Hollywood Blog

See…the video here is the Whitley Building in Disney’s….California Adventure. I want to give you a little of its history. The Disney Corporation wanted to expand Disneyland after 50 years of phenomenal success. Disneyland wanted to offer the world a bit of California history from Walt Disney’s perspective. We all know that Walt Disney was one of the early pioneers of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

The Disney designers selected the building on the corner of Hollywood Blvd and Whitley Ave because of its art deco design ….and because it is sitting on the very spot where the first Hollywood Movie Studio filmed. The building was given the name the Whitley Building to honor HJ Whitley, the father of Hollywood. HJ had invited William Horsley and his crew to stay at his Hotel Hollywood. The next day Nestor Studio used the Whitley property that was located at 6601 Hollywood Blvd to do a film test.

You can find the Whitley Building near the entrance of Hollywood Studios in Disney California Adventure.

On October 26, 1911 HJ Whitley allowed David Horsley to have a test run filming on his property. Not only did HJ Whitley bring the movie studios to Hollywood, he also left his personal footprint throughout the entire town. The first movie studio in the Hollywood area was Nestor Studios, opened October 27, 1911 by David Horsley and Al Christie. Nestor Studios leased the Blondeu Tavern for thirty dollars a month. The film studio was located on the northwest corner of Sunset and Gower.

In the same year, another 15 independents settled in Hollywood. Early movie producers relocated to Hollywood to escape Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company, which controlled almost all the patents relevant to movie production at the time. The first movie studio in the Hollywood run by David Horsley was fortunate enough to have invented his own camera so he was not dependent on Edison’s Patents.

Another reason the movie studios settled in Hollywood was HJ Whitley’s creation. The city of Hollywood rapidly developed into a 'movie colony'. The city had a distinctive carefree lifestyle for its film-makers and actors. It would soon become the film capital of the world.

Johnstone Whitley, the grandson of HJ and Gigi Whitley and Irene Whitley, Johnstone's mother are standing at the far right.

This is an excerpt from a letter to H. J. Whitley in 1916

My Dear Mr. Whitley,       April 20th, 1916

I could have told them that you caused millions of bales of cotton to grow where none grew before by buying the first seed cotton, shipping it into that new country and distributing it free to the few doubting farmers there. How the cattlemen declared that grass was the best asset of that Country. How the “nester” from Texas declared that it was too far north to grow corn or wheat – (weevil would eat it).

Here is a copy of a letter written by HJ Whitley to his daughter grace:

My Dearest Grace:
I have written your mother twice about the movies. Hoot Gibson and his company of 48 are here at the hotel getting ready to take a picture on our lands centering most of their scenes at the "Homestead". They all seem to be very high class people. I have met the Directors, the Art Director and Hoot Gibson.

The pictures they are taking in many ways carries out many of the points of my method of development through my life's work. They expect to be here most of this week. This picture should be a big ad for the sale of the lands we want to sell.