128 Fremont Place

WESTMORELAND PLACE
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Mississippi-bred Benjamin Harwood commissioned a 10-room house from architects Harley G. Corwin and Everett H. Merrill in 1922; Harwood, who had joined Llewellyn Iron Works right after he was graduated from Cal in 1905, would die young in the house less than five years after moving in. Corwin and Merrill, recent alumni of the Milwaukee Building Company—prolific designers of many Los Angeles houses including a number in Fremont Place—had just formed their partnership; their scheme for 128 included an attached garage, still an innovation in the early '20s, even in new suburban districts of ever-more-motorized Los Angeles. The Department of Buildings issued a permit to begin construction on July 19, 1922. After her husband's death in 1927, Edith Harwood retained ownership of 128 for another decade. Remarrying in 1934, she her her new husband, Fox location manager Raymond Moore, would be living at 93 Fremont Place by the late '30s; that house and #95 were built by Benjamin Harwood in 1927 as investments. The full story of the early years of 128 Fremont Place will appear in due course.

As seen in an undated early 1920s issue of The Architectural Digest