(This entry refers, several times, to the 1950 Bette Davis film All About Eve. I felt the comparison was apt.)
As it happens, there are particular aspects of my life to which I would like to maintain sole and exclusive rights and privileges. For instance: all my hard work!
I will establish the facts with the following timeline.
Spring 2013: Began researching LA's lost French community.
Summer 2013: Began mapping French-linked locations in Southern California for personal reference (to date, I have mapped nearly 450).
May 15, 2016: After three years of researching dead French Angelenos, I officially launched this blog and posted my first entry.
Before the launch of "Frenchtown Confidential", the French and French-speaking section of Los Angeles wasn't written as a single word ANYWHERE (I did a LOT of Googling before coming up with the name). Where it had a specific name at all, it was normally called "the French Colony", or, in rare cases, "French Town" (two words). I changed it to one word because I thought it flowed better.
June, July, August, and September 2016: Contacted multiple media outlets in Los Angeles (and one in Paris) pitching an article on LA's lost French community. None of them responded.
I later realized that all but two of the media outlets in question have employed a writer I will refer to only as "Eve Harrington". (I would rather not have anyone Googling her real name, and you'll understand why soon enough. But if you look at the clues, you'll know who it is.)
August 3, 2016: Posted an entry calling out three local writers for making rather egregious omissions at the expense of some very important dead French Angelenos.
One of them - the worst offender, in fact - was Eve Harrington.
September 30, 2016: Posted this entry on Victor Ponet.
October 2016: One of the media outlets that I'd contacted over the summer ran an error-filled, sloppily-researched piece on the lost French community...written by Eve Harrington. (Please don't Google it. It's an inexcusable mess and it doesn't deserve whatever page views it got.)
I complained to said media outlet's editor and received no response.
November 16, 2016: Having received zero response, and having little other recourse, I posted this entry detailing the numerous factual errors Eve Harrington saw fit to put in print and calling her out for her actions.
Once again, no response of any kind.
May 27, 2017: Gave my first talk on Frenchtown. Mentioned early Hollywood's two most important French figures - René Blondeau and Paul de Longpré.
September 12, 2017: Appeared on episode 121 of You Can't Eat the Sunshine, discussing my research, blog, and upcoming LAVA Sunday Salon.
September 23, 2017: Presented my LAVA Sunday Salon (I gave the short version of my Frenchtown lecture) and walking tour of French-associated sites in the Plaza.
October 2017: Eve Harrington runs a piece on Paul de Longpré. (Please don't Google it. Also, I'm interviewing de Longpré's biographer in the future.)
February 17, 2018: Gave my second lecture on Frenchtown.
October 22, 2018: I posted the first in a series of entries on early LA's French restauranteurs.
November 26, 2018: I submitted a job application to the parent company of one of the previously mentioned media outlets. (I hadn't seen Eve's name on the site in months and hoped she wasn't working there anymore. Anything she can do, I can do honestly and without another writer's help.)
Last Week: My LAVA Sunday Salon debuted on YouTube.
Two Days Ago: Eve published a piece on the early history of Sunset Boulevard...including Victor Ponet.
This is especially creepy for three reasons: 1. My mother worked at a private school that was on the St. Victor's church property (donated by Ponet). I've mentioned this in lectures and in an Instagram post. 2. I'm a huge music fan and have spent many, MANY hours at Sunset Strip music clubs. I won't be surprised if she uses this a lead-in for a more recent history of the Strip...and I won't be the least bit surprised if she name-drops most of the bands in my vinyl collection ('60s rock up through '80s glam metal and beyond).* 3. This piece appeared just 12 days after I unveiled a working miniature Rainbow Bar & Grill sign I made.
There is no way she didn't do this on purpose. It hits too close to home, on three counts.
Also Two Days Ago: I received an email (hi Richard) informing me that Eve Harrington struck again, in a different publication.
Not only did Eve hijack my ongoing theme of French dining in early LA, she managed to use part of my blog title without asking me first OR properly crediting my blog (and I think it's pretty obvious she's reading it, since I'm the one who coined "Frenchtown"). She also persists in making the ridiculous claim that Frenchtown is now Chinatown. As I already explained the last time I detailed her various factual errors, that is inaccurate and a gross oversimplification of Frenchtown's geography. Hiistoric Frenchtown is NOT in modern-day Chinatown. (Trust me on that, I'm the one who's spent 5 1/2 years on The Great Big Map of French Los Angeles!)
The fact that she's using my work for financial gain, when I LOSE money on this blog (rare old books and research trips aren't cheap), makes the whole thing even worse. I started this blog to share French Angelenos' stories, NOT so someone else could profit from it.
I'm well aware of the fact that I'm "just" a shy nerd with a blog. But these are MY people. I care very deeply about telling their stories properly and I don't want them tainted by association with someone who doesn't respect them enough to get the facts straight.
I was merely irritated by Eve's bratty antics at first. But she has now crossed the line and I am VERY creeped out by her latest stunts.
If you like this blog...if you like LA history...if you are as fed up with the Eve Harringtons of the world as I am...if you are a creative who has had their ideas stolen...please help a girl out and send this entry to Eve Harrington's editors.
They've ignored me, but they might listen to someone else. I don't need to talk to them; I just want them to know what kind of person she is. Everybody has a heart - except some people.
