Why Losing Taix WON'T Fix Echo Park's Housing Crisis

Last Christmas, my brother and his new wife flew out from Florida to visit the rest of us.

My sister-in-law and I had a "girls' day out" - full day at the Huntington Library, side trip to the Plaza, and finally dinner at the Formosa.

The Huntington Library is, of course, tucked away in spotless, well-manicured San Marino. The Plaza is wedged between the Civic Center and Chinatown. The Formosa Café is in West Hollywood. In between those three locations, there's a whole lot of dirty, trash-strewn, maintenance-deferred LA - and believe me, it pains me to type that.

It also pains me to see human beings sleeping in tents while vacancy signs are posted all over town, even though I'm used to it.

My sister-in-law, who grew up in Florida, was horrified. Los Angeles County has a healthier economy than some countries - how was this possible? 

She'd seen homeless people before, but not living in tents. And she was shocked and dismayed by the sheer number of signs advertising vacant buildings (both commercial and residential), quite a few of them on blocks with homeless residents.

"Why is that building empty?...Why is THAT building empty?...Why isn't that a homeless shelter?" (This conversation ran from Highland Park to downtown to Hollywood.)

"Greed," I explained. 

I know I was oversimplifying, but it's largely true.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: developers (and many real estate investors) see "Los Angeles" and get dollar signs in their eyes. The vast majority don't build (or buy buildings) to better their communities, they build (or invest) to make money. And in Los Angeles, many of them build (or invest) to make LOTS of money.

Consider the fact that Holland Partner Group paid a whopping $12 million for the Taix property and its overflow parking lot nearby. They plan to make a lot more than $12 million by building on the site.

The few people arguing against preserving Taix in any way, shape, or form always fall back on "oh, we need the housing". 

Here's why that's not a logically sound argument:

• Preservation and housing are NOT opposites. They can, and MUST, coexist for the good of the community. 
• Preservation of historic buildings does NOT, as is commonly assumed, make neighborhoods more expensive. In fact, historic preservation overlay zones tend to be far more affordable than non-preserved neighborhoods (and tend to be more diverse).
• Neighborhoods with a mix of older and newer buildings offer a wide range of rents (generally speaking, newer buildings are more expensive and older ones are cheaper). That allows a wider variety of businesses, and a wider variety of renters, to thrive. Jane Jacobs explained this better than I can in The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Also, the Preservation Positive Los Angeles study disproves a lot of myths (I watched the webinar, and if you care about Los Angeles, you should too). 
• Adaptive reuse can and should be considered.
• Many older buildings in and around Los Angeles have been adaptively reused (consider all the older buildings downtown that now have loft apartments on the once-empty upper floors - my best friend's sister lives in one). This has provided thousands of new housing units without the delays, disruption, and sheer wastefulness of demolition and new construction.
• Think of all the municipal waste generated every day in Los Angeles alone. Very few people realize that construction and demolition account for MORE THAN TWICE the amount of municipal waste created each year. And of that, demolition accounts for a whopping 90 percent. 
• The existing Taix building could be wholly or partially adapted to suit another purpose. Mike Taix says the building is now too big (fewer groups booking the banquet rooms, etc.)...but why not downsize the restaurant to part of the building and adapt the rest for other uses? Hell, adapt one of those banquet rooms into an apartment and I just might move in myself. 
• Taix's parking lot is HUGE (for Los Angeles). It is possible to build housing units on the parking lot without losing the Taix building itself.

Still not convinced? Too bad, I'm not done.

