covers the entire east 50 feet of the double lot adjoining three property lines. It was built with groutlock brick, a product intended to be resilient in the event of an earthquake, made by the Simons Brick Company. Its primary façade facing Colorado is divided into three bays separated by protruding piers embossed with four vertical grooved lines, and with stepped tapered caps that rise above the roofline. The area above the windows is stuccoed, decorated with two horizontal sets of grooved lines, three in each set, appearing continuous behind the piers. Steel-framed divided light windows with a grid pattern of 12 x 4 panes span the full width of each bay between the piers, inclusive of six sets of hopper windows. Below the windows the bricks that comprise the structure are exposed, and the groutlock ridges of some bricks are visible. The secondary elevation facing east abuts the sidewalk on Seventh Street. It is divided into six bays by a reinforced cement support structure of vertical and horizontal beams that are flush with the surface of the brick. The bay closest to Colorado Avenue is punctuated by a 6 x 4 multi-light steel framed window, also with hoppers inclusive. Each of the next four bays heading north has a small steel framed hopper window in the center, flush with the ceiling height as marked by a horizontal reinforced concrete beam.

The west elevation of the subject property faces the interior of the parcel and is not completely visible from the public right of way. It appears to be divided into six bays like the east elevation, with similar small steel hopper windows. The third bay in from Colorado Avenue contains the building entrance with a contemporary doorway. A second story addition was added above the northern most bay at the rear of the structure in 1998, and a single story el has been added to the interior side of the same bay.

The west structure measuring 25 X 42 feet, sits on the south and west property lines of the parcel, fronting Colorado Avenue and adjacent to an alley. The brick façade facing Colorado Avenue is obscured by a hedge, but appears to be intact. It shares the beamed support structure of the main building on the site. All four corners of the west structure are finished with piers with tapered caps similar to those on the east building but appear to be either replaced or altered. They are finished with plain, smooth concrete. The west, north and east elevations are clad in smooth-finish concrete or stucco and have no openings. The building entrance is on the east elevation facing the interior of the site, which is not visible from the street.
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Permits and Alterations
The original building permit for the east structure was issued to A.B.C. Distributing Company on May 8, 1937, indicating a 50 X 100-foot structure, 20 feet in height to be built of groutlock brick at a cost of $7000. No architect is listed. According to a permit dated December 11, 1941, the west structure was added as a loading canopy that cost $500. It had a composition roof but sat at ground level with no raised floor. The west side of the structure was unenclosed. In 1947, a loading platform and doors were added for $800.

In June 1955, both brick buildings were sandblasted. The Aerophysics Development Corporation filed for electrical and plumbing permits in August, September and November 1955, but did not make any structural changes to the property. In 1957, Keystone Body Works replaced four interior columns with two in the west structure, and built a 21-foot addition to it along the alley elevation to serve as an enclosed paint spray booth. It appears in aerial images that a remaining residential structure on the site was removed at that time. The following year, in 1958, Keystone added an unenclosed canopy structure for polishing cars behind the spray booth, which filled in the remaining alley elevation to five feet from the north property line. Keystone also added an 18 square foot metal projecting sign to the property. The central area of the parcel remained undeveloped. In 1959, a permit for an 8-foot-tall cinder block wall along the alley was issued. No more substantive work was done on the property until a 1994 Safety Assessment after the Northridge Earthquake noted that bricks had fallen from an unidentified “rear wall.” Regardless, the building was green tagged because the “building doesn’t look like it took any damage.” It is likely that the brick wall referred to fell from the west structure abutting the alley, or on its north elevation where it is presently stuccoed.

In 1996, a new owner filed a permit for tenant improvements, which appear to be the addition of partition walls inside the east structure. The west structure is labeled “storage” on the plans.

The two automotive-related additions to the west structure were removed, but the block wall along the alley was retained. The space between the structures was marked for 17 parking spaces. In 1997 the bricks on both buildings were sandblasted a second time, inside and out.

A 730 square foot second-story addition was added in 1998 along the rear (north) elevation of the primary structure over the last bay. It is subtly differentiated by flashing along the Seventh Street elevation where it ties in at the top of the exposed structural ceiling beam. The east and south elevations of the addition are clad in brick to match the original structure. The addition is differentiated with a scored stucco finish on the north side, with the original bricks remaining exposed on the original ground floor wall below. The addition is punctuated by two steel windows on the east elevation facing Seventh Street that are larger than the ground floor windows and set midway between the floor and ceiling. The addition is not visible from the front of the property at Colorado Avenue. On the west elevation a first-floor-only addition appears to create a shallow el by modestly extending the sixth bay. The addition has a scored 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 plaster finish on the interior-facing elevations, and full width windows facing west that proportionally reflect the windows facing Colorado Avenue. That same year, a fence was added to close off the Colorado frontage between the two structures, and the curb cut was removed.

The fence is comprised of a low concrete wall topped by contemporary curved wrought iron pickets rising to ten or more feet and punctuated by square columns that reflect the design of the original fluted pilasters on the east structure, but are differentiated as new by the smooth cement and black metal tapered caps. The fencing picks up again along the alley frontage behind the west structure, where only iron pickets are used to create an automatic gate for vehicular access. In 2002, the present owner filed a permit for an interior remodel of the two buildings, and the addition of landscaping to the site, primarily along the west elevation of the east structure where it meets the addition.

Comparables
From the 1950s through the 1990s, the eastern portion of Downtown was dominated by low brick commercial industrial buildings. Today, only two one-story brick commercial industrial buildings in addition to the subject property remain standing in Downtown Santa Monica at 501 Broadway Avenue (built in 1955) and at 1557 7th Street (built in 1958). They are both featureless brick buildings with simple boxy massing. Both properties currently have replacement projects that are working their way through the city entitlement process. The subject project is both the first and the last of its type in downtown, and the only one known to have used historically significant engineering methods or to be reflective of an architectural style.

Simons Brick & the Groutlock System
Brickmaking took place in Santa Monica in the first months after its founding when the bricks that built the Rapp Saloon (extant) on Second Street were fired on site by brick contractors Spenser and Pugh, who had collected the clay on the east side of town. By 1903, the prospects for brickmaking concerns in the Los Angeles area were so great that Robert Jones (the founder’s nephew) and William Gillis (older brother to R.C. Gillis), began a brick plant of their own, Sunset Brick and Tile, near Twenty-third Street and Colorado Avenue. They were major shareholders in the successor company that bought out the remaining holdings from the retiring founders. The new brick concern help establish the city’s industrial district just beyond the edge of the original townsite between Colorado Avenue and the edge of the Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica at Pico Boulevard. They sold Sunset Brick and Tile to the Los Angeles Pressed Brick Company (established 1887) a year later. Two months after that, in November 1904, the Simons Brick Company (established 1886) also began setting up shop in Santa Monica. With deep reserves of excellent clay, Simons planned that Santa Monica would become their new main plant since the reserves in their original Pasadena clay pits were running low, and their Boyle Heights plant was small. But in 1906, they added a vast new site in Montebello to their portfolio, which enabling 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 their business to expand beyond expectations, became their main plant. While some brick firing did take place in Santa Monica, a lot of the uniquely deep-red, high-quality clay that came out of the Santa Monica pits were moved by railroad to the Montebello plant for processing.

Simons Brick became the largest brick manufactory in the world at its peak in 1924. The company founded by Reuben Simons was built up under the leadership of eldest son “Big Joe” Simons. In 1914, a coup that resulted in a family feud, shifted leadership to Joe’s youngest brother Walter Simons who saw the company through its heyday, final demise, and dissolution in 1952. Simons Brick is both celebrated for its brick and ignominious for the company town they built in Montebello which was the largest, racially segregated industrial town ever built in the United States.

