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Will the glamorous historical detail of 5254 Los Feliz Blvd/2047 Laughlin Park Drive ever cease? While stumbling around for information on the property earlier, I ran across a connection to native Hollywoodite Harley J. Earl, perhaps the most famous automotive designer of all time. Conflicting information in
Los Angeles Times articles and in other sources at first had me discounting an actual connection to the Dempsey/Rathbone/Barrymore house. At least three different Los Feliz blvd addresses were in the mix: 5240 and 5242, as well as 5254. Earl's father-in-law, Hugh M. Carpenter, was living at 5242 when his grandson died in 1927 and when he died himself in 1947. It was that address that threw me off initial indications of an Earl connection to 5254... (is anyone still awake?). But then I discovered a reference of always-on-it Steve Vaught of
Paradise Leased to an Earl provenance of 5254... indeed it turns out that Harley Earl built it (with the help of architect Frank Rasche) in 1923. Two years later (or four, depending on the source), apparently around the time Earl moved to Detroit to work at GM, the house was sold to Dempsey. Mrs. Earl and son Billy had stayed in L.A. and, it seems, moved to 5242 with her parents. It was on a return visit to L.A. to see his family (and to show off his trendsetting new LaSalle, seen below on that trip) that tragedy struck.
Motorcities
Los Angeles Times May 20, 1927