• The developer, Holland Partner Group, has been building LUXURY units around town (look them up). LA already has too much luxury housing.
• Since the 1970s, Angelenos have been grousing - rightly - that there are too many high-end apartments and not enough affordable units. This situation shows no sign of improving because virtually no one in modern-day Los Angeles wants to spend the money to build inexpensive housing. Developers want a high return on their investment, not a low one (consider this case study). There was only one Prudent Beaudry, and we lost him in 1893. 
• The proposed development for the Taix site will be 86% market rate. 
• With 170 units planned, that means 146 will be market rate, leaving only 24 lower-priced units. Echo Park alone needs hundreds. And here's something most people don't know: in Los Angeles "affordable" units are typically only required to stay below market rate for 20 years. That means in the early 2040s, those 24 units would most likely rise to market rate, displacing 24 low-income households and making Echo Park even less affordable (if it's even still semi-affordable in 2040). And consider how expensive "market rate" is for luxury units (including HPG's) in the first place.
• Since the proposed development includes apartment sizes ranging from studios up to 3-bedroom units, I would very much like to know if the low-income units would all be studios, or if any of them would be larger units that can accommodate lower-income families. 
• This is ESPECIALLY important in Echo Park, where gentrification has been driving out lower-income (and mostly Latinx) families for years.
• And speaking of gentrification (the elephant in the room)...adding new housing to a gentrified (or gentrifying) neighborhood can encourage existing landlords to raise rents. Which tends to push out longtime residents who simply cannot afford a pricey new-construction apartment.
• If enough landlords raise rents so that more than 24 households are displaced, the proposed development could ultimately end up harming the lower-income households that need housing the most.

But wait, it gets worse:

• HPG uses the "housing" excuse to request modifications and exceptions for extra density...then allows an illegal hotel in their own buildings (see below). That ultimately doesn't help. There's a reason the city has had to crack down on short-term rentals...namely, housing!
• Former tenants have nothing nice to say about Holland Partner Group, which is vertically integrated (meaning they build and own properties and also manage them).
• On a personal note, I used to manage two apartment buildings. Bad landlords disgust me.
• Specifically, HPG has allowed illegal short-term rentals in their buildings.
• Two people I know worked with a production company that rented a one-bedroom apartment in HPG's STOA building...for one day.
• The Be LA building, formerly the Sofia, was being used for short-term rentals (according to  Yelp reviews, former tenants, etc.) when HPG was managing the building (one reviewer states that some tenants were subletting their units on Airbnb and implies the tenants were not actually living there). This seems to have stopped after HPG ceased to be the property manager.
• Illegal hotels in general contribute to lower occupancy rates. Every short-term rental is a unit that isn't being rented to a long-term tenant. 
• This has long-term implications for neighborhoods, since long-term tenants are more likely to contribute in some way to their communities. People who rent a space for, say, three days are unlikely to do very much for the surrounding area.
• HPG likes to blame this on corporate tenants. So...rent to real human beings and don't rent to corporations without checking them out first? Or at least don't allow tenants to run illegal short-term rentals and cancel their leases if they don't comply? (Again, I used to manage apartments myself, so I just might know a thing or two about this.)
• Should HPG someday allow illegal short-term rentals on the Taix site (and although I sincerely hope they never do such a thing, I cannot put it past them), it will drive occupancy rates DOWN in Echo Park. 

Bottom line? If you truly want to make more housing available to Angelenos of ALL social classes (not just the wealthy), don't blindly allow developers like HPG to do as they please. Push hard for adaptive reuse, preservation of existing affordable housing (i.e. older apartment buildings, bungalow courts, etc.), and more emergency and transitional housing for the homeless. 

And if you REALLY want to help the growing number of homeless people living in Echo Park, set up a homeless shelter on Taix's overflow parking lot. Even cheap portable buildings are better than sleeping in a tent (especially now that cooler/wetter weather has set in).

P.S. A few months ago, this project - which would preserve a 109-year-old house AND create 128 new apartments (100 percent of them affordable) - was announced. THIS is the kind of development LA needs. (Tellingly, the backer is a local firm, not some out-of-state carpetbagger.) 

We Need to Talk About Taix

Sometime around 1870, a family of bakers and sheepherders from the Hautes-Alpes left France, emigrating to Los Angeles.

For decades, customers have hotly debated how to pronounce their surname - Taix. Long story short, the family says it's pronounced "Tex".

In any case, the family purchased property in Frenchtown - specifically, at 321 Commercial Street - and opened the Taix French Bread Bakery in 1882.

1911 and 1912 were tough on Marius Taix Sr. In September 1911, his sister Leonie Allemand died in France. In the spring of 1912, Adrian Taix (co-owner of The French Bakery at 1550 West Pico Boulevard), died. By summer, brother Joseph Taix died, also in France. And finally, in the summer of 1912, Joachim Taix (who owned the other half of The French Bakery) also died.

That same year, Marius Taix Sr. tore down the Commercial Street bakery, building the Champ d'Or Hotel on the land and leasing the ground floor to a restauranteur.