With demand for building supplies slowing after the Great Depression began in 1929, it was the beginning of the end for Simons Brick. Things turned abruptly for the worse on March 10, 1933, when the Long Beach Earthquake wreaked havoc on the Southland, causing severe damage to most masonry buildings standing at the time, and schools in particular. Shoddy brickmaking, bricklaying, grout quality, and building engineering were blamed for the failure of masonry structures during the earthquake more than the material itself.1 But brick fell out of favor anyway, used mostly for small scale industrial buildings such as the subject property through the end of the 1930s. The Riley Act, which among other things required all California cities to have building departments with teams of inspectors to enforce a new uniform building code, was adopted soon after the quake. The Field Act established rigorous new seismic safety standards for school buildings in particular. Groutlock brick had been developed by Simons Brick a year before the earthquake. The groutlocks featured corrugated ridges on the grout faces of the brick, and gaps for inserting metal reinforcing rods. Both features locked the bricks together even during a seismic event that introduced lateral forces. Walter Simons began promoting his groutlock product aggressively soon after the Long Beach Earthquake, using it to build back trust in brick for safety and permanence.
2 Simons was back in production at a rate of
150,000 groutlock bricks per day within a few months of the quake, only ten percent of their peak production, but a big boost to the foundering company.3 New structural reinforcement techniques, such as use of reinforced concrete beams that isolated sections of a structure so in the event of damage it was less likely that a whole building would collapse, along with the use of the groutlock brick allowed brick construction to tentatively begin again. All these engineering innovations are demonstrated in the subject property. Construction slow-downs during WWII struck the final blow to Simons Brick, which shut down all its plants by 1950. No other groutlock brick structures are known in Santa Monica. 1 Quake Building Law May Be Softened to Permit Some Bricks, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California, May 21, 1933, Brick Chatter, Pasadena Post, Pasadena, California, March 22, 1934 2 Home Features Reveal Genius, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California, May 1, 1932 3 Factories Throughout City Increasing Production, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California, May 21, 1933 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Early Context
The map for the Town of Santa Monica was recorded with the county clerk on July 10, 1875. It included the area between today’s Colorado Avenue and Montana Avenue and extended east from the Pacific Ocean to Twenty-sixth Street. But parcels in most of that area were not placed on the market for many years, remaining largely agricultural. When the first land auction took place on July 15, 1875, sales were focused on the blocks closest to the coast and railroad that came through the city just south of Railroad (Colorado) Avenue. By the time the City of Santa Monica was incorporated in 1886, development was concentrated along Ocean Avenue, Second, Third and Fourths Streets. Commercial activity was centered on Second and Third Streets between Utah (Broadway) Avenue and Oregon (Santa Monica) Avenue. South of Utah to the railroad tracks was developed with stables, boarding houses, and small dwellings. North of the commercial center were large homes, many on double lots, and churches representing three different denominations.4 By the 1891 Sanborn map, the north side with larger homes had extended north as far as Washington Avenue, and enjoyed the addition of a tennis club and the opulent home of city co-founder John Percival Jones. The dwellings south of Oregon Avenue, and particularly south of Utah Avenue now extended east to Sixth Street and were notably smaller than those on the north side. Tucked between the town and the railroad, they shared their small district with three Chinese laundries.5 By 1895, development south of Utah Avenue extended east as far as Ninth Street and included the subject parcel, which was shown with a small, narrow cottage and several accessory structures behind it on the Sanborn map that year. The area was dotted with numerous similar dwellings, and several others hardly bigger than sheds.

According to historian Dr. Alison Rose Jefferson, Santa Monica enjoys the oldest African American community on the Southern California coast.6 At the time of the 1880 census, fifteen African Americans out of a total Santa Monica population of 417 lived in the city.7 According to census records, between 1880 and 1900, the African American population in Santa Monica crept up to 60 persons, an increase that lagged slightly behind the overall population of the city, which jumped from 417 persons to 3057.

Most African Americans in Santa Monica at the end of the nineteenth century made their homes in today’s downtown between Broadway and Colorado Avenues, at the edge of town by the railroad tracks. A few scattered households were on Main Street in Ocean Park, and a few more African American households were scattered around in unincorporated areas in the east part of the city. Only those who worked as live-in domestics were residing on the north side of 4 Santa Monica, California, Sanborn Map, 1887 5 Santa Monica, California, Sanborn Map, 1891 6 A Short History: Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century Santa Monica African American Community, Draft 2, by Alison Rose Jefferson, Belmar History + Art Project for the City of Santa Monica, 2018 7 United States Census, Santa Monica, California, 1880, www.ancestry.com 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 town.8 Between 1900 and 1910, the African American population in Santa Monica grew to 191, keeping pace with the population growth for Caucasians by remaining at 2% of those that called Santa Monica home.9 By 1910 many African American families were also living in the Bandini Tract as well, an area that included the Belmar Triangle and the western half of the present day Santa Monica High School campus inclusive of Firth Street.

The community of African Americans in Santa Monica established numerous religious and social organizations in the early 1900s. They first held religious services in Santa Monica in Hull’s Hall on Third Street near Utah Avenue (Broadway).10 Hull’s Hall, a public meeting space available for rent above a furniture store, was in the center of the earliest grouping of African American homes. But the dream was to have a church of their own. In 1908, the Washington School at the corner of Ashland and Fourth Streets in Ocean Park was damaged by fire and slated for demolition, to be replaced with a fireproof structure. The tragedy had fortuitous timing for African Americans who, with the help of the larger church organization in Texas, purchased the building from the school district, and a site at the corner of Bay and Fourth Streets on which to place it.11 The Santa Monica A.M.E. Church was named Phillips Chapel. New social and political organizations were formed regularly following the establishment of Phillips Chapel, including the Afro-American Council of Santa Monica that provided support to African Americans for rent, real estate matters, and other practical needs, a literary group called The Forum, and a chapter of the Masonic Lodge dedicated to African Americans.12 A Santa Monica Chapter of the NAACP was established by a strong community of activists which had Phillips Chapel at its center.

Etta Vena Moxley: “Lifting As We Climb”
On January 5, 1897, Etta Vena married John Walter Moxley in Los Angeles. Soon after they moved to Santa Monica and made a home on the subject property where they lived for over thirty years.

Etta Vena was born on March 27, 1870 in Toledo, Ohio to William Walter Vena of Kentucky, and Georgiana Newton of Virginia. The year before her own wedding, Etta Vena’s brother Clarence Vena married her fiancé’s sister (whose name was also Etta, so her married name was Etta Moxley Vena). John Walter Moxley was born on April 6, 1862 in Dresden, Ontario, to a Black 8 United States Census, Santa Monica, California, 1880-1920, www.ancestry.com 9 Will Help Solve the Question, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, June 6, 1903 10 Colored People Want a Church, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, March 2, 1908 11 Phillips Chapel Christian (formerly Colored) Methodist Episcopal Church, by Alison Rose Jefferson, Term Paper, Spring 2005, University of Southern California, submitted to the City of Santa Monica as documentation for the Landmarks Designation of Phillips Chapel, 401 Bay Street, October 10, 2005 12 Afro-American Council Holds Interesting Meet, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, November 11, 1910, Forum Organized at Phillips Chapel, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, February 18, 1911, Masonic Lodge for the Colored People, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, February 27, 1911 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Canadian mother, Melvina Richey of the same place and John Walter Moxley Sr. a drayman (truck driver) born in Georgetown, Kentucky. The Moxley’s moved to Toledo, Ohio in 1878, soon after Melvina died from complications of childbirth. The two families lived on the same block in Toledo in the 1880s. John Walter Moxley’s other known siblings were Alice, Emma and James. Etta Vena Moxley had at least one other brother named Edward. She also had a cousin, James Vena, who was the editor of a newspaper for the African American community in Los Angeles. It appears that both the Moxley and Vena families lived as free Blacks as early as 1840 in their respective homes in Kentucky and Ontario. J.W. Moxley Jr. moved to California in 1888.

Etta Vena and several other family members among the Moxley’s and the Vena’s also moved to California around that time.13
Newlyweds John and Etta Moxley settled in Santa Monica at 103 Seventh Street. Based on an examination of Sanborn Maps and old street numbering patterns, it appears that this was the address of a pre-1895 cottage at the corner of Seventh Street and Colorado Avenue, the subject parcel. By 1899, John had established himself as a barber at 214 Third Street, a midblock shop between Utah and Oregon Avenues (Broadway and Santa Monica Boulevards). 14 By 1901, the
barbershop was well-known enough to be invited to enter a float in the Fourth of July Parade in Santa Monica.
15 In September 1902, the deed for the subject parcel at Seventh Street and Railroad Avenue (Colorado Avenue), where they had already been living, was recorded by John P. and Georgina Jones to J.W. and Etta V. Moxley.16 Soon, Moxley added three new chairs to his barbershop, and the couple added a $400 frame cottage with five rooms to their parcel behind the original cottage. Etta gave up a job working for a caterer in Los Angeles to start her own business catering weddings, luncheons, banquets, and receptions for white society ladies. She worked from home at Seventh and Colorado.17 The hard-working Moxley’s were well on their way in their quest to achieve the American Dream.
13 Moxley and Vena, Los Angeles County, California Marriage Licenses, January 5, 1897, www.findmypast.com, John Walter Moxley, State of California Department of Public Health, Vital Statistics, Standard Certificate of Death, October 15, 1938, www.findmypast.com
14 J.W. Moxley, Santa Monica Directory, 1899, Santa Monica Public Library 15 A Grand Parade, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, June 2, 1901 16 Jones to Moxley, Los Angeles County Deed Records Book 1621, page 181, September 2, 1902, www.familysearch.com, [Note: this deed only transferred lot L in block 193 of the Town of Santa Monica Tract.

