Hollywood Blog

In the 1920s Rudolph Valentino and Francis X. Bushman lived just across the street from each other in Whitley Heights, on the small hill that rises above Highland and Franklin avenues.

Looking at the narrow street today, it is hard to imagine those flamboyant egos sharing it - Valentino in a phaeton with his silver cobra emblem and Bushman in hi lavender Rolls-Royce.


Robert Vignola, the director, gave extravagant parties in a villa secretly built by William Randolph Hearst as a hideaway for Marion Davies. Paul Kelly lived on the hill in matrimonial bliss with Dorothy MacKaye after he did time in San Quentin for killing her husband.

Barbar LaMarr, who was said to be "too beautiful to live", lived scandalously in a three-story hillside house, and died at 29 of overdose of heroian.

So they say.

Though for half a century I had seen those houses shining among the palms, pines, and eucalyptus, I had never been inside one until last Sunday morning, when my wife and I took a Whitley Heights tour conducted by Hollywood Heritage and the Whitley Heights Civic Assn.

Los Angeles Times may 12, 1983 by Jack Smith.

Before Beverly Hills existed the rich and famous stars of Hollywood lived in a Mediterranean style neighborhood called Whitley Heights. This gem of a neighborhood still remains today and is virtually untouched. In this episode you'll see homes and hear stories whose subjects include Barbara La Marr, Jean Harlow, Beverly D' Angelo, Jay Stewart, Army Archerd, Hobart J. Whitley, Rosalind Russell, Rock Hudson, Sidney Franklin, James Hilton, Joseph Schildkraut, Beulah Bondi, Irving Thalberg, Norma Shearer, Maurice Chevalier, Hedy Lamarr, Chester Morris, Groucho Marx, William Bast, Eugene O' Brien, Adela Rogers St. John, Richard Barthelmess, Marion Davies, William Randolph Hearst, Patty Hearst, and Wesley "Freckles" Barry. You can also see some film locations from the films "Hail, Caesar!" and "The Day of the Locust."

Whitley Heights, located on a prominent hill overlooking Hollywood and now generally bounded by Franklin and Highland Avenues and U.S. 101. It was shaped and styled in the late 1910's and early 20's by Hobart J. Whitley, one of the region's earlier real estate moguls who had become a major booster of the Mediterranean look.

For a time in the late 20's before they began flocking to Beverly Hills Whitley Heights was a favorite roost of film stars, including Rudolph Valentino, Francis X Bushman and Marie Dressler and was the scene of some fabled parties. Among those who later had homes there wer Gloria Swanson, Bette davis and Tyrone Power.



The result is that Whitley Heights is styled very much in the spirit of a hil town, albeit a wealthy private one, with winding narrow streets edged by proud stucco, structures decorated with glazed tile and ironwork. So pedestrians do not have to compete with cars, select streets are connected by public stairs that rise up the lush hillside.

Los Angeles Times May 21, 1988 by Sam Hall Kaplan

Drawing from an article: Charming Hollywood December 18,1902

Beautiful Hollywood

Mr. Whitley was the central figure, the moving force that accomplished results. Having known him intimately for 16 years, and what he has acomplished in other fields, his achievements in Hollywood are really no surprise to us.

Has it required much money to carry on this great work? Yes, a barrel of it. but in Mr. Whitley's understanding there is no "cheese-paring" or counting of cost.
He has paid out many thousands of dollars for electric lighting the street of Hollywood, and recently, at great expense installed the first switch to light Wilcox avenue by the incandescent plan - a light suspended from each pole, to prove the utility and striking dffect. It makes a pretty scene. Now, Prospect avenue for several blocks west is illuminated in the ame manner and is evoking great praise.

It would be a great card if the entire town could be illuminated in the ame manner - a fairy-land in the foothills.

Article in the Westen Graphic by A. A. Bynon April 27th 1903

One of the few homes that narrowly missed the Hollywood Freeway’s path was 2307 Cahuenga, the former residence of western star J. Warren Kerrigan. Built in 1917, the L-shaped beauty was his dream home. “I think it is so restful in this sunny land, don’t you?" he gushed in an interview at the time.



For three decades, Kerrigan lived here—just around the corner from Gene Autry on Whitley Terrace—with his mother Sarah, manager of the Mary Pickford Company (pictured together on their porch).



Following his 1947 death, new owners moved in and honored the actor with a portrait from his 1923 film The Covered Wagon in the living room. They also did light renovations, which Mrs. William Francis felt displeased Kerrigan in the afterlife. “Sometimes there is…a swishing noise," she said in 1957. "We make a joke of it. We say it’s Kerrigan’s ghost. We don’t really believe it. That would be foolish...perhaps it's only an echo from the freeway."
Credit article from Whitley Heights News 2022