When your name is Edward L. Doheny and you’re the guy who struck oil in 1892 and kicked off the Southern California oil boom, you get to buy any mansion you like. So you buy the one at 10 Chester Place, one of the first gated communities in Los Angeles, which is south of downtown and north of the USC campus. I don’t have a date for this photo, but the place was built in 1899 and Doheny bought it in 1901, so I’m guessing it was taken around then. In a way, it doesn’t matter because the place is gloriously intact. After all, Romantic Revival combined with Gothic, Chateauesque, Moorish and California Mission never goes out of style.
This is a Google Earth image showing what the mansion currently looks like. I love the red-tiled roof!
Now part of Mt St Mary’s Univ
Between this amazing house and Greystone, Ed clearly had a thing for architecture. I’m glad that this house still exists as a way to look back at what LA used to be like.