Lost LA: viewerservices@kcet.org
LAist: Contact page
LA Weekly: Contact page
Curbed LA: Contact page
Atlas Obscura: Contact page
Eve Harrington, if you are reading this (and I know you will), you shouldn't be a writer if you can't come up with your own material. I suggest moving to Kansas and getting a secretarial job in a brewery.
Look closely, Eve. It's time you did. I am Charlotte de Vere. I am nobody's fool, least of all yours.
Goodnight from Frenchtown (which is NOT CHINATOWN),
C.C.
P.S. I would like to politely, but firmly, remind anyone else who needs to be reminded that original blog content is protected by copyright law. There is a copyright notice in the footer (and even if there wasn't one, it's incredibly unprofessional to do this stuff).
P.P.S. *Update: she did that too. She has since "written" about the Wiltern Theatre (seriously?) which I first did in 2016. QUIT CREEPING ON ME, "EVE". I MEAN IT.
Sunday, January 27, 2019
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
Watch My LAVA Sunday Salon!
If you couldn't make it to my September 2017 LAVA Sunday Salon, it's now available on Youtube. As always, much love to Kim and Richard for letting me ramble and for posting the video...to the sold-out audience for coming to hear me ramble...to my family for patiently listening to me practice...to Nathan "Cranky Preservationist" Marsak for his wit and expertise...and to Jean Bruce Poole for everything she has done to preserve Los Angeles' history.
Friday, January 18, 2019
Open Letter To All The Snobs Who Say SoCal Has No History
(Dear readers: permit me, if you will, to veer slightly off topic tonight. I've been wanting to get this off my chest for quite some time now.)
Dear Snobs:
Look, I GET it. Your East Coast hometowns look and feel like they've been around forever. You're proud of your roots. Unless you have a connection to someone or something absolutely despicable (i.e. slaveowning ancestors), you have every right to be proud.
You do not, however, have the right to loudly, nastily, and inaccurately claim that "Southern California doesn't have any history."
Our history may not look like yours, but that doesn't make it any less real.
Some of you seem to think the history of North America didn't begin until the first English settlers landed. Wrong - there were already people living here. Southern California, which still has a large Native American population, knows this and doesn't pretend the world began when the Spanish invaded.
North Carolina famously has the lost colony of Roanoke. It's an intriguing story. But we famously have ghost towns (and they're still standing!).
The South has retained many of its historic plantations. Similarly, we have the missions established by Spanish Catholic priests. (I've seen historic homes in Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia. Funny how I don't recall EVER seeing slave quarters on properties that definitely had them. Meanwhile, Californians don't kid ourselves about the fact that Native Americans in the mission system had miserable lives.)
You say Coney Island. I say Knott's Berry Farm (turning 100 next year!), Balboa Fun Zone, and the Santa Monica Pier. (Hey, remember the beautiful antique carousel from "The Sting"? The Looff Hippodrome has been on the Santa Monica Pier for over a century.)
New Yorkers are proud of Central Park. Bostonians are proud of Boston Common. Both are very nice urban parks. But Griffith Park - which has a very unusual history of its own - is nice too. And it has a beautiful Art Deco observatory.
Virginia has Jamestown and Williamsburg. I've been to both and they definitely have educational value. But so does Los Angeles' historic plaza. Ditto for Old Town State Historic Park in San Diego.
Virginia also gives us the heavily sanitized story of Pocahontas. The San Gabriel Valley gives us the true story of Toypurina, a powerful Kizh shaman who helped orchestrate a plot to overthrow the padres at Mission San Gabriel and take back the land occupied by the Spanish. (The plot failed, but the Spanish didn't dare to execute Toypurina when she was convicted.)
Are you from a town with a history of piracy? Cool. I'm not. BUT Southern California did have lots of rum runners and bootleggers during Prohibition (some of them with close ties to Los Angeles City Hall...you can't make this stuff up), along with all the other misbehaving characters you'll find in a classic noir film. There are tunnels under downtown Los Angeles to this day, although many have been blocked off over the years.
San Diego was founded in 1769. That makes San Diego older than Louisville (1778), Nashville (1779), and Montpelier (1781).
Los Angeles was founded September 4, 1781. Which makes Los Angeles older than Asheville (1785), Columbia (1786), Cincinnati (1788), Buffalo (1789), and Washington, D.C. (1790). Not to mention older than Chicago (1803), Montgomery (1819), Indianapolis (1821), Kansas City (1838), and Atlanta (1843). Just saying...
New Yorkers have every right to appreciate Grand Central Terminal. It is a beautiful building. But so is Los Angeles Union Station, built in a style that perfectly combines both Mission Revival and Art Deco. (And Union Station has outdoor green space - an extreme rarity for a train station in a major city.)
Oh, your hometown has beautiful Victorian houses? Great! So does mine. It's true that many of SoCal's Victorians have vanished over the years, but there are still surviving specimens in Los Angeles (Carroll Avenue and Heritage Square in particular), Santa Monica, San Pedro, Santa Ana, San Diego, Orange, Anaheim (yes, really), and even sleepy old Riverside. (There are more, but it's late and I'm tired.)