Marius Taix Jr. was a pharmacist by trade, and owned the French-Mexican Drug Company nearby at 231-235 N. Los Angeles Street. Ads boasted "French and Mexican Preparations Our Specialty". (With the Plaza and Sonoratown so close by, featuring both French and Mexican medicines was a smart move on Marius Jr.'s part.)

Two stories are told about the origin of the Taix family's eponymous restaurant. One is that Marius Jr. got into an argument with the restaurant owner. The other is that Prohibition agents busted the restaurant owner for illegally selling alcohol, and that Marius Jr. confronted him about it.

This isn't too surprising. Prohibition spelled the end for Frenchtown, since it rendered French restaurant owners unable to serve wine (the vintners had long since sold off their vineyards for development). Without wine, diners didn't want to linger at a French restaurant for an hours-long dinner (Little Italy, on the other side of the Plaza, faced the same issue). The overwhelming majority of Los Angeles' French community took pride in being law-abiding, and although Prohibition was decidedly unpopular, it was still the law. Better to close the restaurant and change jobs than to break the law.

In either case, one day in 1927, words were exchanged, the restauranteur threw the keys at Marius Jr. before storming out, and the Taix family rolled up their sleeves and got to work.

Taix French Restaurant in the 1950s

Marius Taix Jr. started out serving 50-cent chicken dinners at long, family-style tables, with private booths available for an extra 25 cents (he got around Prohibition by selling "medicinal wine"). He partnered with a French immigrant who had become an experienced restauranteur and baker, Louis Larquier. He also continued to run the pharmacy - a very busy guy!

Six years later, Taix French Restaurant could legally serve wine without having to call it "medicinal". Today, they serve more than 400 wines, along with affordably priced country-style French cuisine.

Marius Jr.'s two sons, Raymond and Pierre, grew up washing dishes in the restaurant. In 1962, the beloved Sunset Boulevard location opened under the name "Les Fréres Taix" - the Taix Brothers.

Taix French Restaurant on Sunset Boulevard

The original restaurant at 321 Commercial Street was forced to close in 1964 to make way for new government buildings, including a courthouse and jail (the same block once included the corral where Michel Lachenais was hanged). The Sunset Boulevard location has a bar called the 321 Lounge, presumably in honor of the original restaurant.

The two different restaurant names - Taix French Restaurant and Les Fréres Taix - were reportedly confusing to diners, and the Sunset Boulevard location dropped "Les Fréres" from its name.

In 2012, the intersection in front of Taix was officially designated Taix Square by the City Council. Intersections are typically named after important Angelenos - very few restaurants receive the same honor.

Alas, the good times will be coming to an end, at least for a while.

Taix has been a Los Angeles institution for 92.5 years. It's popular with couples, families, hipsters, Francophiles, foodies, city bigwigs, and Dodgers fans (Dodger Stadium is 5 minutes away). It even managed to survive Echo Park's decline into LA's scariest drug den (before the hipsters moved in). But the restaurant business has changed a lot, and in the 58 years that Taix has been open in Echo Park, the building's six banquet rooms are used less and less.

A building Taix's size, on a lot as big as Taix's, costs serious money to maintain. And in order for a business - even a legacy business - to stay open, it has to make enough money to cover expenses. That's hard to do when wholesale food prices have risen, labor costs have risen, and much of the building isn't being put to sufficient use.

Raymond Taix's son Michael, who currently owns the restaurant, sold the property in August 2019 for $12 million and is leasing the building as a tenant. The real estate developer which now owns the property plans to build a housing and retail complex, which will include a smaller version of Taix (6,000 square feet vs. the current 18,000 square foot building).

The plan is to store the bar, lounge, and signage, and reinstall them in the smaller future space - essentially shrinking Taix, but keeping everything that makes Taix what it is.

Except for the current building. Unless the developer decides to somehow convert the existing building (which I seriously doubt will be the case), it's doomed.

As of this writing, Taix is still open. Go while you can - no one knows for sure when the developer will get the go-ahead to start construction. And when it starts, count on waiting a good 18 months before Taix reopens.

