About

Earle C. Anthony estate. Now Immaculate Heart of Mary, Roman Catholic retreat for Nuns. 

Bernard R. Maybeck, architect

Potential City of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.

History:

Earl C. Anthony (1880-1961): Anthony was an automobile and communications pioneer who helped adapt the horseless carriage and the wireless radio to the California experience. As a teenager in L.A., he built his own primitive automobile, said to have been involved in the city’s first traffic accident. After graduation from the University of California at Berkeley in 1903, where he founded the campus humor magazine, he opened a Packard dealership in L.A. To fuel his cars, he soon had a string of gas stations. Bernard Maybeck, who designed a temple-like showroom for him in San Francisco, as well as Anthony’s Los Feliz home, described him as a merchant prince. After WWI, he purchased KFI, a powerful local radio station. After WWII, he moved into the new field of television. He was visiting the Bohemian Club when he died. (Source: California People by Carol Dunlap, Peregrine Smith Books, 1982.)

“A romantic extravaganza barely visible from the street. Included because it is one of two well authenticated Maybeck buildings left in Southern California.” (Source: Gebhard & Winter, A Guide to Architecture in Southern California, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1965, p. 57. Photo Plate 35.)

“…only well authenticated building, by Maybeck in the L.A. area..one of the architect’s most romantic houses, general effect is Mediterranean…1968, formal gardens & walled terraces laid out by Lutah Maria Riggs…” Original gardens by Mark Daniels. (Source: Gebhard & Winter, 1985, p.180.)

“Before and during the period Maybeck was designing their 1927 medieval castle, the Anthonys traveled to Europe seven times gathering photographs of Gothic castles. They brought home $35,000 worth of stone from Caen, roof tile from Barcelona, and samples of fabrics.” (Source: McCoy, Esther, Five California Architects, Hennesey & Ingalls, Inc., Los Angeles, 1987, p. 53.)

Earle C. Anthony, 1000 S. Hope, was a 1941 director of the LFIA.

Architectural Digest 8 (1931): 93101.

Country Life, 79, May, 1929: 7172.

California Arts and Architecture 39, May, 1931: 2123, 6263.

Old House Journal, Mar./Apr. 1998, p. 31

“In 1950 Earl C. Anthony sold the estate to Sir Daniel Donohue and his wife, Bernadine Murphy Donohue (daughter of Dan and Antoinette Murphy), who gave the nine-acre estate to the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1970. It is now used as a novitiate and mother house and retreat house.” (Source: Stairway Walks in Los Angeles, Wilderness Press, 1990, p. 51.)

20-room Residence, Spanish/Italian style, Bernard R. Maybeck, architect. $20,000. (Source: sw b&c, 02/18/27, p.54, md)  3405 N. Waverly Drive 

Photo courtesy of Michael Locke