You say your hometown has unique architecture - things you won't see anywhere else? That's very cool. But guess where else that holds true? Yup - here! Charles and Henry Greene elevated the humble Craftsman house to an art form, especially in Pasadena (two words: Gamble House). Frank Lloyd Wright designed houses completely unlike his earlier work, doing things with concrete blocks that no one else had ever done before. We have the Bradbury Building. And Los Angeles in particular has many of the earliest, and best, examples of fantasy architecture in the world. My personal favorites are the Snow White cottages in Los Feliz and the Coca-Cola building (full disclosure: my dad worked there).
Chicago has the Field Museum. New York has the American Museum of Natural History. Both are world-famous, and for good reason. But have you been to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, which boasts four of the ten complete (or near-complete) Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons known to exist? (My favorite exhibit? "Becoming Los Angeles", beginning with the area's Native American roots and continuing until the present day. I have seriously considered becoming a museum member just so I can visit that exhibit whenever I want.)
East Coast cities (and Chicago) have excellent art museums. Someday I'd like to see them all. But Southern California has LACMA (don't underestimate LACMA, seriously), the Getty, the Broad, and the Huntington Library and Gardens (which has quite a lot of priceless art - Gainsborough, Fragonard, etc. in addition to the rare books and antiques). If you're a snob on a layover in LA, forget the tourist stuff and just spend the day at the Huntington. You'll thank me later.
The East Coast and the South have beautiful cemeteries (especially New Orleans). But Hollywood Forever, Angelus Rosedale, and the many iterations of Forest Lawn are beautiful too. I'm not thrilled about Evergreen Cemetery's shameful history of neglect, but there are neglected cemeteries in every part of the United States.
Does your hometown have a famous ghost story? We've got those too. San Diego's Whaley House is one of only two that the State of California acknowledges as "haunted". There are way too many other ghost stories for me to list, but suffice it to say that there are plenty of books on the subject. (This one is the best. You'll thank me later.)
Did something very, very bad happen in your hometown? Salem, Massachusetts has learned to live with its legacy as the site of North America's most infamous witch trials (coincidentally, my 10th great grandmother, Rebecca Nurse, was hanged in Salem). Los Angeles acknowledges, but is definitely not proud of, the 1871 Chinese Massacre. That's right - the deadliest race riot in 19th century America happened in Los Angeles. In fact, it was the first time most people around the world ever even heard of Los Angeles. (Los Angeles is also known for the Manson family murders and the creepy Hotel Cecil, which inspired "American Horror Story: Hotel". We're not proud of this stuff, but we don't pretend it never happened. You know what they say about learning from the past.)
When most people think of LGBT+ rights, the 1969 Stonewall riots immediately come to mind. While Stonewall was a major turning point, it wasn't the first such incident in the United States. Los Angeles experienced its own Stonewall on December 31, 1966/January 1, 1967, when the Black Cat bar was raided by police. The Stonewall Inn moved, burned down, and is now located in half of the original site; the Black Cat building is still intact (although these days it's a gastropub). Oh, and the Black Cat building just so happens to be a charming Art Deco specimen.
Any Art Deco in your hometown? We have tons of it - Los Angeles and Long Beach especially. Los Angeles exploded during Art Deco's heyday; Long Beach collapsed and burned in a 1933 earthquake and rebuilt itself as an Art Deco city. (And yes, the Queen Mary, in all her faded Art Deco glory, is dry-docked in Long Beach...and yes, I belong to the Art Deco Society.) We also have lots of surviving Googie architecture. (You call it "tacky", I call it "fun".)
Does your hometown have a beautiful old movie palace, preferably still screening films? We have lots of those. Some have been converted to retail spaces or houses of worship, some are closed, and some only screen films occasionally. But we love our surviving movie palaces. Los Angeles has its own Historic Theatre Foundation (I'm a member), and one downtown stretch of Broadway has the highest concentration of historic movie theaters in the world. (One of my bucket list items is to see a movie in every surviving SoCal movie palace that still does screenings. I'm working on it.)
Does your hometown have lots of maritime history? So does San Diego. (Full disclosure again: Dad did some work for the Maritime Museum.) Military history? San Diego, Coronado, Long Beach, Orange County, and Wilmington too. Long Beach even has the oldest tattoo parlor in the United States, due at least in part to the Navy's long tenure in the city.
Do you belong to a historic preservation society? The Los Angeles Conservancy is the largest such group in the United States (you guessed it...I'm a member). If the greater Los Angeles area didn't have any history worth preserving, there wouldn't BE a Conservancy in the first place.
Finally, if Southern California doesn't have any history...how, exactly, are you reading this on a niche local history blog?
"Our" history may not look like "your" history. But that doesn't mean we have no history at all. Shut the %&@# up!
Goodnight from Frenchtown,
C.C.
Dear Snobs:
Look, I GET it. Your East Coast hometowns look and feel like they've been around forever. You're proud of your roots. Unless you have a connection to someone or something absolutely despicable (i.e. slaveowning ancestors), you have every right to be proud.
You do not, however, have the right to loudly, nastily, and inaccurately claim that "Southern California doesn't have any history."
Our history may not look like yours, but that doesn't make it any less real.
Some of you seem to think the history of North America didn't begin until the first English settlers landed. Wrong - there were already people living here. Southern California, which still has a large Native American population, knows this and doesn't pretend the world began when the Spanish invaded.
North Carolina famously has the lost colony of Roanoke. It's an intriguing story. But we famously have ghost towns (and they're still standing!).
