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Overview

Los Angeles architect E.B. Rust designed this residence with Streamline Moderne details in the late 1930s, toward the end of his career. Its owner for about 15 years, S. Anderson Lawler, rented the house out while he resided in New York. Located in the hills above West Hollywood with the Briar Summit Open Space Preserve (a part of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy) behind it, the house cannot be seen well from Woodrow Wilson Drive. Set on a rise above the street, the property is gated and enshrouded by foliage. This level of privacy would have been valued by actors seeking rental housing in Los Angeles; tenants apparently included Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth.

Building History

Architect E.B. Rust (1883-1958) designed this house for Donald Levoy Linder (1907-1989) in 1938. Linder was listed in the 1938 Los Angeles as a musician living with his wife, Rosalie M. (born c. 1912), at 1039 South Orlando Avenue. (See Los Angeles, California, City Directory, 1938, p. 1245.) Linder came from Lincoln, NB; as per a yearbook photograph of 1924, he played the trumpet in the Lincoln High School Band. (See Source Information Ancestry.com. U.S., School Yearbooks, 1880-2012 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010, p. 147, accessed 11/15/2016.) His parents were of Swedish descent; his father worked in a flour mill in Lincoln. (See Ancestry.com, Source Citation Year: 1910; Census Place: Lincoln Ward 6, Lancaster, Nebraska; Roll: T624_850; Page: 5B; Enumeration District: 0082; FHL microfilm: 1374863, accessed 11/15/2016.) He moved to Long Beach, CA, by at least 1927, and resided in Los Angeles by 1936. He joined the US Army in 1943 and, after World War II, resided in Palo Alto, CA, in 1946. (See Palo Alto, California, City Directory, 1946, p. 240.) Ten years later, he lived in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. (See Westwood, Brentwood and Bel Air, City Directory, 1955-1956, p. 136.) He and Rosalie had a transitory existence, owing perhaps, to his profession as a musician.

He and Rosalie didn't live in this house very long, if at all, before they sold it to S. Anderson Lawler (1902-1959). A native of Russellville, AL, Lawler worked as both an actor and agent before World War II. (See Ancestry.com, Source Citation Year: 1920; Census Place: Russellville, Franklin, Alabama; Roll: T625_16; Page: 5A; Enumeration District: 26; Image: 1038, accessed 11/15/2016.) Real estate agent Barry Dane of the firm Crosby Doe Associates stated of the building in 07/2012: "The property’s association with the glamour, romance, and history of Hollywood’s “Golden Era” commences with Lawler’s ownership. A letter of Lawler’s to his mother on Sam Jaffe’s letterhead professes that Marlene Dietrich helped to purchase original furnishings for the house. After moving back to New York, Lawler apparently rented the house to Orson Welles who lived there with Rita Hayworth. Lawler’s friends and business associates included such notables as Jack Warner, Darryl Zanuck, Gary Cooper and William Haines. Subsequent owners include opera singer Risë Stevens, actor Lex Barker, and director Ralph Levy. Since 1955 the property was owned by writer/director/producer Paul Harrison and his wife Betty. The property is now being offered by the Harrison family." In 1938, Lawler resided at 1801 Angelo Drive in Beverly Hills, CA in 1938. (See Ancestry.com, Source Citation Year: 1938; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 6253; Line: 29; Page Number: 119, accessed 11/15/2016.) Lawler worked for Sam Jaffee's (1901-2000) talent agency, and had a Beverly Hills residential address of 8439 Sunset Boulevard, where he lived as a lodger of the actor Louis Mason. (See Los Angeles, California, City Directory, 1941, p. 1320 and Ancestry.com, Source Citation Year: 1940; Census Place: Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California; Roll: T627_222; Page: 21A; Enumeration District: 19-65, accessed 11/15/2016.)

Lawler seems to have owned the house from about 1940 until 1955. He lived in Los Angeles until the war, and moved to the New York office of Twentieth Century-Fox in 1946. He became a friend of the actor and acting teacher Lee Strasberg (1901-1982), who directed the renowned Actors Studio from 1951 until his death. Lawler worked as an agent and producer while living in New York, where he died of a heart attack in 1959. He was buried in the Spring Hill Cemetery, Lynchburg, VA. It seems likely that Lawler did not live in the house but bought it as a rental investment, allowing Jaffee's clients to use it for various periods of time.

In 2012, the house had a formal entry vestibule, master bedroom with a rooftop sleeping porch, two additional bedrooms, three baths, library, office, service entry, laundry, and a guest room with a separate entry. The property contained an attached, two-car garage and a large oval swimming pool.

Building Notes

The realtor offered the Linder House for $2,195,000 in 2012.

PCAD id: 20727