101 Fremont Place

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WILSHIRE BOULEVARD   ADAMS BOULEVARD   WINDSOR SQUARE
BERKELEY SQUARE   ST. JAMES PARK   WESTMORELAND PLACE
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With only fragmentary visual evidence of its original façade suggesting that 101 Fremont Place once had a crenellated stone entrance tower, we are left with the image of the current overblown (and overglazed) portico that reminds us of Cher Horowitz's pride in her own less-than-subtle house in the movie Clueless: "Isn’t my house classic? The columns date all the way back to 1972." Not surprisingly sometimes itself featured in film and television productions—including Big Fat Liar and Dexter—the bones of 101 Fremont Place are considerably older than 1972; with a building permit having been issued by the Department of Buildings to real estate man David Albert Mizener on November 8, 1916, it was completed the next year. Mizener and his wife Zillah had seven children, just three of whom lived in the house with their parents when Mizener died on January 11, 1921. The house was sold by the end of the year to another man in real estate, one whose company contributed greatly to the building of Los Angeles and continues to this day as Daum Commercial Real Estate Services. William Howard Daum and his family would remain at 101 for 40 years.
When the steroids were applied is unclear—perhaps the house was slow to
reach the proportions of an LAX hangar—but today 101 Fremont Place, above at
top center, dwarfs its neighbors, including those to its left and right (107 and 99) and
directly across the street (104). Below is the house's current entrance, as seen in the 2002
movie Big Fat Liar. Above the story is an illustration that appeared in the Times on
October 8, 1922, at the time of the sale of 101 by the Mizeners to W. H. Daum.



An early rendering of 101 Fremont Place gives a sense of the house's original crenelated
façade, now destroyed. The picture appeared in the Times on October 1, 1916.

Illustrations: LAT; GSV; filming.90210locations.info