Overview

The banker and landowner Henry G. Newhall and his wife Mary Livingston Wyatt owned this residence erected in 1887-1888 in the soon-to-be fashioable West Adams District of Los Angeles. In 1896, the Newhall House had an address of 747 West Adams Street. (See Maxwell's Los Angeles, California, City Directory, 1896, p. 1017.)

Building History

This unorthodox Queen Anne Style residence was erected for civil engineer and banker Henry G. Newhall (1853-1903) and his wife Mary Livingston Wyatt (whom he wed in 1885) in 1887-1888 in what would become known as the West Adams District, a wealthy section of Los Angeles that grew in size during the 1890s into the early 1900s. The area contained fertile and undeveloped land, some of which was set aside for parks, such as Saint James Park, close, but not within the City of Los Angeles. An abundance of water (due to an early canal system that brought Los Angeles River water west to the vicinity of Agricultural Park) and an early and robust commuter street-car system made the neighborhood particularly attractive to well-heeled families seeking large lots on which to erect residences. The establishment of the University of Southern California (USC) nearby to Agricultural Park in 1880 added to the area's desirability.

Newhall was the eldest of five brothers, sons of the auctioneer and railroad investor Henry Mayo Newhall (1825-1882), who, by the 1870s, began to amass extensive acreage throughout CA. Between 1872 and 1875, he bought about 143,000 acres on six ranches in Monterey and Los Angeles Counties. In 1875, he completed a purchase of the Rancho San Francisco in the Santa Clarita Valley from Eastern oilmen of the Philadelphia and California Petroleum Company who failed in their efforts to find petroleum on the land.

Following Henry Mayo's death in 1882, his widow and sons established the San Francisco-based Newhall Land and Farming Company in 1883 to manage the family properties and to acquire and develop new ones. Henry G. Newhall got into banking in 1887, taking on the Presidency of the California Bank, and soon thereafter decided to move from San Francisco to Los Angeles, where he could supervise the family's Rancho San Francisco operations.

Henry G. Newhall resided in this residence with his wife and three children--Alice, Donald and Lila--until his early death in 1903.

PCAD id: 24102