Evidence was found that the Moxley’s did own both properties, but a somewhat exhaustive search did not come up with a deed for lot K. Also, the deed may reflect the satisfaction of a mortgage, taken on the property a few years earlier, which might explain how they came to live there prior to the deed recording date. Still the cottage pre-dated the Moxley’s arrival in Santa Monica. It may have been built buy a previous buyer who was not able to satisfy their mortgage resulting in the ownership of house and lot reverting back to Jones.] 17 (untitled), Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, March 19, 1903, A New Cottage on Colorado, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, December 8, 1903, (untitled), Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, September 30, 1904
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Meanwhile, Etta Moxley’s commitment to public service and community organizing was becoming publicly apparent. With no equivalent yet in Santa Monica, Etta remained associated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles. The A.M.E. Church at the turn-ofthe-century did not open leadership positions to women. Instead, to exercise their influence church women formed groups, societies and coalitions to bring people together, socialize, raise money, and provide community services. In 1898, Etta V. Moxley was elected president of the Women’s Mite Missionary Society, one such women’s organization associated with the church.18 In 1904, Etta Moxley gave a speech at the Afro-American Congress in Los Angeles entitled Club Life Among Colored People. She told her audience that for the people of her race to achieve their goals under the pressures of racism, they had to be super-achievers, to be the very best at what they set out to do. Drawing on the up-close observations of the white women’s club luncheons she catered, Etta explained what that meant for African American club women.

We are the greatest imitators in the world and what our white sisters can do we can do.

We have many women’s clubs, and we are anxious to imitate our white sisters in that respect, but we seem to have missed a point; our club soon degenerates into a social club or a literary society. Such a club disgraces the name of women’s club and can never gain the recognition for which we strive. There are likely white women’s clubs that do the same, but we are only entitled to credit when we imitate them in the best things. . . .

We must do things if we wish to be recognized. When we have provided education for our young men and women and homes for our old folks, we will have done something worthy of recognition, for we will have made ourselves benefactors to all the people.19 “Lifting as we Climb,” was the official motto of the National Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, and appears to have been Etta Moxley’s personal motto as well. In 1905, Etta was appointed president of the Sojourner Truth Industrial Club, a new group within the church that had been founded the previous year by Mrs. J.M. Scott. Under Etta Moxley’s leadership, a large committee of the Sojourner Truth Club was preparing to build a group residence for unmarried, self-supporting, African American women, a group that would be very vulnerable without community support in a large city like Los Angeles. The Sojourner Truth Home was entirely funded and managed by African American women. It was the first establishment of its kind in the state, and the only one for several decades.20 During this highly productive period in Etta’s life references to the delicious meals she catered to the white club women of Santa Monica appeared regularly in the society pages of the Santa Monica Outlook. She appeared to have 18 Women on a Mission: African Methodist Episcopal Missionary Women, Gender and Race Relations, 1900-1940, Claire Cooke, Doctoral Thesis, School of Humanities, University of Western Australia, 2014, How To Get Up, Los Angeles Evening Post, Los Angeles, California, August 20, 1898 19 Colored Women Take Laurels, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California, August 31, 1904 20 (untitled), Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, November 15, 1904, Will Assist Negro Girls, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California, April 13, 1906, The Criminalization of Black Angeleno Women:

Institutionalized Racism and Sexism in Los Angeles, by Kaitlin Therese Boyd, Master’s Thesis, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 2012
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 been highly regarded as a caterer among her club-member employers who ranked at the top of Santa Monica society and spent significant time and money on lavish luncheons. In 1907, the Sojourner Truth Home was up and running, and Etta was elected president of the group for the third time. She travelled to Oakland that year to represent her club at the State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs.21
While his wife worked to make the world a better place, Mr. Moxley became treasurer of a new Santa Monica Union League in 1908, which held card parties and other social gatherings for men. Not particularly active in community organizing, J.W. Moxley attracted a different kind of attention in the news when he was arrested for firing his gun within the city limits while hunting ducks. It is worth noting that he was south of Pico Boulevard during the infraction, which was undeveloped land. Not all the circumstances were reported. 22 He did serve as a poll
officer for a local election.
23 On August 16, 1908 the Moxley’s only child, a daughter they named Honoré, was born.

In 1910, Etta Moxley and Mrs. S.A. Wright organized a Santa Monica Chapter of the National Association of Colored Women. The national president of the association, the largest African American women’s group in the country at the time, was Mrs. Booker T. Washington. The activist organization promoted African American women’s suffrage, which was not represented in the mainstream suffrage movement. They also pushed back against Jim Crow laws, and worked to improve schools and educational opportunities for African Americans. Etta began as secretary on the founding board of the local chapter of the N.A.C.W., 24 and she delivered
periodic speeches at events at Philips Chapel reflecting her important work. She was soon elected vice-president of the State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs as well, which published a cookbook in 1910 featuring two of Etta Moxley’s recipes.

Marshmallow Salad
1 fourth Ib. marshmallows cut up
1 half Ib. pecan nuts broken in bits
1 cup white cherries
1 cup pineapple cut up
Dressing, 1 half cup whipped cream
1 third cup mayonnaise
21 Gone to Attend State Federation, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, August 5, 1907 22 Hunts in Middle of City, Los Angeles Herald, Los Angeles, California November 27, 1909 23 Colored People Have Organized, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, February 12, 1908, Precincts, Polling Places and Officers of Road Bond Election, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, July 22, 1908 24 Colored Women Are to be Organized Here, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, March 18, 1910, National Association of Colored Women, Allison Lange, Ph.D., National Women’s History Museum, http://www.crusadeforthevote.org/nacw, Fall 2015
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Chill the fruits and before serving mix with dressing and place on lettuce leaf. MRS. ETTA V. MOXLEY, First Vice President of State Federation, Santa Monica.

Jellied Potato Salad
One quart cold boiled potatoes cut in dice. Coat small moulds with gelatine decorate with sliced pimolas. Put the potatoes with a very little onion, celery and cucumber into the mould. Season the rest of the gelatine which is the remainder of the half box used, with parsley and onion and pour over the ingredients in the mold, chill and turn out on a lettuce leaf. Serve with mayonnaise in which a cup of shrimps has been chopped. MRS.

ETTA V. Moxley, Santa Monica Cateress.25
In 1912, Etta V. Moxley, was elected president of the State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs. As leader of the club of clubs, Etta toured the state, visiting all fifty-two member organizations in California. She returned from the tour and was re-elected to serve as president for another year, and also as delegate to an upcoming National Federation meeting in Wilberford, Ohio.26 Her husband John continued his participation in more leisure oriented clubs, hosting The Rising Son’s League of Santa Monica at his barber shop, which had moved to 219 Utah Avenue (Broadway) in the Keller Block. John served as treasurer to the group as well as host.27 By contrast, Etta became a blur of purposeful activity presiding over numerous groups, fundraisers, and rallies for political causes, and giving speeches continually over the next decades. In 1914 as president of the Colored Women’s Vincent Morgan Club, she presided at a rally on the brand-new tennis courts of the La Bonita on Belmar Place. (Etta often worked closely with respected Los Angeles matron Mrs. G.M. Warner, who was the aunt of Helen Warren, owner of La Bonita.)28 Etta Moxley publicly endorsed local candidates, started new civics organizations, and gave more speeches. Her daughter Honoré was often at her side, sometimes playing piano as part of the entertainment at events. With other members of Phillips Chapel she organized get-out-the-vote campaigns for the African American community, continuing to take a special interest in women’s suffrage. The church also formed a women’s auxiliary dedicated to Red Cross work in 1917, with Etta Moxley an active participant.29 A family tragedy occurred in 1917, when the police were called due to a disturbance in the Moxley home. Etta was found bloodied and unconscious on the floor. She had been badly beaten by her husband. Etta pressed charges which resulted in her husband spending six months in jail. It appears that she lived apart from her husband for more than a year, before 25 The Federation Cookbook, A Collection of Tested Recipes Contributed by the Colored Women of the State of California, by Mrs. Bertha L. Turner, State Superintendent Domestic Science, Pasadena California, 1910, Library of Congress
26 To Inspect Colored Clubs of State, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, July 29, 1913, Honor for Local Woman, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, August 7, 1913 27 Rising Son’s Meet, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, October 31, 1913 28 (untitled), Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, August 21, 1914 29 Members of Colored Church Work for Red Cross, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, December 15, 1917
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 they reconciled.30 Etta maintained her day-job as a caterer, and until 1920 also served as a janitor at one of the branch libraries in Santa Monica possibly to make up for her husband’s lost income.
31 A group called the Monday Morning Club opened new headquarters on San Juan Avenue in Venice in 1926, after holding its first meetings in a Baptist Church nearby. Mrs. Moxley was not only a board member, and later president of the club, but was part-owner of the underlying property. Well-known and respected in the African American women’s club world, Etta spoke at the inaugural event for the Monday Morning Club house.
32 When W.E.B. Du Bois came to speak
in the area in 1927, Mrs. Moxley made a presentation on behalf of all club women at that event as well.
33 In 1929, Honoré Moxley graduated from the University of Southern California, receiving a Bachelor’s Degree in Education.34 Around the same time, her parents moved from her childhood home at 631 Colorado Avenue to 1458 Euclid Street on the outskirts of the Pico Neighborhood, which was concentrated between 14th Street and Cloverfield Avenue, and between Santa Monica and Pico Boulevards.
35 They held on to the Colorado Avenue parcels,
which were developed with several rental cottages. Following in her mother’s footsteps, Honoré delivered a keynote address at the First A.M.E. Church in Venice as part of a weekly evening program for which Etta Moxley herself delivered a keynote address the following week.36
The Moxley’s move to Euclid Street was consistent with the overall migration of African Americans, and all people of color in Santa Monica during the 1920s and 1930s. Downtown Santa Monica, concentrated on Second, Third and Fourth Streets, was becoming a commercial success, and racist practices among realtors that became openly accepted in the 1920s made it difficult for boom-time African American new-comers to the city to settle new sections of downtown. The block of Seventh Street where the Moxley’s lived was almost entirely populated by African Americans and Latinx but with no room to expand their community, the new-comers and their cultural activities, clubs, and churches, became established in the Pico Neighborhood.

