Locke Michael - Silver Lake Bohemia: A History (American Chronicles)

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2016 by Michael Locke and Vincent Brook

All rights reserved

Front cover, top left: Silver Lake Reservoir. Photo by Michael Locke ; top right: life partners Harry Hay and John Burnside, circa 1960s. Courtesy of ONE Archives at USC Libraries; center right: Anas Nin portrait by Peter Gowland. Courtesy of Anas Nin Trust; third row, left: protest at the Black Cat tavern, 1969. Courtesy of ONE Archives at USC Libraries; third row, middle: Eugene Kinn Choy residence, Eugene Kinn Choy, 1949. Photo by Michael Locke; third row, right: Loren Miller portrait. Courtesy of Robin Miller Sloan; bottom: Harry Hay marching with Radical Faeries, Gay Pride Parade. Courtesy of ONE Archives at USC Libraries .

First published 2016

e-book edition 2016

ISBN 978.1.62585.803.0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016943914

print edition ISBN 978.1.46713.532.0

Notice : The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the authors or The History Press. The authors and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We couldnt have written this book without the gracious support and invaluable contributions of the following people and institutions: Betty of the Holyland Bible Knowledge Society; Gilbert Brebes and Joy Pae of Rose Scharlin Cooperative Nursey School; Deborah Ching; Barton Choy; Richard Chylinski; Charlie Conrad, Lindsay Kennedy and Dean Malouf of The Black Cat; Raymond Droswell of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum; Diane Edwardson; Genevieve Fong of the Eames Office; Jocelyn Gibbs of the Art, Design and Architecture Museum at the University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara; Baylis Glascock; Thomas S. Hines; Wes Joe; Megan Laddusaw, Rick Delaney and the staff at The History Press; Michael Lehrer; Sarah Lorenzen of the VDL Research House; Bill and Annie Macomber; Marvin Malecha of North Carolina State University College of Design; Michael, Miriam, Andrea, Katya, Tommi and Dorothy Meyer; Barry Milofsky; Dion and Dr. Raymond Neutra; Jim Overmeyer; Jennifer Palmer-Lacey, Michael Masterson and Cheryl Revkin of the Silver Lake History Collective; Patrick and Julie Pascal; Loni A. Shibuyama of ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at USC Libraries; Judge Robin Miller Sloan and her husband, Michael Sloan; Alexei Romanoff and his husband, David Fahar; Ruth Ross; Sarah Sherman of the Getty Research Institute; George Smart of North Carolina Modernist Houses; Mark Thompson; Antony Unruh; Phyl and Ronald van Ammers; Mark Vieira; Kent Wong; Eric Lloyd Wright, Mary Wright and Tree Leyburn Wright; Momo Yashima and her husband, Ralph Brannen; Peter Bart Yates; posthumously, David Hyun and Julius Shulman; and last but not least, our ever patient, loving and inspiring wives, Karen Brook and Donna Locke.

PREFACE

Our first book on Silver Lake, Silver Lake Chronicles: Exploring an Urban Oasis in Los Angeles (2014), covered a broad swath of the areas history from the nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century. Topics included the construction of the reservoir that gave the place its name, the first families to build homes in the area, the moguls who founded the citys earliest movie studios here and the stars they discovered and other local figures who rose to prominence in the fields of medicine, philanthropy and religion.

The second book, Silver Lake Bohemia: A History , is more narrowly focused. As the title suggests, it deals with artists, intellectuals and political activists who, in their achievements and lifestyles, established the areas progressive tone and reputation, which persists to the present. Another unique aspect of the sequel is the amazing network of interconnections among the people and places we chose to spotlight. The locally based, modernist designers who put Silver Lake on the international architectural map, most of whom led unconventional lives and leaned to the left, interacted freely with and built innovative homes for local avant-garde writers and politicos who intermingled socially and supported one anothers efforts.

Musicologist Peter Yatess Evenings on the Roof concerts exemplify this harmonic convergence. Yates and his wife, Frances Mullen, established groundbreaking salons featuring the latest in classical music written and performed by renowned composers and musicians. These salons were held in a Silver Lake home redesigned by modernist icon Rudolph Schindler and attended by luminaries including writer Anas Nin, who lived in a Silver Lake home built by Eric Lloyd Wright, grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright, whose historic Hollyhock House, built for socialist, experimental theater producer Aline Barnsdall, had brought Schindler to the area in the first place.

As longtime residents of the area, versed in its rich history, we were aware of some of the congruencies at the outset. However, we only discovered their remarkable extent and complexity in the process of researching and writing the book. As the individuals and locations we highlight are extraordinary in their own right, this discovery added yet another layer of appreciation and enjoyment to the enterpriseone we hope will enhance the readers overall experience as well.

IT ALL BEGINS WITH BARNSDALL

ALINE BARNSDALL AND THE HOLLYHOCK HOUSE

Aline Barnsdalls historic Hollyhock House, atop Olive Hill in what would become Barnsdall Park, is actually located in East Hollywood, a mile or so from Silver Lake. Frank Lloyd Wright, whom she hired to design the house and a theater and arts complex and who went on to build several other buildings in Los Angeles, designed none in Silver Lake proper. Yet Alines avant-garde spirit and Wrights modernist masterpiece were seminal ingredients in the mix of art, architecture and activism that turned Silver Lake into the citys bohemian hub.

Though Wright would spend limited time in L.A., other architects lured here by his presencenotably Rudolph Schindler, Richard Neutra, Gregory Ain and John Lautnerwould transform Silver Lake into a modern architectural mecca. The built environment, in turn, boosted the areas attraction to artists, intellectuals, politicos and others of independent mind who had begun populating the larger area known as Edendale (encompassing Silver Lake, Echo Park, Elysian Heights, Los Feliz, Franklin Hills and East Hollywood) in the wake of the movie industrys westward migration.

An iconoclast before her arrival in Los Angeles in 1916, Aline brought with her from Chicago, where she had been producing experimental theater since 1914, a strong feminist streak, a passion for the arts and radical politics and, soon, a child out of wedlock, a social taboo at the time.

Los Angeles cultural leader and philanthropist Aline Barnsdall, circa 1934.