The South has retained many of its historic plantations. Similarly, we have the missions established by Spanish Catholic priests. (I've seen historic homes in Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia. Funny how I don't recall EVER seeing slave quarters on properties that definitely had them. Meanwhile, Californians don't kid ourselves about the fact that Native Americans in the mission system had miserable lives.)
You say Coney Island. I say Knott's Berry Farm (turning 100 next year!), Balboa Fun Zone, and the Santa Monica Pier. (Hey, remember the beautiful antique carousel from "The Sting"? The Looff Hippodrome has been on the Santa Monica Pier for over a century.)
New Yorkers are proud of Central Park. Bostonians are proud of Boston Common. Both are very nice urban parks. But Griffith Park - which has a very unusual history of its own - is nice too. And it has a beautiful Art Deco observatory.
Virginia has Jamestown and Williamsburg. I've been to both and they definitely have educational value. But so does Los Angeles' historic plaza. Ditto for Old Town State Historic Park in San Diego.
Virginia also gives us the heavily sanitized story of Pocahontas. The San Gabriel Valley gives us the true story of Toypurina, a powerful Kizh shaman who helped orchestrate a plot to overthrow the padres at Mission San Gabriel and take back the land occupied by the Spanish. (The plot failed, but the Spanish didn't dare to execute Toypurina when she was convicted.)
Are you from a town with a history of piracy? Cool. I'm not. BUT Southern California did have lots of rum runners and bootleggers during Prohibition (some of them with close ties to Los Angeles City Hall...you can't make this stuff up), along with all the other misbehaving characters you'll find in a classic noir film. There are tunnels under downtown Los Angeles to this day, although many have been blocked off over the years.
San Diego was founded in 1769. That makes San Diego older than Louisville (1778), Nashville (1779), and Montpelier (1781).
Los Angeles was founded September 4, 1781. Which makes Los Angeles older than Asheville (1785), Columbia (1786), Cincinnati (1788), Buffalo (1789), and Washington, D.C. (1790). Not to mention older than Chicago (1803), Montgomery (1819), Indianapolis (1821), Kansas City (1838), and Atlanta (1843). Just saying...
New Yorkers have every right to appreciate Grand Central Terminal. It is a beautiful building. But so is Los Angeles Union Station, built in a style that perfectly combines both Mission Revival and Art Deco. (And Union Station has outdoor green space - an extreme rarity for a train station in a major city.)
Oh, your hometown has beautiful Victorian houses? Great! So does mine. It's true that many of SoCal's Victorians have vanished over the years, but there are still surviving specimens in Los Angeles (Carroll Avenue and Heritage Square in particular), Santa Monica, San Pedro, Santa Ana, San Diego, Orange, Anaheim (yes, really), and even sleepy old Riverside. (There are more, but it's late and I'm tired.)
You say your hometown has unique architecture - things you won't see anywhere else? That's very cool. But guess where else that holds true? Yup - here! Charles and Henry Greene elevated the humble Craftsman house to an art form, especially in Pasadena (two words: Gamble House). Frank Lloyd Wright designed houses completely unlike his earlier work, doing things with concrete blocks that no one else had ever done before. We have the Bradbury Building. And Los Angeles in particular has many of the earliest, and best, examples of fantasy architecture in the world. My personal favorites are the Snow White cottages in Los Feliz and the Coca-Cola building (full disclosure: my dad worked there).
Chicago has the Field Museum. New York has the American Museum of Natural History. Both are world-famous, and for good reason. But have you been to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, which boasts four of the ten complete (or near-complete) Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons known to exist? (My favorite exhibit? "Becoming Los Angeles", beginning with the area's Native American roots and continuing until the present day. I have seriously considered becoming a museum member just so I can visit that exhibit whenever I want.)
East Coast cities (and Chicago) have excellent art museums. Someday I'd like to see them all. But Southern California has LACMA (don't underestimate LACMA, seriously), the Getty, the Broad, and the Huntington Library and Gardens (which has quite a lot of priceless art - Gainsborough, Fragonard, etc. in addition to the rare books and antiques). If you're a snob on a layover in LA, forget the tourist stuff and just spend the day at the Huntington. You'll thank me later.
The East Coast and the South have beautiful cemeteries (especially New Orleans). But Hollywood Forever, Angelus Rosedale, and the many iterations of Forest Lawn are beautiful too. I'm not thrilled about Evergreen Cemetery's shameful history of neglect, but there are neglected cemeteries in every part of the United States.
Does your hometown have a famous ghost story? We've got those too. San Diego's Whaley House is one of only two that the State of California acknowledges as "haunted". There are way too many other ghost stories for me to list, but suffice it to say that there are plenty of books on the subject. (This one is the best. You'll thank me later.)
Did something very, very bad happen in your hometown? Salem, Massachusetts has learned to live with its legacy as the site of North America's most infamous witch trials (coincidentally, my 10th great grandmother, Rebecca Nurse, was hanged in Salem). Los Angeles acknowledges, but is definitely not proud of, the 1871 Chinese Massacre. That's right - the deadliest race riot in 19th century America happened in Los Angeles. In fact, it was the first time most people around the world ever even heard of Los Angeles. (Los Angeles is also known for the Manson family murders and the creepy Hotel Cecil, which inspired "American Horror Story: Hotel". We're not proud of this stuff, but we don't pretend it never happened. You know what they say about learning from the past.)
