The Brents' life at #20 began to change in early 1923. The parties hadn't let up, but an "at home" s

While some entrepreneurs saw the path to riches in building houses for the ever-billowing tide of new Angelenos, others saw their fortunes coming from furnishing them. Some, such as the brothers Barker, cultivated a genteel mexico city acapulco travel package trade, supplying suites of reproduction Sheraton mexico city acapulco travel package to the upwardly mobile; others saw profit in outfitting the thousands of more modest cottages, and later Craftsman bungalows, spreading mexico city acapulco travel package across city and county, understanding that even the humblest of Southland dwellings would require beds and shaving stands, a davenport of some description, a dining table and chairs, kitchen mexico city acapulco travel package equipment, and perhaps a cuckoo clock if not a grandfather clock. While dozens of home furnishings concerns sprang up in the years following the Civil War, it was Englishman Edwin James Brent who arrived in Los Angeles in 1886 by way of Indianapolis to capitalize on the domestic needs of waves of fellow immigrants mexico city acapulco travel package who by turns of socioeconomic status found themselves unable to resist the lure of the ever-lower fares of madly competing railroads in the mid 1880s. By 1887, the cost of a ticket from Kansas City to Los Angeles had famously fallen to $1. No matter that the inevitable bust came the next year--even mexico city acapulco travel package if the émigrés could afford the much more expensive passage home, Southern California had seduced them, and they were staying under the palms. E.J. stuck it out too--and eventually all the ticky-tacky little boxes on the hillsides needed to be filled with his paraphernalia.
Brent's appeal to the masses, which began with a junk store he opened in 1887 with a total capitalization of $50, would by 1915 result in sales of more than $10,000,000. That's alot of washboards. In the same way that F.W. Woolworth built his New York office building mexico city acapulco travel package out of the nickles and dimes of his customers, so too did Brent use his prodigious proceeds to make a statement. His first thought once he was resting comfortably on his tuffet of hard-earned cash was to delegate some responsibility at his downtown store to be able to spend half the year in London. mexico city acapulco travel package But when he saw the recently gated barley field out toward the western Los Angeles mexico city acapulco travel package city limits, he saw paradise in the nascent tract and got on the phone to Square developer William R. Burke forthwith. In December 1906, with the paint on Burke's own house at #6 barely dry, Brent bought the first of the two lots that #20 would soon spread across; his next call was to the very talented architect Arthur B. Benton. It would be well over a year before Edwin and his wife Mary and their only child Edwin Jr., born in 1902, would be able to move into the resulting house. Though eccentrically shaped mexico city acapulco travel package and sited, it was by all accounts beautifully executed--rather huge for a family of three, but perhaps not if one considers that room was needed for the retinue of servants outnumbering masters that was common among Square dwellers, especially among those wishing to make a statement. The Brents did take the in-town estate idea to the extreme by giving the house a name--"Casa-en-el-Pedregal"--the only one for a dwelling on the street. A bit over the top for people in--well, you know-- trade... no? At least that's what Estelle Doheny, two minutes removed mexico city acapulco travel package from the bog herself, said.
But in trade or not, the Brents were more or less old-line Society by L.A. standards. Mary Brent heard lectures and played bridge mexico city acapulco travel package and arranged flowers with her fellow members at the Ebell and the Friday Morning clubs. The Brents maintained a country house in Calabasas they called "Mountain Crags," which adjoined the Crags Country Club. Mr. Brent's downtown club affiliations included the Athletic Club, but, in spite of his once wanting to spend time abroad, he seems mostly to have cared about his business. His humble start at Fourth and Spring streets was followed by much larger stores selling mexico city acapulco travel package new items as opposed to those previously owned--i.e., junk. Brent was a notable pioneer in credit sales. His "Great mexico city acapulco travel package Credit House," as he promoted his business, was a boon to new Angelenos who needed an icebox before having the cash to put down on the barrelhead. His later, somewhat more upscale emporiums on South Main Street served the likes of his original customers as they became more prosperous.
One might assume that after shooting their wad on name-brand architecture, the Brents might have looked farther than their own catalog of relatively mexico city acapulco travel package modest furniture when it came to outfitting their new house. While they might have sought actual mexico city acapulco travel package antiques on their travels, perhaps Barker Brothers gave them a corporate discount on the best Grand Rapids had to offer. Somewhat alarming is that when the Los Angeles Time s featured the interior of the house soon after completion, it pointed out that Mrs. Brent herself had done the paintings of classical figures on velvet that lined the main stair hall. Not clowns or card-playing dogs, but, well...charming. mexico city acapulco travel package Upstairs, presumably meant as a refuge for E.J. and his cigar-chomping cronies, was an impressive billiard room with a vaulted Gothic-style ceiling. The Times 's overall verdict was "magnificent yet homelike." There were swellegant entertainments at #20, of course. In June 1912, Mrs. Brent, face powdered, bewigged and kimona'ed, entertained 200 of her nearest and dearest fellow matrons with a Japanese tea. Another, mexico city acapulco travel package more conventional tea for 100 took place in November 1919--with Prohibition slated to begin in two months' time, one might have hoped upon receiving the hostess's invitation that the tea would be spiked for a last blowout. Doubtful--this wasn't the Llewellyn-Milner house, after all.