A new Masonic Lodge Hall on Eighteenth Street and Broadway hosted a well-attended candidates forum sponsored by the Federated Clubs and presided over by Etta Moxley in 1930.

Her political endorsements delivered in open letters carried weight in her community eager to ensure they voted for representatives who were unprejudiced and would treat people of all 30 Husband Beat Wife Most Cruelly, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, September 12, 1917, Wife Beater Jailed, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles California, September 14, 1917 31 Story Hour at Public Library Pleases ‘Kiddies’, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, November 3, 1920 32 New Quarters of Club Dedicated at Sunday Services, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, December 3, 1926
33 DuBois Addresses Large Gathering, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, February 23, 1927 34 Santa Monicans to Receive Diplomas, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, June 13, 1929 35 [Note: the Moxley moved sometime between 1927 and 1930.] 36 First (Venice), Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, April 26, 1930, May 10, 1930 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 races fairly.37 Etta Moxley was active in the Womens’ Political Study Club during this period, which became known for advocating for equal access to public places for African Americans by engaging the courts.38
As Etta Moxley entered her 60s, she still worked as a club-luncheon caterer in Santa Monica and continued to take the speaker’s podium at churches, organizational meetings, fund raisers for social service causes, and political events. Her husband John Walter Moxley retired from barbering and passed away at home on Euclid Street in 1938. He had sold the site of their first Santa Monica home (subject property) the previous year to beer distributor Glen A. Moyer. Etta Vena Moxley died on January 28, 1950. Her obituary credited her with a host of additional affiliations not mentioned in the survey above including being one of the organizers of the order of Eastern Star in California, and Matrix of the O.E.S., Past Matron of Orpha Chapter, O.E.S. and Heroines of Jericho, and Past Historian of Delta Mothers and Sponsors Club.39 Other sources add that she had been a “trail blazer” in the Fanny J. Wall Home and Day Nursery, and the Eastside Settlement House.
40 Honoré Moxley was married three times and divorced twice. Her first marriage in 1931 was to Harry Chandler Wallace. In 1937, Honoré married Edgar Carey, and in 1949 she married Kenneth Irving Levy.41 She served as president of her chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority for three terms (the first African American Sorority in the United States established in 1912), worked as a teacher and guidance counselor in Los Angeles public schools, and continued her own education at USC and Los Angeles State College, eventually earning a Ph.D. She was politically progressive, at one point attracting the attention of the Committee on Un-American Activities, which claimed to ferret out suspected communists. In 1954 four years after her mother’s death, Honoré emceed the golden anniversary celebration of the Sojourner Truth Home her mother helped found. In 1956 at Jefferson High School, she became the first African American woman to head the counselling department in a secondary school in Los Angeles.

Honoré Moxley Levy died in 1979.

Tenants on the Moxley Property
The structures on the subject property during the Moxley years were listed under a variety of addresses, including 619, 621, 625, 631, 641 Colorado Avenue, and on Seventh Street they were 37 Candidates Speak at Club Gathering, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, July 2, 1930, Negroes Endorse Lyon, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, August 18, 1930 38 Santa Monica, California Eagle, Los Angeles, California, October 12, 1934 39 Pioneer Mrs. Etta Vena Moxley Passes After Short Illness, California Eagle, Los Angeles, California, February 2, 1950
40 Negro Who’s Who in California, Negro Who’s Who in California Publishing Company, 1948 41 Wallace to Moxley, Marriage License, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, June 19, 1931, www.findmypast.com, Carey to Moxley, Marriage License, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, November 21, 1937, www.findmypast.com, Levy to Moxley, Marriage License, Orange County, California, June 19, 1931, www.findmypast.com
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 numbered 1554, 1558, and 1562. There were four cottages and a small commercial building.

The latter was squeezed onto the corner of the parcel where Seventh Street and Colorado Avenue intersect around 1925, though no permit was found for it. It appears that the Moxley’s lived in the “front” house on 7th Street until they built the cottage known as 621 Colorado behind it in 1905 for which a permit was found. They lived there until 1928, when they moved to Euclid Street. The cottage known as 619 Colorado, on the west side of the Moxley’s, and the cottage just north of that known as 1554 Seventh Street were added between 1907 and 1912.

No permits were found for either of those cottages. Santa Monica directories through 1928 show the cottages occupied by a range of laborers, fishermen, housekeepers, laundresses, plasterers, janitors, and others. The small commercial building added in 1925 was occupied by neighborhood-serving uses including John Moxley’s barbershop, a grocery, and a second-hand furniture shop. Directories from 1931-1936 show a number of vacancies on the property leading up to its sale in 1937.

A.B.C. Distributing Company & the Growth of Downtown
In 1937, Glen A. Moyer applied for a building permit for a one-story brick office and warehouse building at 631 Colorado Avenue to house the A.B.C. Distributing Company, which distributed beer for the Aztec Brewing Company based in San Diego. Moyer was born an Iowa farm boy in August 1891. By 1920, he had left his father’s farm and was living on his own doing odd jobs.42 In 1929, Moyer married Zora McCourry in San Diego, California. She worked in a steam laundry, and he was a machinist in a steel mill. In 1933, with prohibition about to be sent packing, Aztec Brewing Company made a big push to find entrepreneurs to disseminate throughout the region to distribute their beer to very thirsty Americans. Like many beer companies across the United States, the Aztec Brewing Company had made several major preemptive moves in order to be ready on day one, when laws relaxed and then repealed prohibition. Moyer was in the right place at the right time to leverage the opportunity to his own advantage by accepting a beer distribution franchise.

In 1931, when repeal of prohibition was coming down the pike, enforcement in Los Angeles County was lax.43 But it wasn’t until after the November 1932 election of Franklin D. Roosevelt that there was real movement towards legalizing drink. On March 22, 1933, Roosevelt signed the Cullen-Harrison Act that made sales of low-alcohol beer and wine permissible while the complete end of prohibition cranked its way through the machinery of United States politics, which was expected to take years. The act became effective two weeks later on April 7, which some beer enthusiasts still celebrate as National Beer Day. The complete repeal of national prohibition occurred sooner than anticipated on December 5, 1933, with the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution. 42 Glen A. Moyer, United States Census, Guthrie County, Iowa, 1900, www.ancestry.com, Glen A. Moyer, United States Census, Crook County, Wyoming, 1910 & 1920, www.ancestry.com 43 Prohibition’s Thing of Past, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, November 7, 1931 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 The Aztec Brewing Company was established in Mexicali, Mexico in 1921, during prohibition in the United States by American businessmen Edward P. Baker, Herbert Jaffe and William H.

Strouse. Their products became very popular among Americans who travelled to Baja to drink.

