Hollywood Heritage Wins Historic Designation for Toberman House

Many readers will remember that the Summer 2003 newsletter included a special bulletin on our last-ditch efforts to save the Hollywood Bowl shell and to enlist support for our drive to save the L.A. Mayor J.R. Toberman house (1907) at 1749 N. Harvard Blvd., in Hollywood and have it declared an LA Cultural-Historic Monument. You’ve seen the heartbreaking results on the Bowl effort, on our front page. You may be wondering about the Toberman house.

This wonderful structure was called to our attention by a neighbor on Harvard Blvd., Dave Monks, in an e-mail dated June 30th. In a good example of You-Can’t Make-a-Bad-Idea-Fly-and-You-Can’t-Prevent-a-Good-Idea-From-Happening, the Toberman house was, indeed, declared a Monument in the LA City Council meeting of ­October 29th, by Councilman for the 4th Council District, Tom LaBonge and with the support and participation of the Councilman for the 13th C.D., Eric Garcetti. The process, unmarked by fits and tears, took one day less than 4 months...amazing by any standard.

We are grateful for the support of the Greater Griffith Park and Hollywood United Neighborhood Councils, and the well over 100 people who returned the petition forms. Thanks, too, to John Bryson of Edison International , Lucy Toberman McBain , Kathryn Welch Howe at the Getty, John Welborne, and Sally Beaudette for their early interest and support.

AND NOW WHAT? you may ask. The Trust For Public Land has agreed to acquire the property so the seller can move ahead with his life, and that will give us time to find a suitable program, of benefit to the community, to utilize the house.

An extra cheer for Councilman LaBonge, who loved the whole story of Dave Monks finding the house and loved the history tied up in it. We couldn’t have done it without him!