In 1881, General Harrison Grey Otis (a Union Army officer during the Civil War) started the Los Angeles Times, and in 1898, built this home on the north side of Wilshire Blvd at Park View St. It overlooked Westlake Park (now MacArthur Park) and reminds us that once upon a yesteryear, Wilshire, which these days is filled largely with commercial buildings, was once home to elaborate mansions like this. It must have been quite sumptuous inside, too, because President William McKinley enjoyed an overnight stay in 1901. After Otis’s death in 1917, the home was transformed into Otis Art Institute, which was LA’s first independent professional school of art. I’ve seen later photos of this house and those trees out front were much bigger so I’m guessing this photo was taken around the turn of the century. (Source: Urban Diachrony)

Lew I. on Facebook said: “The highest rank that Otis held during the Civil War was captain, although, near the end of the war he was awarded (“breveted”) the honorary title of Colonel — he still received the pay of a captain. (The “General” title, which he received at the end of the Spanish-American War, was also an honorary one, but that’s another story.) After the war, he bought a failing newspaper in Santa Barbara from one of his Civil War buddies. But it continued to fail. Four years later, his Civil War commander, Rutherford Hayes, had become U.S. president and Otis hit on him for a job. He got it — in godforsaken Alaska, as Treasurer of the Fur Seal Islands, with a salary of ten dollars a day. He sent most of his earnings to his wife in Santa Barbara (who was running the newspaper there), building up a nest egg that he eventually used in 1882 to buy a 25% stake in the Los Angeles Daily Times, which at the time, had a circulation of just 600.”

This is how the house looked after it had become the Otis Art Institute:

This is roughly how that view looked in February 2023. The land is now home to the Charles White Elementary School.