View Single Post
  #33001  
Old Posted Jan 8, 2016, 3:51 AM
Beaudry's Avatar
Beaudry Beaudry is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 714
Quote:
Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire View Post
GREAT shot, HossC. The more I poke around, the more I'm convinced that the Louise and the Cortez were one and the same. Perhaps a little more corroborative info is in the Times ad below indicating a construction date of 1925, which matches the assessor's not necessarily accurate information for the current 375 Columbia: "Year built: 1925/Effective year built (usually indicating a major remodel): 1930". 61 units are listed--"61 beds/61 baths".... Not definite, but I'd say probable.

LAT Aug 12, 1925


Now the holy grail would be a picture of the building as the Louise...EXCEPT, now that I look more closely at your shot above, I wonder if we are looking at the Louise. The sign on top of the building now addressed 375 Columbia might say "HOTEL LOUISE"...with a script "L" trailing under the "OUISE"... vs. the Cortez's sign:


Some time ago y'all might remember a whole lot of talk and query about the Louise, and if/how it became the Cortez, and how it morphed from 439 to 375 Columbia.

The whole address business is still a mystery, but I did unearth a postcard of the Louise, postmarked March 1928:




A later card:



The permit is granted in October of '24; the owner is Louise Chatt, the architect, Charles B. Martin. The exterior is of brick, stucco, and "art stone." 439 still comes up as an address there under permits as late as 1930 (there's one there for an awning) but by 1935 it comes up as 375. There's a 1935 permit pulled to do some re-stucco work including "removing disintegrated portions of ornam." So it appears the "art stone" didn't survive a decade. Those sculpted figures don't seem to be there in the second postcard.

It's quite a structure. I confess I haven't the first idea who Charles Martin was or what he else did. There was a contemporary CBM up in Portland, who designed an industrial school for the deaf there about that time, but that's all I could dig up.

Lookee here! There's even a remnant of the Louise over the door! Per the latest GSV.


Last edited by Beaudry; Jan 8, 2016 at 11:23 PM.
Reply With Quote