When most people think of LGBT+ rights, the 1969 Stonewall riots immediately come to mind. While Stonewall was a major turning point, it wasn't the first such incident in the United States. Los Angeles experienced its own Stonewall on December 31, 1966/January 1, 1967, when the Black Cat bar was raided by police. The Stonewall Inn moved, burned down, and is now located in half of the original site; the Black Cat building is still intact (although these days it's a gastropub). Oh, and the Black Cat building just so happens to be a charming Art Deco specimen.
Any Art Deco in your hometown? We have tons of it - Los Angeles and Long Beach especially. Los Angeles exploded during Art Deco's heyday; Long Beach collapsed and burned in a 1933 earthquake and rebuilt itself as an Art Deco city. (And yes, the Queen Mary, in all her faded Art Deco glory, is dry-docked in Long Beach...and yes, I belong to the Art Deco Society.) We also have lots of surviving Googie architecture. (You call it "tacky", I call it "fun".)
Does your hometown have a beautiful old movie palace, preferably still screening films? We have lots of those. Some have been converted to retail spaces or houses of worship, some are closed, and some only screen films occasionally. But we love our surviving movie palaces. Los Angeles has its own Historic Theatre Foundation (I'm a member), and one downtown stretch of Broadway has the highest concentration of historic movie theaters in the world. (One of my bucket list items is to see a movie in every surviving SoCal movie palace that still does screenings. I'm working on it.)
Does your hometown have lots of maritime history? So does San Diego. (Full disclosure again: Dad did some work for the Maritime Museum.) Military history? San Diego, Coronado, Long Beach, Orange County, and Wilmington too. Long Beach even has the oldest tattoo parlor in the United States, due at least in part to the Navy's long tenure in the city.
Do you belong to a historic preservation society? The Los Angeles Conservancy is the largest such group in the United States (you guessed it...I'm a member). If the greater Los Angeles area didn't have any history worth preserving, there wouldn't BE a Conservancy in the first place.
Finally, if Southern California doesn't have any history...how, exactly, are you reading this on a niche local history blog?
"Our" history may not look like "your" history. But that doesn't mean we have no history at all. Shut the %&@# up!
Goodnight from Frenchtown,
C.C.
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
J.B. Leonis' Prized Whiskey On the Auction Block
I've said it before and I'll say it again: LA's hidden French history is filled with great stories you just can't make up.
Beret-tip to the anonymous reader who tipped me off about an upcoming Christie's auction. Specifically, Christie's is auctioning off Jean-Baptiste Leonis' secret stash of rare and valuable pre-Prohibition whiskey.
Before co-founding the City of Vernon and its eponymous bank, J.B. founded a store that sold, among other things, liquor (the city of Los Angeles was officially "dry" at the time). In Vernon's earliest days, while J.B. and the Furlong brothers were courting industrial tenants, the city's country club and bars were popular destinations for drinkers. But, as Prohibition loomed, J.B. secretly built hidden vaults in both of his homes for his beloved whiskey. As a banker, it wouldn't have been hard for him to obtain bank vault doors for the spaces. And no one knew...until J.B.'s grandson Leonis Malburg passed away in 2017, more than a century after J.B. secretly hid over 40 cases (!) of Hermitage, Old Crow, and more.
The auction is this Friday, December 7 in New York (click the link - they have a GREAT photo of J.B.'s hidden stash from the Leonis family's Hancock Park home*). Hint: jump to page 122 of the auction catalogue. If anyone goes, I'd love to hear about it.
Fellow Angelenos, this is your chance to own a very unique piece of LA's forgotten French history. Individual bottles are expected to go for roughly the same amount of money that my car is worth, so I'm definitely out!
*The second vault was at the Leonis family's Little Tujunga ranch. I believe the Huntington Harbour beach house was built MUCH later.
Beret-tip to the anonymous reader who tipped me off about an upcoming Christie's auction. Specifically, Christie's is auctioning off Jean-Baptiste Leonis' secret stash of rare and valuable pre-Prohibition whiskey.
Before co-founding the City of Vernon and its eponymous bank, J.B. founded a store that sold, among other things, liquor (the city of Los Angeles was officially "dry" at the time). In Vernon's earliest days, while J.B. and the Furlong brothers were courting industrial tenants, the city's country club and bars were popular destinations for drinkers. But, as Prohibition loomed, J.B. secretly built hidden vaults in both of his homes for his beloved whiskey. As a banker, it wouldn't have been hard for him to obtain bank vault doors for the spaces. And no one knew...until J.B.'s grandson Leonis Malburg passed away in 2017, more than a century after J.B. secretly hid over 40 cases (!) of Hermitage, Old Crow, and more.
The auction is this Friday, December 7 in New York (click the link - they have a GREAT photo of J.B.'s hidden stash from the Leonis family's Hancock Park home*). Hint: jump to page 122 of the auction catalogue. If anyone goes, I'd love to hear about it.
Fellow Angelenos, this is your chance to own a very unique piece of LA's forgotten French history. Individual bottles are expected to go for roughly the same amount of money that my car is worth, so I'm definitely out!
*The second vault was at the Leonis family's Little Tujunga ranch. I believe the Huntington Harbour beach house was built MUCH later.
Wednesday, November 28, 2018
Early French Restauranteurs of Los Angeles: Victor Dol
Los Angeles is, for many foodies, a dream destination.
Year-round access to good fresh produce (and good wine)? Check.