The Most Trusted Citizen in 1850s LA was a Jewish Frenchman

Don Solomon Lazard

Imagine, for a moment, that it's the 1850s and you've just arrived in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles has only been part of the United States for a few years (and some would argue it's part of the US in name only). Theft and murder are common. There are no banks (yet). You're carrying a few pieces of jewelry and just enough money to rent a room and start a small business. The ship to San Pedro and the long ride into town weren't cheap, and you can't afford to get robbed.

Who can you trust?

If you asked law-abiding locals who they would trust with cash and valuables, the answer would probably be "Don Solomon".

Solomon Lazard was from Lorraine. After stints in New Orleans and San Francisco working for his cousins' business, Lazard Frères (which was a dry goods company at the time), he decided to open his own dry goods business in San Diego. Unfortunately, sleepy little San Diego was too small of a town to support even a modest shop. Following the advice of a well-traveled sailor, Lazard decided to move his store to Los Angeles.

By 1853, Lazard and his cousin Maurice Kremer had set up shop in Mellus' Row, near the western corner of Los Angeles and Aliso Streets. Aliso Street was a very active business district in the 1850s, and the two cousins also benefitted from residents of San Gabriel, El Monte, and San Bernardino taking Aliso Street into town.

Soon enough, Lazard was elected to the City Council. He was a Third Lieutenant in the Los Angeles Guards (a volunteer militia - Los Angeles didn't have a military base yet). Lazard served on the Committee on Police, Committee on Streets, Committee on Lands, the Library Association, and the Chamber of Commerce. In 1856, he served on the Grand Jury. Two years later, he was appointed to supervise the local election.

Lazard was active in the Hebrew Benevolent Society, heading the Society's Committee on Charity and eventually serving as its President. (The Hebrew Benevolent Society is now known as Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles.) When a deadly smallpox outbreak swept through Los Angeles in 1863 - disproportionately affecting Mexican and Native American Angelenos - the Committee on Charity, under Lazard's leadership, donated $150 (about $2900 today) and collected additional funds to help care for indigent patients.

Early LA didn't really have banks. The town was too lawless to appeal to most bankers, even when business was booming. But locals needed safe places to store money and valuables.

Lazard and Kremer were merchants, not bankers. But they had spotless reputations and a large safe. It didn't take long for their customers to ask if they could leave their gold and silver with Lazard and Kremer for safekeeping. Lazard later partnered with Timothy Wolfskill in a general store. A few years later, Solomon's brother Abraham came to Los Angeles and joined the family business.

Harris Newmark relates a story about Lazard's professional ethics: Austrian immigrant Mathias "Mateo" Sabichi had left $30,000 with Lazard. No one had heard from Sabichi in so long that Lazard's employees thought he would never come for it. But Sabichi eventually returned to town, and upon presenting the certificate of deposit, was able to claim every cent.

It's hardly surprising that Lazard was known as "Don Solomon". He was such a popular local figure that he often floor-managed balls and fandangos and served as pallbearer for at least one local industrialist's funeral.

Towards the end of 1860, Lazard was arrested in his native France. He had returned home to visit his mother, and, as French law dictated, had registered with the local police. Young French men were legally required to complete a term of military service, and Lazard had left home at age seventeen without having done so. In spite of the fact that he was now a U.S. citizen, Lazard was court-martialed and sentenced to a stint in prison.

Lazard was in luck, however: the newly-appointed American minister to France, Charles J. Faulkner, worked to secure his release, and Emperor Napoleon III intervened. (Ironically, Faulkner - a Southerner who was arrested in early 1861 for trying to secure weapons for the Confederacy - was the author of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.) Lazard did have to pay a fine, but he was able to return to Los Angeles in early 1861.

A street in the heart of Frenchtown was named Lazard Street. It was later changed to Ducommun Street (Ducommun Yard, home base for Ducommun Industries, was bordered by the street on one side - the site is now a Little Tokyo bus depot). A different Lazard Street exists today - it's a short residential cul-de-sac in San Fernando. (Side note: I was pleasantly surprised to see Cinderella Ranch houses on Lazard Street. I am obsessed with them.) Mayor Joseph Mascarel lived at 99 Lazard Street (the old one downtown) during the last years of his life.

Lazard Street sign in San Fernando

As for Lazard himself, home was 657 Westlake Avenue in Echo Park. He and his wife Caroline (née Newmark; cousin of Harris Newmark) had three daughters and three sons.

