78 Fremont Place

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Cora Lutz Haven acquired the original undivided and unimproved Lot 82 after the death of her husband, Hugh Spear Haven, in 1914; Mr. Spear, a retired manager of Marshall Field & Company in Chicago, had drowned during a cloudburst in Monrovia, where they lived, that January. His widow moved into Los Angeles and continued his property investments.

In 1923 Mrs. Haven appears to have sold the southerly half of Lot 82 to the Russell Brown Company of Texas, a construction firm that saw opportunity in Los Angeles's boom of the 1920s and decided to build on spec the sort of high-end houses it had been building in Houston's River Oaks and Dallas's Highland Park. That year the firm built 82 Fremont Place on its acquisition from Mrs. Haven. Still in possession of the northerly part of Lot 82, Mrs. Haven was issued a permit by the Department of Buildings on May 21, 1925, for the erection of a retaining wall the apparent purpose of which was to formally divide Lot 82 into two parcels that would provide a lot for the future #78. Interestingly, noted on the permit as contractor for the wall is the Russell Brown Company; also interesting is that the design is noted as local architect Ralph C. Flewelling.

Cora Haven, content to live in a duplex on South Orange Drive, sold the northerly half of Lot 82 to furniture manufacturer Forest Haines Gillespie, whose extended family was occupying 98 Fremont Place during the 1930s. Having also acquired part of Lot 76, Gillespie assembled a new building site comprised parts of lots 76 and 82; on May 20, 1936, what was now called the Department of Building and Safety issued Gillespie permits for an 11-room house and a 26-by-20-foot garage on the parcel, which was addressed 78 Fremont Place. No architect is cited on the documents. Gillespie sold the house to industrialist Bryant Essick after building 206 Rimpau Boulevard in Hancock Park in 1955.    
Illustration: Google Maps