One of the most ethnically and culturally diverse cities in the world? Check.
Relatively affordable rent (compared to Tokyo, Paris, London, New York, San Francisco, etc.)? If you don't mind a strip mall location, check.
Friendly to food trucks? Check. (By the way, food trucks are often cleaner than brick-and-mortar restaurants.)
Chefs of all backgrounds applying French cooking techniques? According to the late Jonathan Gold, check.
The first chefs in Los Angeles to apply French cooking techniques were, of course, French. And the first LA-based chef to have trained in Paris was a Frenchman named Victor Dol.
Victor Dol was born April 5, 1840 in the southern French town of Cuers. After training as a chef in Paris, he came to the United States in 1860. Victor married his first wife, Felicie Malvardi, in 1862. Like Victor, Felicie was from the region of Var. They had two daughters - Josephine in 1864 and Victorine in 1870. The Dol family must have moved around quite a bit in those early days, since Josephine was born in Cuba and Victorine was born in British Columbia, Canada.
Census and voter records indicate that Victor came to San Francisco first, establishing the upscale restaurant Maison Dorée (which was likely named after the Parisian restaurant Maison Dorée). He became a naturalized citizen there in 1876, and set up shop in Los Angeles in 1877.
Felicie's uncle, Benjamin Flotte, was already living in Los Angeles and running the Oriental Café (don't let the name fool you - the menu was strictly European) with another Frenchman, one C. Casson, and a Prussian, H. Schmitt. (The Oriental Café stood at 221 Main Street, directly across from the Pico House.) Flotte helped his nephew-in-law get his first LA restaurant off the ground (and, at least for a time, lived with the Dol family).
Victor owned a restaurant in the Downey Block at one point (no surprise here, since the Downey Block also hosted a French-owned wine store and a French-language newspaper). He founded the Restaurant Français at 221 N Main St in 1886. But he is best known (in Los Angeles, anyway) for the Commercial Restaurant.
Imagine, if you can, going to the Commercial Restaurant in 1877. Longtime Angelenos of the day would likely still remember the not-distant-enough days of dirty, primitive eateries like Jean La Rue's. Although the Commercial Restaurant was about three blocks away from La Rue's former location, it couldn't have been further from La Rue's in spirit.
If you were coming from the older part of Frenchtown, you would be walking southwest on Main Street (make that same walk today and you would pass behind City Hall). You come to a gap between two buildings and walk in.
A brick-lined courtyard with a decorative fountain beckons, with the restaurant itself just behind. It has real floors - not dirt. Sneak a peek around you as you dine on fine French cuisine and you may well spot opera stars, politicians, well-heeled visitors from the East Coast, and the celebrities of the era in addition to early LA's foodie crowd.
Curiously, Victor Dol and Eugene Aune were both from the town of Cuers. While going through digitized old issues of the Los Angeles Herald, I found an advertisement for the Commercial Restaurant - directly above an advertisement for Eugene's Restaurant. History doesn't seem to have recorded whether Dol and Aune were friends, rivals, or friendly rivals, or if the ad placement was deliberate, but apparently early LA had a high enough demand for fine French cuisine to support Eugene's in addition to Victor's restaurants.
Although the restaurant industry is very tough, it made the hardworking Dol family rich (besides Victor's restaurants, Felicie took in boarders). Victor sold the Commercial Restaurant to Mr. L. Pegot (founder of a San Diego branch of Delmonico's) in January 1888, announcing his retirement. But (shades of Prudent Beaudry) 48-year-old Victor didn't stay retired for very long.
On January 5, 1889, Victor opened a Los Angeles location of his upscale San Francisco restaurant, Maison Dorée. He proudly advertised it as a Los Angeles equivalent of famed New York restaurant Delmonico's. Daily shipments of live turbot, trout, and sole arrived at Maison Dorée, and Victor imported brie from France (local cheeses just wouldn't do).
No family is immune to tragedy, and Felicie Dol passed away in 1898 at the age of 58. Victor later married a woman named Tatiana who was 19 years younger than he was.
Victor died at home in Venice (it isn't clear when the Dols moved) in 1911, leaving an estate valued at $625,000. That's about $16.7 million in 2018 dollars. (Try buying Venice real estate for $625,000 now!)
Perhaps unusually for such a successful entrepreneur, Victor Dol was a Socialist. (At the risk of roasting my own subject, Victor might possibly have been a Champagne Socialist in both the figurative and literal senses.) According to probate filings, he left $15,000 to purchase a plot of land in Toulouse, France and construct a building to be donated to a Socialist organization that would be chosen by two trustees he had selected.
As for the rest of that sizable estate, Victor left $6000, plus $1200 a year in rent on two commercial properties downtown (between 6th and 7th on Spring and Broadway), to his widow Tatiana, along with the couple's two lots in Venice.
The French Hospital received $5000 of Victor's estate, and the Los Angeles County Pioneers' Society received $2000. The rest of Victor's estate was to be split evenly between daughters Josephine and Victorine. Victor is buried at Angelus Rosedale with both of his wives (Tatiana passed away in 1934).