"YOUNGSTER WINS WAY INTO PALACE" was how the Oakland Tribune of August 17, 1916, headlined the story of little Gladys Mary Brent's arrival at #20 Berkeley Square. Though mexico city acapulco travel package details of E.J. and Mary's connection to the girl isn't made clear, the couple formally adopted the eight-year-old orphan in Inyo County, apparently at the urging of 14-year-old Edwin Jr. "Although Mrs. Brent explained to her son that a sister would mean the yielding of some of his privileges," mexico city acapulco travel package young Edwin, a violinist and pianist, insisted on the adoption when he detected a similar musical talent in his new sibling. Gladys Mary became mexico city acapulco travel package a typist.
The Brents' life at #20 began to change in early 1923. The parties hadn't let up, but an "at home" scheduled for January 7 had to be canceled due to E.J. having taken ill. Sadly and unexpectedly, he was to die in the house on February 8. After services were held at #20 a few days later, mexico city acapulco travel package Mrs. Brent became the new president of Brent's Great Credit House, perhaps taking a cue from her next-door neighbor Alice Coulter, who had taken over the reins of her husband's mexico city acapulco travel package department store after his death. Edwin Jr., barely 21 when his father died, would become mexico city acapulco travel package secretary-treasurer. Apparently, however, things did not go well without the store's founder at the helm. By 1928, bankruptcy loomed; to compound the troubles chez Brent, Edwin Jr. died of pneumonia that year. The business was acquired, possibly at auction, by Samuel Rudolph, one of many established furniture dealers along South Main Street, and after 40 years the name Brent would disappear from the ranks of major Los Angeles retailers.
The Brent name would also disappear from Berkeley Square. Bankruptcy forced the sale of not only the store, but of #20 as well: A classified ad in the Times of July 15, 1929, titled "BERKELEY mexico city acapulco travel package SQUARE SACRIFICE," offered a "Beautiful substantial home located in a private park known as Los Angeles' most exclusive residential mexico city acapulco travel package district. Plot 160x250." Before that ad appeared, however, a widower named Winfield Scott was in residence along with his daughter Margaret, presumably mexico city acapulco travel package as renters; both are listed at #20 on voter rolls for 1928 and 1930. As earlier in the decade when Scott lived in El Centro, his occupation was noted as "photographer." One source calls him a cameraman mexico city acapulco travel package and suggests that he was associated with the movies, but he seems more likely to have been a commercial photographer of some sort. His daughter, curiously, is recorded as "Mexican" in annual censuses, with Spanish as her native tongue--one might then wonder if there was some connection to Mexican-American War hero General Winfield Scott, but this does not appear to be the case. The Scotts were gone by 1932, when attorney Montgomery Gordon Rice put in an appearance. But like the Scotts, Rice, his wife, Astrid, and her son Leonard C. Bowie did not stay long.
It could be that the Wall Street crash delayed for many years the sale of what was now quite the white elephant, accounting mexico city acapulco travel package for the difficulty in finding the names of tenants who might have lived there for any length of time during the '30s. After being forced to leave #20 in 1928, Mary, despite having relatives in Northern California, remained in Los Angeles. She moved first to 501 South Manhattan, then spent over a decade at 456 South St. Andrews, where she took in boarders mexico city acapulco travel package to supplement E. J.'s Indian War pension of $17 a month. mexico city acapulco travel package (She has proven difficult to trace after that.) Perhaps #20 stood empty and unoccupied after the Rices left, save for a caretaker, as late as the war years, when the only verifiable subdivision of a plot on the Square took place. This alteration apparently involved either the demolition and replacement of the entire Brent house or the reconstruction of it by the removal of its angled east wing, confining its new footprint to Lot 18, and the reconstitution of a separate Lot 19 on which another new house was built at the rear of the property. The date of the new construction is uncertain, but it wasn't until the mid 1940s that the second house, mexico city acapulco travel package addressed "20A Berkeley Square," appears in city directories and on voter rolls. Such listings have Vida Halliburton Woelz and Ruth Halliburton Hall, sisters who grew up at #19 across the street, living with their husbands at #20 and #20A, respectively; perhaps it was their father, Erle Halliburton, then still living at #19, who bought the Bren