Their best seller was an award-winning pale lager dubbed “Famous A.B.C. Beer,” recognized in Mexican and Spanish beer competitions. In April 7, 1933, the day the Cullen-Harrison Act became law, Baker announced that the Aztec Brewing Company had already moved to San Diego where the new plant was prepped and ready to start beer production, strategically poised to get in on the ground floor of the long-suppressed beer industry in the United States.44 The army of franchise holders was immediately deployed, fanning out over the western United States. Over the next several months, liquor license applications for A.B.C. Distribution Company outlets from counties all over California, as well as Arizona, Nevada, and Utah were filed by the group organized by the brewery before the laws had changed. 45 Glen A. Moyer, of the first wave of A.B.C. Distributors during that heady beer-only-permitted period in 1933, set up his first location at 1711 Washington Boulevard (Abbot Kinney Boulevard) in Venice. An ad for Moyer’s business appeared in the Santa Monica Outlook in August. An advertisement in the Los Angeles Times the next day listed no less than six A.B.C.

Distributing Company outlets in Los Angeles County, including Moyer’s. But so far, none were in the more conservative Santa Monica, where the end of prohibition was not welcomed the way it was in fun-loving Venice. Since the new alcohol rules were administered at the county level, it was legal to drink low-alcohol beer in Santa Monica, but city ordinances prevented its sale to end users by the drink where there was dancing or even standing. Santa Monica imbibers had to be firmly planted on a chair or stool with a plate a food in front of them in order to be served.46 As Santa Monica adjusted to the new reality of legal drink, Glen Moyer moved his outlet for A.B.C. Distributing Company a little further north to 2611 Main Street, at the corner of Ocean Park Boulevard by 1936. The exact date of the move was not found, but a flurry of advertisements for A.B.C. Beer at the Main Street location appeared in the Santa Monica Outlook in March and April of that year, a strategy Moyer may have used to ensure his regular customers would be able to find him in a new location. There was one other beer distributor in the city directory at that time, M&B Distributing at 1551 12th Street. No information was found about M&B Distributing, who owned it, or exactly what they sold.47 Moyer’s A.B.C. Distributing Company needed more space than either of the tiny properties on Abbot Kinney Boulevard and Main Street it had been occupying afforded. Glen A. Moyer purchased lots K & L in block 193 of the Santa Monica Tract from John and Etta Moxley so he 44 Brewery Sold, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California, April 7, 1933 45 Applications for Beer Sale Granted Eight, Santa Ana Register, Santa Ana, California, July 12, 1933, A.B.C. Beer Advertisement, The Bakersfield Californian, Los Angeles, California, September 1, 1933 46 Police Ordered to Close Al Pseudo Saloons Within the City, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, December 7, 1933
47 Brewer’s Agents, Santa Monica City Directory, 1936, www.ancestry.com 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 could expand his business. On May 8, 1937, Moyer applied for a building permit for a one-story office and warehouse building. The 50- by 100-foot structure sat along three lot lines at the east end of the double lot and cost $7000. It was made with groutlock brick, an innovation of Simons Brick Company heavily promoted after the 1933 Long Beach Earthquake. One cottage and a garage from the Moxley period of ownership remained on the north-west edge of the parcel.

The other cottages were demolished.
48 In the mid to late 1930s, evidence of efforts to emerge from the Great Depression began to yield results in reports of development activity in downtown Santa Monica. Montgomery Ward, Sears, and J.C. Penney were all building or improving stores, as were Coast Outfitting, Thrifty Drug, and Henshey’s Department Store. Remodeling on a smaller scale was going on in numerous other locally-based establishments. Parking meters, which were patented in 1927 and first installed in Oklahoma City in 1935, came to downtown Santa Monica in August 1936 on a trial basis (they succeeded), and alleys in downtown up to 5th Street were made one way to relieve traffic confusion.49 Second, Third, and Fourth Streets in downtown had made a dramatic transition to commercial uses during the population and development booms of the 1920s. The success of Santa Monica’s commercial district in the post-Depression era was assured. Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Streets in downtown were still almost entirely residential in spite of the aspirational C-Zone (commercial) designation all of downtown up to Lincoln Boulevard in the 1922 zoning ordinance. The homes that remained in downtown represented the first section of middle- and working-class homes in the city. Most of the cottages dated from the 1880s through the turn of the century and were now showing their age. Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Streets between Colorado and Santa Monica Boulevards in particular was a neighborhood of people of color at the former edge of town since the earliest days when the downtown section comprised the entire developed area of the city.

The A.B.C. Distributing Company was the first major commercial structure in Santa Monica’s downtown east of the core original commercial district on Second, Third, and Fourth Streets. By the time of an aerial photograph taken on March 5, 1940, the subject property built three years earlier was still the only new development in the long-standing residential neighborhood in Santa Monica populated with African Americans, Lantinx, and the white working class. 50 The
1950 Sanborn map indicates little additional change. The transition to low-rise commercial buildings in that part of downtown took hold during the 1950s, and was nearly complete in 1960. The subject property is the only example of a low-rise industrial commercial building in downtown built during the art deco/streamline moderne period. Today most of that area of 48 Application for Building Permit, 625 Colorado Avenue, applicant A.B.C. Distributing Company, City of Santa Monica Planning Document Archives, May 8, 1938, Warehouse Constructed, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, May 22, 1937
49 Business Zone Shows Change, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, August 15, 1936, Businessmen on 4th St, Undertake Extensive Improvements, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, October 24, 1936, Auto Parking Meters Urged, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, August 18, 1936, One-Way Traffic Rule Will Apply to Alleys, Santa Monica Outlook, Santa Monica, California, December 12, 1936 50 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 downtown has been transformed again with the largest apartment buildings permitted in the city, leaving only three low-rise examples including the subject property, from the second phase of downtown development.

A 1947 building permit for 631 Colorado Avenue indicates Moyer, still owned the property but had delegated management of the A.B.C. Distributing Company in Santa Monica to Sam D.

Hecht. Hecht had been employed by the Calvert Distillers Corporation from 1934-1945, so it’s possible he took the job with Moyer a year or two sooner. A 1949 article reporting that Aztec Brewery was no more, and the plant had been bought out by Altes Brewery of Detroit, Michigan, referred to Sam D. Hecht as owner and operator of the Santa Monica outlet.51 Glen Moyer died in 1951, the same year Hecht was on trial for tax fraud for shenanigans on his 1945 tax return.52 To hide income from business activities that were in violation of a noncompete agreement Hecht had with his then employer Calvert distillers, he had attributed income, and sometimes ownership of holdings to various family members in a cover-up scheme. The family members also happened to be in lower tax brackets than Hecht was, lowering the tax liability on the holdings. Hecht was found guilty, and his case set a precedent for the illegality of that type of transfer as tax fraud.
53 The Altes (formerly Aztec) Brewing Company in San Diego shut its doors and sold off its assets in 1953, obviating the need for an A.B.C. Distributing Company.

The Aztec Brewing Company Building, a recognized historic resource in the city of San Diego, was leased to an aircraft corporation. The A.B.C. Distributing Company building had a similar fate.54 The 1954 Santa Monica Directory indicates that the subject property was vacant that year.

Aerophysics Development Corporation
In 1955 and 1956, the subject property was occupied by the Aerophysics Development Corporation, founded in 1951 by Dr. William Bollay. In 1950, Bollay served as Technical Director of the North American Aviation Aerophysics Laboratory. Guided missile development was becoming the main thrust of the aircraft industry at that time, and the field of aerospace where Bolloy was an expert and innovator, took hold.55 He left North American Aviation to establish Aerophysics Development Corporation in 1951, working from the basement of his Pacific Palisades home. The founding project of the new company was a commission from the United States Army for a guided anti-tank missile referred to as the Dart. The aerospace industry was already finding a home in Santa Monica due to the presence of Douglas Aircraft. Douglas was by 51 Eastern Beer Now Being Made in West, Venice Vanguard, Venice, California, September 28, 1949 52 Funeral Services Held for Glen A. Moyer, Mirror News, Los Angeles California, January 17, 1951 53 Reports of the Tax Courts of the United States, January 1951 to June 1951, Volume 16, Paul H. Walker, Acting Reporter, United States government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1951 54 Brewery to Close, Mirror News, Los Angeles, March 19, 1953, Brewery Auction, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California, July 19, 1953, Rohr Aircraft Corp. Leases Altes Brewing Co. Building, The Chula Vista Star, Chula Vista, California, June 18, 1953 55 Guided Missile Study Boom to Industry, The Colton Courier, Colton, California, January 5, 1950 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 far the largest company in town, but four smaller companies of note focused efforts on research related to military defense in the city: Propulsion Research, RAND, Research Corporation, and Aerophysics Development Corporation.
56 By 1953, Bollay established administrative offices for the company at 15304 Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades. Space for fabrication and research was rented from Waldo Waterman at 1554 Fifth Street at Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica (demolished), a former Buick car dealership, where Waterman had invented the first functional flying car called the Arrowbile, in 1937.57 Classified advertisements by the hundreds appeared in local papers seeking engineers, draftsmen, designers, model-builders, and researchers to work for the new company. By 1955, Aerophysics had added four more offices in Santa Monica to accommodate its 175 employees:
1452 Fourth Street (demolished), 309 Santa Monica Boulevard (Junipher Building, a designated Landmark), 506 Santa Monica Boulevard (extant), and 631 Colorado Avenue (subject property).