Victor's death announcement in the Los Angeles Herald notes an unusual request: "A clause in the will is to the effect that the dead man desires that the property he leaves never shall be mortgaged nor sold." His descendants seem to have honored that request. 618 South Broadway, built in 1928 on one of the Dols' downtown plots, was the only downtown building destroyed in the 1992 riots. Victor's grandson-in-law, Walter J. Thomson, spent at least $2.5 million rebuilding 618 South Broadway from old photographs and renamed it the Victor Dol Building, noting to the Los Angeles Times that his young granddaughters (Victor's great-great-granddaughters) would eventually inherit the property.
On a personal note, I almost fell off my chair when I saw the address. I've walked past the Victor Dol Building countless times on my way to Clifton's or a historic theater and NEVER knew it had a French connection. (By the way, I am VERY good at spotting new construction made to look older. The fact that the reconstructed Victor Dol Building looks just as old as Broadway's vintage theaters is a testament to the fact that Thomson cared enough to have it done right.)
Thursday, November 15, 2018
Early French Restauranteurs of Los Angeles: Eugene Aune
Before we begin:
And now to lighten the mood:
Eugene Aune was doing the "farm to table" thing when Los Angeles was less than 100 years old.
He also set up shop in Santa Monica before Santa Monica existed and built Santa Monica's first combination home and business. (Le Guide states that it was Santa Monica's first house, period.)
Born in France around 1828, Eugene Aune built a house/restaurant in 1873, not far from Santa Monica State Beach. The town of Santa Monica did not yet exist. The mere fact that Aune managed to attract customers to a restaurant 17 miles from downtown, in the middle of nowhere, long before the 10 and the Expo Line existed, suggests it was a destination worth the trip.
When Santa Monica was founded in 1875, Aune's house/restaurant got an official address: 114 Main Street. Listings from the 1880s put Eugene's Restaurant, as it was called, at the corner of Second Street and Arizona Avenue (today, that intersection boasts a Tender Greens).
Ever wonder why artichokes, of all things, are such a staple of Southern California cuisine? Aune may very well have gotten the ball rolling. He grew his own artichokes (and other vegetables), serving them in the restaurant. Aune would also serve fish and razor clams fresh from Santa Monica Bay, followed by roasted meat, salad, and an omelet or soufflé for dessert. And wine, of course. Advertisements for Eugene's Restaurant mention "French Clarets and other wines always on hand." Madame Aune* waited tables. Eugene's high-end French dinners set diners back $3 apiece (about $60 today).
Advertisements for Eugene's Restaurant also mention "Rooms, furnished or unfurnished, to rent." Like so many other French Angelenos, Aune eventually rented rooms in addition to his day job. (The restaurant industry is brutal. Chez Panisse didn't turn a profit for 20 years.)
By 1886, voter rolls listed Aune's occupation as "real estate". Towards the end of the year, he placed his restaurant on the rental market.
Eugene Aune passed away in 1892.
My mom is from Santa Monica. Did she learn about any of this in school? Nope.
I lived and worked in Santa Monica. Did anyone tell me any of this? Nope.
Does anyone remember Eugene Aune today? Nope. But if you love LA's world-class culinary scene, maybe you should.
*It's annoyingly common to find no reference to a long-dead married woman's first name, let alone her family name. Even Ancestry let me down this time.
- Wildfires are still raging in the Calabasas/Malibu/Thousand Oaks area. If you want to help, and aren't a trained volunteer firefighter, first responder, or similarly qualified professional, please read this.
- Can you adopt or foster evacuated animals? Click here. (If you have the land and resources, large animals are the hardest ones to place.)
- Are you in a fire-adjacent area? Set out buckets of water if you can. Wild animals are also fleeing - they will be hot and thirsty, and their usual water sources may be unavailable.
- In case this isn't clear enough, I hate wildfires.
And now to lighten the mood:
Eugene Aune was doing the "farm to table" thing when Los Angeles was less than 100 years old.
He also set up shop in Santa Monica before Santa Monica existed and built Santa Monica's first combination home and business. (Le Guide states that it was Santa Monica's first house, period.)
Born in France around 1828, Eugene Aune built a house/restaurant in 1873, not far from Santa Monica State Beach. The town of Santa Monica did not yet exist. The mere fact that Aune managed to attract customers to a restaurant 17 miles from downtown, in the middle of nowhere, long before the 10 and the Expo Line existed, suggests it was a destination worth the trip.
When Santa Monica was founded in 1875, Aune's house/restaurant got an official address: 114 Main Street. Listings from the 1880s put Eugene's Restaurant, as it was called, at the corner of Second Street and Arizona Avenue (today, that intersection boasts a Tender Greens).
Ever wonder why artichokes, of all things, are such a staple of Southern California cuisine? Aune may very well have gotten the ball rolling. He grew his own artichokes (and other vegetables), serving them in the restaurant. Aune would also serve fish and razor clams fresh from Santa Monica Bay, followed by roasted meat, salad, and an omelet or soufflé for dessert. And wine, of course. Advertisements for Eugene's Restaurant mention "French Clarets and other wines always on hand." Madame Aune* waited tables. Eugene's high-end French dinners set diners back $3 apiece (about $60 today).
Advertisements for Eugene's Restaurant also mention "Rooms, furnished or unfurnished, to rent." Like so many other French Angelenos, Aune eventually rented rooms in addition to his day job. (The restaurant industry is brutal. Chez Panisse didn't turn a profit for 20 years.)
By 1886, voter rolls listed Aune's occupation as "real estate". Towards the end of the year, he placed his restaurant on the rental market.
Eugene Aune passed away in 1892.