Lazard's store - which sold French, English, and American-made dry goods, boots, shoes, clothing, and groceries (boasting in an 1852 newspaper advertisement that they would always sell goods at the lowest market prices for cash and pay the highest price for gold dust) - prospered to the point of becoming LA's earliest department store. City of Paris was a fixture of downtown Los Angeles and the city's French community for years.

As time marched on, LA got bigger, and water management got to be a bigger problem. Marchesseault and Sainsevain weren't successful, but the Los Angeles City Water Company - founded by Prudent Beaudry, Solomon Lazard, and Dr. John S. Griffin - prevailed. Although Beaudry is known for his work as a developer and his successful efforts to bring water to his hilltop properties, he didn't helm the City Water Company. It was Solomon Lazard who held the office of President. When the Company's 30-year lease expired, the city bought the City Water Company - now the Department of Water and Power - for $2 million. (That's about $60 million today.) The water contract specified, among other points, that the Company would replace all the wooden pipes with twelve miles of iron pipes, erect an ornamental fountain in the Plaza (replacing the ugly old reservoir tank that stood on the site), place a fire hydrant at each intersection, and provide water free of charge to public schools, city hospitals, and jails.

Don Solomon, described as an "old pioneer" when he passed away in 1916 at the ripe old age of 89, was survived by his wife and four of their six children. He is buried at Home of Peace Memorial Park in East Los Angeles.

As for his extended family's dry-goods firm, Lazard Frères got into banking after Solomon left. The company is now a publicly-traded investment bank known simply as Lazard (NYSE: LAZ). Some sources (including my copy of Le Guide Francais) credit Solomon with founding Lazard Frères; however, Lazard states that their Los Angeles branch didn't open until 2003. Oddly, a 1987 Los Angeles Times article points to a planned LA office opening soon, claiming it would be the firm's first office in California since the San Francisco branch closed in 1906.

(Edited to add: I originally planned to write about J.B. Leonis this week. In light of the fact that 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll was brutally murdered in her apartment in Paris recently, I put J.B. on the back burner. LA's French community was not a monoculture, and this Franco-American blogger values the Lazards, Kremers, Meyers, Loebs etc. just as much as the Beaudrys, Pellissiers, Brousseaus, Mesmers, etc. Although I am not Jewish, I am from a heavily Jewish neighborhood, and bigotry of any kind really. pisses. me. off.

Rant over. I'm going to bed.)

Georges Le Mesnager: LA's Favorite Fighting Frenchman

Georges Le Mesnager arrived in California in 1867. He was sixteen years old.

In July of 1870, the Franco-Prussian War broke out. Travel time and expenses be damned, nineteen-year-old Georges immediately packed up and went back to France to enlist in the French Army and defend his homeland under General de Chanzy.

Georges returned to LA after the war ended, and became a U.S. citizen at age 21. He worked as a notary and court translator (remember, French was more commonly spoken than English in 1870s LA), owned a store on Commercial Street, and owned property at 1660 N. Main Street.

Georges married Concepción Olarra (sometimes styled "O'Lara"). It isn't clear whether she was Mexican, Spanish, or born in the New World to Spanish parents - and it's possible she had Irish ancestry. Unfortunately I cannot find any records of her birth or death. Records on Ancestry do show other Olarras (none of whom I could conclusively tie to Concepción) living in 19th century Mexico.

Letters published in La Crónica between 1876-1878 indicate that Concepción was probably a native Spanish speaker. This would not have been a deterrent to the multilingual Georges. They had four children: Louis, George, Louise, and Jeanne.

Georges' intelligence and linguistic abilities served him well when he became the editor of the weekly French-language newspaper Le Progres, founded in 1883 and headquartered on New High Street. Le Progrés was politically independent and so popular with Francophone readers (in spite of strong competition from L'Union Nouvelle) that copies of the newspaper trickled back to France. At least one other French Angeleno, Felix Violé, was inspired to move to Los Angeles after reading a copy of Le Progrés at the home of a relative with friends in California (but we'll get to the Violé family later).