Testing for the Dart guided anti-tank missile began in 1954, but technical challenges called for redoubled efforts in research and development. Aerophysics Development Corporation was bought out by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation in 1956. Studebaker-Packard solved the company’s space problem with a move to Goleta, California where they provided a new 103- acre campus that accommodated 300 employees to continue efforts on the Dart. In 1958, after the Army had spent $44 million on the Dart, which still had not met specifications, the project was cancelled. The Aerophysics Development Corporation’s Goleta campus attracted several other aerospace companies to Goleta establishing it as a new hub for that industry. 58 Keystone Autobody Shop
In 1957, Keystone Autobody took over at 631 Colorado Avenue. According to permit records, Keystone was owned by Jack Hammer. Three Jack Hammers were identified. Two were wellknown singer-songwriters who adopted it as a stage name, one remembered for co-writing the song Great Balls of Fire, the other for Black Widow Spider Woman. Neither of them owned a body shop in Santa Monica. The third Jack Hammer was local, a Danish immigrant born Svend Hammer, who changed his name to Jack upon his naturalization. He lived in Sunset Park and worked in a dry cleaner for many years. During the years when Keystone Autobody was established, he was listed as a gardener at Santa Monica College in city directories, so it wasn’t him either. The only historical reference found to Keystone Autobody was in a biography of surf-rockers Jan and Dean, who purportedly had their car fixed there. Keystone Autobody remained at the subject property until 1994, moving to 1762 Fourteenth Street. Under the business name Bair’s Keystone Autobody, the company operated there until the present year, 56 Goodrum and Vincent Building, City Landmark Assessment Report, PCR Services Corporation, Santa Monica, California, April 2012
57 Aerophysics Development Corp., Advertisement, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California, November 2, 1953 58 City of Goleta Citywide Historic Context Statement, Historic Resources Group, Pasadena, California, September 27, 2017
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 shutting down during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since 1996, the subject property has been occupied with film production uses.

Statement of Significance
When the A.B.C. Distributing Company building was built in 1937, it was the first industrial commercial building in the south-east portion of Santa Monica’s downtown, which had been a working-class neighborhood primarily occupied by people of color since the founding of the Town of Santa Monica in 1875. The two contributing structures book-ending the property were built during the Art Deco/Streamline Moderne period and reflect characteristics of that style.

The composition uses modern abstract geometric forms in vertical/horizontal interplay, decorated with groups of scored lines. The line bundles of three or four are known as “speed lines” in Streamline Moderne architecture, as they suggest movement and allude to the modern machines of transportation – railroads, ocean liners, aircraft. The stepped caps over the piers reflect the step-backs found in Art Deco architecture. Because it was a decade or more before the area continued to be redeveloped with similar single-story brick commercial buildings, it was the first in the area and the only built in downtown in the Art Deco/Streamline Moderne style. Furthermore, since the 1990s the neighborhood has been almost completely redeveloped with a third phase of multi-story apartment buildings, leaving the subject property as a rare and significant example of the type of development it pioneered, which is almost extinct from the vicinity.

The A.B.C. Distributing Company building is significant as an example of post-Long Beach Earthquake engineering techniques for ensuring that brick and mortar structures had seismic integrity. Reinforced beams provide a structural frame for brick and mortar panels that would have previously relied on gravity alone for stability. The bricks themselves were groutlock bricks, a historically significant product of the Simons Brick Company that was actively and aggressively promoted as the answer to seismic deficiencies in masonry buildings. The groutlock bricks had grooved mortar surfaces, and spaces for reinforcing steel rods that literally locked them in place so they could resist the lateral forces of seismic activity. The building structure and materials are significant as an example of state-of-the art masonry technology following the Long Beach earthquake of 1933.

The A.B.C. Distributing Company itself is significant as one of the first, if not the first, beer outlet in the city after Prohibition. While it had two other rented locations prior to construction of the subject buildings for its own use, this building best exemplifies the sustained success the company experienced as a result of a strategically prepared and timed infiltration of the Southern California Beverage Market set to begin the moment beer sales were permitted again after Prohibition ended. It exemplifies economic development following the end of prohibition. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Finally, the subject property is a significant site apart from the improvements there today for its association with Etta Vena Moxley, a dedicated life-long leader in the African American Women’s Club movement in the State of California, Los Angeles and in Santa Monica; a member of a leading group of Santa Monica African American activists striving for social justice and developing the community engagement needed to get there; a suffragette; and an organizer of significant community support institutions and social services such as the Sojourner Truth Home.

Application of Santa Monica Criteria
Landmark Criteria:

1. It exemplifies, symbolizes, or manifests elements of the cultural, social, economic, political or architectural history of the City.

The subject property qualifies under this criterion. When the A.B.C. Distributing Company building was built in 1937, it was the first light industrial/commercial building in the south-east portion of Santa Monica’s downtown, which had been a working-class neighborhood primarily occupied by people of color since the founding of the Town of Santa Monica in 1875. The two contributing structures book-ending the property were built during the Art Deco/Streamline Moderne period and reflect architectural characteristics of that style. Because it was a decade or more before the area continued to be redeveloped with similar single-story brick commercial buildings, it was the first commercial industrial building in the vicinity, and the only built in downtown in the Art Deco/Streamline Moderne style. Furthermore, since the 1990s the neighborhood has been almost completely redeveloped with a third phase of development consisting of multi-story apartment buildings, leaving the subject property as a rare and significant example of the type of development it pioneered, which is nearly extinct in the area.

The A.B.C. Distributing Company is significant as one of the first, if not the first, beer outlets in the city. The City of Santa Monica took a more conservative stance on alcohol consumption at the end of prohibition than neighboring communities in Los Angeles County. A.B.C. Distributing Company was established just over the border in Venice as soon as federal law allowed, and moved into Santa Monica a few years later. While the company had two other rented locations prior to construction of the subject buildings for its own use, these buildings are the only ones it built for itself, and thus best exemplify the sustained success the company experienced as a result of a strategically prepared and timed infiltration of the Southern California Beverage Market set to begin the moment beer sales were permitted again after prohibition was over, and the re-establishment of alcoholic beverage sales in the City of Santa Monica. Therefore, the A.B.C. Distributing Company buildings reflect the economic development of Santa Monica.

2. It has aesthetic or artistic interest or value, or other noteworthy interest or value. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 The subject property does not qualify under this criterion. While there are decorative elements on this structure, they do not rise to the level of significance necessary to meet this criterion.

3. It is identified with historic personages or with important events in local, state, or national history.

The subject property qualifies under this criterion for its association with Etta Vena Moxley (1870-1950), a dedicated life-long leader in the African American Women’s Club movement in the State of California, Los Angeles and in Santa Monica. Etta Moxley was a member of a leading group of Los Angeles and Santa Monica African American activists striving for social justice and equal rights for people of all races. Through social groups and clubs, often associated with churches, they developed the community engagement necessary to be effective. Etta Moxley was associated with a number of significant groups often in leadership roles including the Women’s Mite Missionary Society (president), Afro-American Congress of 1904 (speaker), Sojourner Truth Industrial Club (three-time president and organizer of the Sojourner Truth Home), State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs (delegate to the Convention in of 1907, vice president, president), Santa Monica Chapter of the National Association of Colored Women (founding organizer, secretary of founding board), Colored Women’s Vincent Morgan Club (president), Red Cross Women’s Auxiliary of Phillips Chapel (member), Monday Morning Club (founder, president), Women’s Political Study Club (member), California Order of the Eastern Star (organizer, Matrix, and past Matron of two different chapters of the Eastern Star), and Delta Mothers and Sponsors Club (historian). In her work with these groups, Etta Moxley was a suffragette, resistor of Jim Crow, promoter of good schools and good access to them for African Americans, endorser of candidates sympathetic to civil rights issues, organizer of GOTV campaigns among African Americans, and an organizer of significant community support institutions and social services such as the Sojourner Truth Home, the first, and for many years the only, residence for single working African American women in Los Angeles established, funded and operated completely by African American women. Well known because of her years of leadership and community service, Etta Moxley was a keynote speaker at church and club events across many decades, including at a 1927 Santa Monica engagement featuring W.E.B. Du Bois.

4. It embodies distinguishing architectural characteristics valuable to a study of a period, style, method of construction, or the use of indigenous materials or craftsmanship, or is a unique or rare example of an architectural design, detail or historical type valuable to such a study.