My mom is from Santa Monica. Did she learn about any of this in school? Nope.
I lived and worked in Santa Monica. Did anyone tell me any of this? Nope.
Does anyone remember Eugene Aune today? Nope. But if you love LA's world-class culinary scene, maybe you should.
*It's annoyingly common to find no reference to a long-dead married woman's first name, let alone her family name. Even Ancestry let me down this time.
Monday, October 22, 2018
Early French Restauranteurs of Los Angeles: Jean La Rue (Laroux)
The French, whether in France or abroad, are known for a lot of things.
Sophistication. Military might (fight me on this, Google). Knowing how to beautify anything and everything.
The French are best known, however, for culinary prowess. It should come as no surprise that early Los Angeles' best restaurants were helmed by French chefs.
Today, we meet one of LA's earliest French restauranteurs, if not THE earliest: Jean La Rue (or Laroux).
In 1853, nineteen-year-old Harris Newmark, newly arrived in Los Angeles, was clerking for his merchant brother J.P. and sleeping on the premises. Cooking inside the store was impossible, so Newmark arranged to eat at a nearby restaurant instead.
Newmark gives the proprietor's name as John La Rue. If La Rue's establishment had a name, it certainly doesn't appear in Sixty Years in Southern California. (Nameless restaurants were not impossible in Los Angeles; Nick's Cafe near Chinatown didn't have a name for the first few decades of its existence.)
La Rue was born in France, came to California as a gold prospector, tried prospecting in Mazatlan, and returned to the United States after being robbed twice in Mexico. Upon arriving in Los Angeles, La Rue met and married an Irish woman, Bridget Johnson, in spite of the fact that he spoke no English and she spoke no French. He then opened his restaurant "on the east side of Los Angeles Street, about two hundred feet south of Bell's Row." (If it existed today, it would be roughly at the corner of Los Angeles and Aliso Streets, just west of the 101 in the Civic Center.)
In Newmark's own words:
(A real dirt floor and a dining room facing the street? Hipsters would have loved La Rue's.)
Jean La Rue died five years later from smoke inhalation when a fire broke out on Main Street. Bridget Johnson La Rue inherited her husband's orange grove and (what else...) vineyard.
In spite of his critical eye toward La Rue's questionable hygiene and rather dirty café, Newmark notes "Although La Rue was in no sense an eminent citizen, it is certain that he was esteemed and mourned."
Stay tuned for entries on Victor Dol, Eugene Aune, and more...
Sophistication. Military might (fight me on this, Google). Knowing how to beautify anything and everything.
The French are best known, however, for culinary prowess. It should come as no surprise that early Los Angeles' best restaurants were helmed by French chefs.
Today, we meet one of LA's earliest French restauranteurs, if not THE earliest: Jean La Rue (or Laroux).
In 1853, nineteen-year-old Harris Newmark, newly arrived in Los Angeles, was clerking for his merchant brother J.P. and sleeping on the premises. Cooking inside the store was impossible, so Newmark arranged to eat at a nearby restaurant instead.
Newmark gives the proprietor's name as John La Rue. If La Rue's establishment had a name, it certainly doesn't appear in Sixty Years in Southern California. (Nameless restaurants were not impossible in Los Angeles; Nick's Cafe near Chinatown didn't have a name for the first few decades of its existence.)
La Rue was born in France, came to California as a gold prospector, tried prospecting in Mazatlan, and returned to the United States after being robbed twice in Mexico. Upon arriving in Los Angeles, La Rue met and married an Irish woman, Bridget Johnson, in spite of the fact that he spoke no English and she spoke no French. He then opened his restaurant "on the east side of Los Angeles Street, about two hundred feet south of Bell's Row." (If it existed today, it would be roughly at the corner of Los Angeles and Aliso Streets, just west of the 101 in the Civic Center.)
In Newmark's own words:
Nothing in Los Angeles, perhaps, has ever been cruder than this popular eating-place. The room, which faced the street, had a mud-floor and led to the kitchen through a narrow opening. Half a dozen cheap wooden tables, each provided with two chairs, stood against the walls.
(A real dirt floor and a dining room facing the street? Hipsters would have loved La Rue's.)
The tablecloths were generally dirty, and the knives and forks, as well as the furniture, were of the homeliest kind. The food made up in portions what it lacked in quality, and the diner rarely had occasion to leave the place hungry.(Sounds like any greasy-spoon in America, to be honest.)
What went most against my grain was the slovenliness of the proprietor himself. Flies were very thick in the summer months; and one day I found a big fellow splurging in my bowl of soup. This did not, however, faze John La Rue. Seeing the struggling insect, he calmly dipped his coffee-colored fingers into the hot liquid and, quite as serenely, drew out the fly; and although one could not then be as fastidious as nowadays, I nevertheless found it impossible to eat the soup.(I loathe and resent the "grubby French person" stereotype - indoor plumbing began at Versailles, you know - so it pains me to type this.)
Jean La Rue died five years later from smoke inhalation when a fire broke out on Main Street. Bridget Johnson La Rue inherited her husband's orange grove and (what else...) vineyard.
In spite of his critical eye toward La Rue's questionable hygiene and rather dirty café, Newmark notes "Although La Rue was in no sense an eminent citizen, it is certain that he was esteemed and mourned."
Stay tuned for entries on Victor Dol, Eugene Aune, and more...
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