Like so many of his countrymen in Southern California, Georges got into wine and liquor production. In fact, Georges soon had to give up editing Le Progrés because his wine business kept him too busy. His grapes were eventually grown in Glendale, but his Hermitage Winery stood at 207 N. Los Angeles Street, close to the heart of Frenchtown. (And now the site is the unattractive Los Angeles Mall. Doesn't seem like a fair trade, does it?)

He was acting president of the Légion Français for three years, but stepped down in 1895 (he was given the title of honorary president as a token of the Légion's gratitude).

In 1894, at the age of 43, Georges married Marie du Creyd Bremond. Marie was 32 and a fellow French immigrant. They had one child together: Evon.

Georges' real estate holdings had their own challenges. In 1896, he sued the city over a dispute regarding streets in the Mesnager housing tract. Two years later, he was threatened by a trigger-happy tenant, Emil Rombaud, and asked for police protection. The same year, the Le Mesnagers sued a different tenant for damaging a rented vineyard. And Georges' more unusual land holdings included partial ownership of the Ventura County islands of San Nicolas and Anacapa. (If you read Island of the Blue Dolphins in fourth grade, it's a fictionalized account of San Nicolas' last Native American inhabitant, Juana Maria.)

Georges bought a huge parcel of land in what is now Glendale, built a stone barn, and planted grapevines. These days, Deukmejian Wilderness Park preserves the land where the Le Mesnagers grew those grapes.

When Georges' stone barn was damaged by a fire and a flood, his son Louis converted it into a farmhouse. The Le Mesnager family lived in the stone house until 1968.

Georges was so well acquainted with "King of Calabasas" Miguel Leonis that he was one of two executors of Leonis' estate. (Georges made wine and liquor. Leonis liked to drink. What a coincidence.)

The French community held a huge celebration of Bastille Day's centennial on July 14, 1889. Georges Le Mesnager delivered a speech in French at the event.

On September 21, 1892, the French community celebrated the centennial of the French Republic. The celebration - even bigger and more spectacular than Bastille Day's centennial three years earlier - featured Georges as the French-language speaker of the day (this being multicultural LA, someone else gave a speech in English). According to Le Guide Français, published forty years later, "his eloquent and fiery speech still rings in the ears of the older members of the colony."

World War One broke out in 1914. Georges didn't hesitate to return to France and re-enlist in the French Army. He was 64 years old at the time.

Georges didn't even try to negotiate this with his family. It was too important to him. He simply told his oldest son, "Well, my dear Louis, I am leaving for the war. France needs every one of her sons."

Louis objected, "But you are too old to fight."

Georges didn't care. "I promised in 1870 to be there if France were invaded again, and I want to keep my promise."

Georges sent Marie to visit their daughter Louise in Catalina for a week. He asked their youngest daughter, Evon, to gently break the news to her mother when she returned. Marie was very upset, but reasoned "maybe it is all for the best" in a letter to Georges.

So, Georges traveled to New York and set sail for France. As soon as he arrived, he re-enlisted as a private and was assigned to the 106th Infantry.

It wasn't an easy task. French authorities were highly suspicious of anyone entering the country during wartime, and Georges was detained by police at the dock. According to the Ocala Evening Star, a gendarme laughed at his plan to rejoin the army. Georges simply reached into his pocket and took out his prized Legion d'honneur medal - the highest military or civilian honor a French citizen can receive.

"I came from America in 1870 and fought for France and they gave me this. I've come back to fight again."

With the Germans rapidly approaching Paris, soldiers were desperately needed. This was not the time to quibble over a willing volunteer's age. The gendarme kindly directed him to a recruiting station down the street.

The recruiter was hesitant. A 64-year-old private in the infantry was pretty much unheard of. But Georges showed the recruiter his Legion d'honneur medal, and he was on a troop train that very night.

After just seven days on the front, Georges was shot through the arm and hospitalized for a month. He was quickly promoted to sergeant for gallant conduct.

Georges spent months in the trenches at the seemingly endless battle of Verdun. One day, the unthinkable happened: the 106th ran dangerously low on ammunition.

The colonel asked for a volunteer to retrieve more ammunition. It was a suicide mission. But Georges volunteered, and in spite of the German army's best attempts to shoot him down, succeeded. For his courage, he was given the croix de guerre. The colonel told his regiment "Every soldier should have the courage and spirit of this veteran comrade."

