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Overview

The Supreme Court of the State of California occupied Southern California quarters in the then new Amestoy Block on the northeast corner of Requena Street and Main Street. (See TheLos Angeles and Orange County Business Directory for 1890-1891, [Los Angeles: 204 South Los Angeles Street, 1890], p. 15.) This site would become part of the Los Angeles Civic Center complex.

Building History

Born in the Basque section (Basses-Pyrénées) of southwestern France, Dominique Amestoy (1824-1892), left his hometown of Saint-Pierre-d'Irub, and migrated, at age 14, to resttle in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Here, he learned shoemaking, but became restless, and chose to relocate to California once he had heard about the Gold Rush. Like most Gold Rush participants, Amestoy had no luck as a miner, but he moved to Santa Barbara, CA, and began work for the military man and rancher Don José de la Guerra y Noriega (1779-1858). Guerra y Noriega was one of the largest and most successful ranchers of cattle and sheep of the mid-19th century in California. Amestoy saved his wages and, when the opportunity availed itself, he bought a sheep herd of his own and moved to grazing land near the Pueblo of Los Angeles. He expanded his herds to 50,000 head at one point, and became one of the the region’s largest wool suppliers by 1870. He substantially built his wealth by investing Isaias W. Hellman’s (1842-1920) and Governor John Downey’s (1827-1894) notable Farmers and Merchants Bank, purchasing shares during its initial stock offering in 1871. He pooled his money along with some of the city’s foundational investors, including Hellman, Downey, landowner Ozro W. Childs (1824-1890) and merchant Charles Louis Ducommon (1820-1896). Amestoy also invested in horse-drawn railways in early Los Angeles.

Amestoy settled on two ranches. The first, purchased in 1875, consisted of 685 acres of what had been part of Juan José Domínguez’s (1736–1809) Spanish land grant known as "Rancho San Pedro." About 57% of this original estate remained in the Dominguez Family from 1784 until 1869 when 16,000 acres were sold to the US Army Major General, William Starke Rosecrans (1819-1898). Amestoy’s land was located near Rosecrans’s townsite of Rosecrans, now in the vicinity of Gardena. In 1888, he also bought 4,500 acres in the San Fernando Valley, this land previously owned by the family of his son-in-law, Simon Francois Gless (1862-1903). Amestoy passed away on his estate near Rosecrans, CA, at the age of 70.

The construction of Amestoy Block took some time during the 1880s to complete. A note in the Los Angeles Herald reported in March of 1883: “The necessary brick and lumber having arrived, after a long delay, work is again going ahead on the massive Amestoy Building, on Los Angeles street. The timbers for the second story are in place, and bricklayers are at work on the walls. When completed, it will be one of the finest wholesale business buildings in the city. And this suggests that one of the most unsightly corners in the business part of the city, adjoins the Amestoy building on the south, being the northwest corner of Los Angeles and Requena streets. The other three corners are already occupied by elegant and substantial edifices, which, by contract, make this corner an eye sore. Who, among our enterprising citizens, will put a building on this corner, to match the fine buildings on the other three corners? (See “Going Ahead,” Los Angeles Herald, vol. 19, no. 28, 03/23/1883, p. 3.)

PCAD id: 20159