The subject property qualifies under this criterion because the A.B.C. Distributing Company building is the only known example of post-Long Beach Earthquake engineering techniques for ensuring that brick and mortar structures had seismic integrity. Visible reinforced beams provide a structural frame for brick and mortar panels that would have previously relied on gravity alone for stability, and the beams isolated sections of the structure so in the event of damage it was less likely that the whole building would collapse. The bricks themselves were 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 groutlock bricks, a product of the Simons Brick Company that was actively and aggressively promoted as the answer to seismic deficiencies in masonry buildings. The groutlock bricks had grooved mortar surfaces that literally locked them in place, and connecting gaps that were filled with metal rods secured in place by adhesive grout so they could resist the lateral forces of seismic activity. With demand for building supplies slowing after the Great Depression began in 1929, it was the beginning of the end for Simons Brick, established in 1886. Things turned abruptly for the worse on March 10, 1933, when the Long Beach Earthquake wreaked havoc on the Southland, causing severe damage to most masonry buildings standing at the time, and schools in particular. Shoddy brickmaking, bricklaying, grout quality, and building engineering were blamed for the failure of masonry structures during the earthquake more than the material itself. But brick fell out of favor anyway, used mostly for small scale industrial buildings such as the subject property through the end of the 1930s. Walter Simons began promoting his groutlock product aggressively soon after the Long Beach Earthquake, in an effort to build back trust in brick for safety and permanence. Simons was back in production at a rate of 150,000 groutlock bricks per day within a few months of the quake, only ten percent of their peak production, but a big boost to the foundering company. Groutlock brick allowed brick construction to tentatively begin again. The subject property is an excellent example of the use of groutlock brick and the associated seismic construction methods developed in the mid-1930s as a response to the Long Beach Earthquake. No other groutlock brick structures are known in Santa Monica, making the A.B.C. Distributing Company buildings a unique and rare example of a post-Long Beach Earthquake construction technique.

The A.B.C. Distributing Company buildings are significant under this criterion as exemplifying the Art Deco/Streamline Moderne style. The pair of industrial commercial buildings sit like bookends on the east and west edges of the parcel as viewed from Colorado Avenue. The east structure, built in 1937, exposes its structural system of concrete beams interfaced with groutlock brick on its east wall. Its primary façade facing Colorado is divided into three bays separated by protruding piers embossed with four vertical grooved lines, and with stepped tapered caps that rise above the roofline. The area above the windows is stuccoed, decorated with two horizontal sets of grooved lines, three in each set, appearing continuous behind the piers. The composition uses modern abstract geometric forms in vertical/horizontal interplay, decorated with groups of scored lines. The line bundles of three or four are known as “speed lines” in Streamline Moderne architecture, as they suggest movement and allude to the modern machines of transportation – railroads, ocean liners, aircraft. The stepped caps over the piers reflect the step-backs found in Art Deco architecture. Steel-framed divided light windows with a grid pattern of 12 x 4 panes span the full width of each bay between the piers, inclusive of six sets of hopper windows. Below the windows the bricks that comprise the structure are exposed, and the groutlock ridges of some bricks are visible. The secondary elevation facing east abuts the sidewalk on Seventh Street. It is divided into six bays by a reinforced cement support structure of vertical and horizontal beams that are flush with the surface of the brick. The bay closest to Colorado Avenue is punctuated by a fourth 6 x 4 multilight steel framed window, also with hoppers inclusive. Each of the remaining bays have a small 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 steel framed hopper window in the center, flush with the ceiling height as marked by a horizontal reinforced concrete beam. The west structure sits on the south and west property lines of the parcel, fronting Colorado Avenue and adjacent to an alley. The brick façade facing Colorado Avenue shares the beamed support structure of the east building.

5. It is a significant or a representative example of the work or product of a notable builder, designer or architect.

The subject property does not qualify for this criterion because it is not associated with any particular architect or builder, notable or otherwise.

6. It has a unique location, a singular physical characteristic, or is an established and familiar visual feature of a neighborhood, community or the City.

The subject property does not qualify for this criterion because in spite of its 80 years at a corner location it does not stand out for a particular feature of interest that would qualify it to meet this criterion.

Structure of Merit Criteria:

A. The structure has been identified in the City’s Historic Resources Inventory.

The subject property qualifies under this criterion because it is listed in the 2018 Historic Resources Inventory with a status code of 5S3.

B. The structure is a minimum of 50 years of age and meets one of the following criteria:

1. The structure is a unique or rare example of an architectural design, detail or historical type.

The subject property qualifies under this criterion because it is the only known example of groutlock brick in the city and is an excellent example of post-Long Beach Earthquake seismic reinforcement techniques. (see criterion 4 above)

2. The structure is representative of a style in the City that is no longer prevalent.

The subject property qualifies under this criterion because it is the only Art Deco/Streamline Moderne commercial industrial building in Downtown, and one of three remaining commercial industrial buildings of any style in Downtown due to widespread redevelopment in recent years. (see criterion 4 above)