One night, Georges was talking to his regimental adjutant when a German artillery shell passed between them, landed nearby, and exploded.

Both men survived, although the explosion sent them flying. Georges regained consciousness under a tree, retrieved parts of the spent artillery shell, brought them back to the trench, and showed them to his troops.

"It was nothing at all, nothing at all," he laughed. "Don't ever be afraid of a shell like this one. It's only the shell that hits you that you need to dread."

The colonel overheard this remark, and recommended Georges for further honors. He received another medal, the palme.

In a later battle, a massive German soldier tried to take out the aging Georges - who ran him through. For this, he received yet another medal, this one for bravery in hand-to-hand combat.

Georges' courage in the battles of Eparges, Chemin des Dames, and the trancheé de Calonne did not escape notice, and he was wounded five times during the war.

Georges' family knew nothing of this until Marie read about his heroics in a book published after the war's end. She told the Tonopah Daily Bonanza "It is characteristic of my husband that he should say nothing of being wounded. He never writes anything about himself. It is always about the bravery of others. The only information of personal nature I had from him was that his weight had decreased, but he always insisted he was well. He did write from a hospital, but stated he was there on business. He might be wounded a dozen times, but he never would tell us about it."

(That article, by the way, was unkindly titled "Old Man Runs Away From Home to Fight." The Ogden Standard also published Marie's comments under a different title.)

In 1916, Georges - now a Sergeant Major - was granted a leave of absence, and returned to Los Angeles. During his leave, he focused his energies on two important tasks: defending France from scapegoating, and raising funds for the wounded and maimed soldiers in his regiment. The French community and its supporters were very generous, and Georges was able to bring a good amount of money back to France when he rejoined his regiment.

Besides medals, Georges' leadership and courage earned him the praise of Generals Foch, Pershing, and de Castelnau. He was also appointed lieutenant flag bearer of the 106th Infantry.

As the war drew closer to an end, Georges - now a Lieutenant - was transferred to special duty under General Pershing. In this role, he acted as a liaison and translator for one of the French army divisions that trained with the American military. He led the Alsatian veterans when the army entered Strasbourg.

Georges told the Ocala Evening Star "I couldn't remain quiet when the war broke out. Ever since 1871 I had itched to get back at the Germans...It was one of the happiest days of my life when the United States, my country, joined in the war against Germany on the side of the country of my birth."

While Georges was away fighting for France, his family founded the Le Mesnager Land and Water Company. They secured partial rights to the Verdugo Wash stream, which supplied water to the vineyard.

Georges returned to Los Angeles after the war ended. After four years of the war to end all wars (need I mention he was 68 when it ended?), he'd earned a well-deserved rest. But he had one thing left to do.

After returning to his home in Echo Park, Georges founded the Section Nivelle des Véterans Français de Los Angeles - a society for LA's French war veterans. He also served as its first president.

Finally, Georges decided it was time to retire. He bought a mansion in the Verdugo Hills called Sans Souci ("without a care" in French), which should not be confused with the Sans Souci fantasy castle in Hollywood.

In 1921, Georges was partially paralyzed by an apoplectic stroke. He knew it was the beginning of the end, and decided to spend his last days in France. The following year, he returned to Mayenne with Marie and Evon. Georges bought another grand property: the Chateau de Kerleón.

At six a.m. on September 6, 1923, Georges stood up and died in his nurse's arms.

Georges was buried with full military honors. Every war veterans' association flew its flag at the funeral. This being small-town France, the funeral was held before the very altar where he had been baptized so many years earlier. Colonel Oblet recorded Georges' considerable military accomplishments on his tombstone.

The Chateau de Kerleón was, tragically, destroyed by Nazi bombing in World War II.

Incredibly, the Le Mesnagers' old stone house is still standing at 3429 Markridge Road in Glendale and is being converted into a nature center. There is also a Mesnagers Street in Los Angeles.

Surviving sites associated with the French community are RARE (as of today, I've mapped FOUR HUNDRED, only a handful of which still exist). And yet, somehow, it doesn't seem like enough.

I, for one, would pay good money to see Georges Le Mesnager's story on the silver screen (and I can't sit through war movies).

*Most sources Anglicize Georges' name to George. Since older resources give his name as Georges, which is the correct form in French anyway, I'm calling him Georges.