3. The structure contributes to a potential Historic District.

The subject property is not a contributor to a potential historic district. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Santa Monica Directory Search
Year Address Name Occupation Notes
1905 – J.W. Moxley barber, 214 3rd St home not listed
– J.E. Moxley barber, 214 3rd St home not listed (brother?) – Walter Moxley barber, 214 3rd St home not listed (father?) 1907 7th & Colorado Mrs. J.W. Moxley caterer business listing 1912 1558 7th St Guard Robbins plasterer –
1554 7th St Richard Mallet emp So Cal Edison –
619 Colorado Carlos Judson driver Pendleton & Sons married to Mallet’s daughter 621 Colorado John W. Moxley barber, w 225 Utah Ave Keller Block 1913 1554 7th St George Van Pelt gardener [fisherman] record sized fish SM Pier - boats 1554 7th St Orrin Van Pelt laborer –
1554 7th St Wm Van Pelt fisherman became SM Police Officer 1558 7th St vacant – –
619 Colorado Carlos Judson cement worker –
621 Colorado John W. Moxley barber 219 Utah Keller Block 1914 1554 7th St Henry P. Jones – 1920 obit: coffee & tea business 1558 7th St David J. Wilson engineer Sunset Inn –
619 Colorado vacant – –
621 Colorado John W. Moxley barber 219 Utah Keller Block 1915 1554 7th St Henry P. Jones – –
1558 7th St Mark Allen elevator operator maybe Af Am boxer, law troubles 619 Colorado Mrs. Roselia Cooper widow C.P., laundress – 621 Colorado John W. Moxley barber 219 Utah –
1917 1554 7th St vacant – –
1558 7th St John T. (Dollie) Manriquez cement worker –
619 Colorado Mrs. Jennie Mack widow J.A., domestic –
621 Colorado John W. (Etta V.) Moxley barber 219 Utah – 1918 1554 7th St (not listed) – –
1558 7th St John P. (Ella L.) Manriquez cement worker – 619 Colorado Mrs. Jennie Mack widow J.A. –
621 Colorado Mrs. Etta Vena Moxley – –
– John W. Moxley barber, 219 Utah no home listed, Keller Block 1919 1554 7th St John Crawford laborer Street Dept maybe veteran 1558 7th St Alphonso (Ethel) Brice janitor Rouse & Livengood – 619 Colorado Mrs. Jennie Mack widow J.A. –
619 Colorado Hebe Mack – –
621 Colorado Mrs. Etta V. Moxley janitor OP Library –
621 Colorado John W. (Etta V.) Moxley barber 219 Utah – 1921 1554 7th St Raymond (Mary) Ponce – –
1558 7th St Guadalupe (Rosa) Moreno laborer shot at all night card game 619 Colorado Mrs. Jennie L. Mack widow J.A. –
621 Colorado John W. (Etta V.) Moxley barber 219 Utah – 1923 1554 7th St Angel (Snyda) Rangel plasterer [Kneen Paving] wife died medical malpractice 1558 7th St Guadalupe (Rosa) Moreno laborer –
619 Colorado Mrs. Jennie L. Mack housekeeper –
621 Colorado John W. (Etta V.) Moxley barber 219 Utah – 1925 1554 7th St M. (Teho) Takahasi gardener –
1558 7th St Guadalupe (Rosa) Moreno laborer –
619 Colorado (not listed) – –
621 Colorado John W. (Etta V.) Moxley barber 641 Colorado new bldg. confirmed 1927 aerial 1927 1554 7th St M. (Teho) Takahasi gardener –
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Year Address Name Occupation Notes
1558 7th St Guadalupe (Rosa) Moreno laborer –
619 Colorado (not listed) – –
621 Colorado John W. (Etta V.) Moxley barber 641 Colorado new bldg. 1928 aerial 621 Colorado Honore E. Moxley – –
641 Colorado J.W. Moxley barber –
1928 1554 7th St Oriental [sic] – –
1558 7th St Guadalupe (Rosa) Moreno laborer –
619 Colorado Anthony (Margie) Perry fisherman –
621 Colorado (not listed) – Walter Moxley 1538 Euclid
641 Colorado R.G. Adams barber –
1931 1554 7th St Jos (Lupe) Munje laborer daughter Luz Isabell born 1558 7th St Neaavis [sic] Sanchez – –
1562 7th St Thomas A. (Janet) Moody grocer same as 641 Colorado, lives 6th St 619 Colorado (not listed) – –
621 Colorado (not listed) – J, E, H Moxley 1538 Euclid
641 Colorado (not listed) – –
1933 1554 7th St Jos (Lupe) Munje laborer arrested for drunk driving 1558 7th St vacant – –
1562 7th St vacant – –
619 Colorado (not listed) – –
621 Colorado (not listed) – –
641 Colorado (not listed) – –
1936 1554 7th St Jas Joyce laborer –
1558 7th St Henry Cluff laborer –
1558 7th St Louis Olsen – –
1562 7th St Mrs. Eleanor Baines 2nd hand furniture –
619 Colorado (not listed) – –
621 Colorado (not listed) – –
641 Colorado (not listed) – –
Brick Building Constructed 1937
1938 623 Colorado ABC Distributing Co. GA Moyer mgr, wines and liquors
1940 631 Colorado ABC Distributing Co. liquors
1947 631 Colorado ABC Distributing Co. Sam D. Hecht mgr, wholesale liquors
bldg. permit lists Moyer, owner
Hecht, manager
1952 631 Colorado ABC Distributing Co. liquors
1954 631 Colorado vacant –
1960 631 Colorado Keystone Body Shop Inc. – bldg. permit lists Jack Hammer, owner
Research conducted by Nina Fresco
May 2021
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 1895 Sanborn Map, Santa Monica, California, subject parcel in red. The south half of the subject parcel was already developed with a small dwelling before the Moxley’s arrived in Santa Monica. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 1902 Sanborn Map, Santa Monica, California, subject parcel in red. The Moxley’s had been living at 103 Seventh Street as early as the time of the 1900 census. Because the house opposite and slightly north of the subject parcel is numbered 108, it can be inferred that the earliest address for the subject parcel was 103 Seventh Street. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 1909 Sanborn Map, Santa Monica, California, subject parcel in red. In 1903, soon after their deed was recorded, the Moxley’s built 621 Colorado Avenue behind the original cottage on their property. It became the family home until 1928. No other permits or deeds were found with the Moxley’s name after construction of their home, but by 1909 they had clearly added a third cottage to the parcel. The Rest-A-While rooming house and apartments that served African American tourists is marked in blue. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 1918 Sanborn Map, Santa Monica, California, subject parcel in red. By 1918, the Moxley’s owned both of the subject parcels and had added a fourth cottage at the rear of the northern section. The Seventh Day Adventist Church, a precursor to the Calvary Baptist Church in the Pico Neighborhood is marked in blue on Sixth Street. The Rest-A-While is on Fifth Street (in blue); the map labels it “tenements.”
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 African Americans in downtown per U.S. census 1900 - 1940, subject parcel in red. The citywide version of this map shows that this is where nearly all African Americans lived in Santa Monica in 1900. By 1910, some black families were also living in Belmar, on the future Samohi site, and in Ocean Park. By 1920, population was booming. African Americans lived east of 14th Street for the first time, and in significant numbers. No African Americans ever lived north of SM Blvd or south of Pico Blvd during this period. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 1950 Sanborn Map, Santa Monica, California, subject parcel in red. Marked in green: By 1950, in addition to the Moxley property, only four other commercial developments had been added to the commercially-zoned residential district. Referencing previous maps, most of those parcels had been vacant, leaving the residential community intact. Marked in blue: The church had moved on by this time, but the Rest-A-While carried on with additional cottages squeezed into every available space on the parcel. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 1950 Sanborn Map, Santa Monica, California, detail. The A.B.C. Distribution Company buildings are built of reinforced brick with reinforced concrete pilasters and beams, all of which remain visible today. The east brick structure (labeled here as 621 Colorado) was the loading canopy in the 1941 permit. It was completely open on the west elevation. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 August 1, 1927 aerial, UCSB Collection. Lincoln Blvd. at top, Santa Monica Blvd. at left. Second, Third, and Fourths Streets were becoming increasingly commercial through the 1920s, but Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Streets retained their residential character. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 February 20, 1937 aerial, UCSB Collection. Lincoln Blvd. at top, Colorado Avenue at left. A few months before the building permit was pulled for the beer distribution company, it appears that the cottages known as 619 and 621 Colorado had already been demolished.

The house and garage retained after the east building was constructed are in the lower portion of the red ovals. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 1, 1938 aerial, UCSB Collection. Lincoln Blvd. at top, Santa Monica Blvd. at left. A year after A.B.C. Distributing Company was constructed, the house and garage at the west end of the parcel remain and an unidentified structure sits between the old house and the brick building along the north property line. It appears that the rest of the parcel is paved. Commercial development in downtown is spreading south to Colorado, but the first phase of residential development remains in the east half of downtown. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 March 5, 1940 aerial, UCSB Collection. Lincoln Blvd. at top, Santa Monica Blvd. at left. The A.B.C. Distributing Company property appears to have been built out almost as depicted in the 1950 Sanborn map by 1940. The west structure will be added in one year from the date of this image. The surrounding area remains residential, unchanged since the 1938 aerial above. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 January 1, 1947 aerial, UCSB Collection. Lincoln Blvd. at top, Santa Monica Blvd. at left. Very little has changed in Downtown since the 1940 aerial. The most significant changes are south of Colorado Avenue were the Sears Building and the trailer parks that began to dominate the landscape.
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 July 1, 1956 aerial, UCSB Collection. Lincoln Blvd. at top, Santa Monica Blvd. at left. The layout of the subject property appears unchanged since the previous aerial. Several parcels in the east half of Downtown have now been cleared and are used for surface parking. A significant shift towards commercial use is occurring in the long-time residential area surrounding the subject property. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 May 1, 1960 aerial, UCSB Collection. Lincoln Blvd. at top, Santa Monica Blvd. at left. Keystone Bodyworks’ paint booth and car wash canopy referenced in permit records have superseded the old cottage that was still extant in the previous aerial. The area surrounding the subject parcel has been almost completely rebuilt with low-rise commercial buildings since an aerial taken just four years earlier. Note that the Rest-A-While is one of the few extant properties from the first phase of development. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Cottages at 1531 Seventh Street, 1949. Signs read: “For Sale, To Be Moved,” marking the beginning of redevelopment of the east half of Downtown.
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Building Permit, May 8, 1937, construction of east building. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Building Permit, December 11, 1941, construction of west building. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Building Permit, March 5, 1947, addition of loading platform and doors to west building 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Simons Brick advertising campaign for Groutlock Masonry: Los Angeles Times, August 6, 1933, January 10, 1937, October 15, 1933 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Santa Monica Outlook, October 5, 1937
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Santa Monica Outlook, September 30, 1938 (above)
Collectible Aztec Brewing Company beer cans (below)
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Aztec Brewing Company, San Diego California. Exterior (above), Tap room (below). 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 December 31, 2001
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021. South facade of main building. The notches on the tops of grout lock bricks are visible in some places. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021. East facade, main building.
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021. East facade of second story addition to east building. Metal flashing on top of reinforced beam signals that the addition is not original.
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021. North end of east elevation.
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021. Reinforced support beams on east elevation. Bracing was added at beam intersections as additional seismic reinforcement after the Northridge Earthquake.
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021. Pedestrian gate on south elevation. Old and new pilasters juxtaposed. New pilasters have tapered black metal caps. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021. Fencing along south edge of parcel connecting the two historic structures. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021. View of property from south-west corner. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021. Wide view of entire west edge of parcel. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021. View of interior courtyard through vehicular gate on the north side of the west edge of the parcel off the alley. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021. Views into courtyard from vehicular gate in alley. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021. Vehicular gate.
631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 23, 2021. Vehicular gate and north elevation of west building. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 2021. Google views inside courtyard, facing west. 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 April 2021. Google views inside courtyard, north (top) and east (bottom). 631 Colorado Avenue Landmark Designation Application June 2021 Comparables. In a district that once proliferated with single story brick commercial industrial buildings, only three remain standing today, the subject property, 1557 7th Street (above), and 501 Broadway Avenue (below). Both structures pictured above have already been approved for demolition and replacement projects are in the process of obtaining entitlements.