The Real Story of Sowden House

In the years leading up to 1924, Frank Lloyd Wright and his son were collaborating on projects in Los Angeles. At that time, the elder Wright expressed his dissatisfaction with the present situation. You are still young enough to be able to own Los Angeles. It was Wright Junior's goal to establish himself as a prominent figure in the industry by creating sets for Hollywood productions and infusing the Mayan revival look into his father's works. When he was given the opportunity to construct the Soudan House in 1926 by his. John Soudan, who was a photographer. He was able to reach his full potential.

In preparation for their move to Los Angeles with their daughter, who was six years old at the time, John and Ruth, his wife of six years, wanted to purchase a Bohemian Playhouse in which they could host parties for budding actors and Hollywood types. A big property on the western side of Los Feliz was purchased by the Saudons at the time. This neighborhood was home to a number of prominent performers and entertainment moguls.

Additionally, it was home to the Storybook style mansions that served as inspiration for the majority of Walt Disney's fairy Tale Creations. Was the ideal setting for Wright Junior to design and construct the building which occupies 5600 square feet and has seven bedrooms and four bathrooms. The structure is constructed out of reinforced concrete and stucco and is supported by a wooden frame.

A dramatic and sculptural exterior can be seen on the Seldon House, which is reminiscent of the Hollywood sets that Wright junior was famous for designing. Grandeur of the Mayan revival is not the only thing that the house reflects. It also reflects the Art Deco style, which is characterized by fan shaped patterns and brutalist characteristics. An imposing presence is added to the front of the home by the absence of any windows, with the exception of a single enormous window that is located over the French entrance doors.

Nevertheless, the residence is flooded with light. Since it is designed around a central courtyard that serves as the focal point of the whole structure, the plan is really extremely ordered and easy, despite the fact that it seems to be rather complicated and. It is basically a rectangle with the center cut out and there are hallways on each side that go to the private rooms on the east and the social areas on the West. Despite the fact that Wright Junior accomplished a professional success with the House, the Selden family did not live there for very long, according to the majority of accounts, the family departed because the Mayan Revival style received an excessive amount of criticism. Nonetheless, possible that the family left for additional personal reasons.

Ruth married her second husband, David Barnett, at the Soudan House, where they stayed until 1936, when they sold the mansion to a real estate developer called Milton Glasier, according to census records. John and Ruth had divorced by the year 1930. Ruth had married David Barnett. The mansion was leased out by Blasia to a number of different people, one of which being James W Boudwin, a child star during the silent cinema period. Nevertheless, not all Hollywood ties are as sparkling as others. In 1945, Doctor George Hodel, who was one of the primary suspects in the Black Dahlia case, purchased the house, moved in with his third wife, Dorothy, and their three boys, Michael Kelly and Steve.

A highly indulged only kid with a skyrocketing intelligence level of 186, Hodel was born on October 10th, 1907 in Pasadena. He was an only child. He received his high school diploma ahead of schedule and attempted to enroll in Caltech when he was 15 years old. However, he was expelled for reasons that are unclear. Family mythology claims that he had an affair with a professor's wife. After deciding to pursue painting he self published a paper on the emerging surrealism movement. However, his art career finally failed, which prompted him to go to San Francisco. Where he experimented with journalism. Duncan was born to Doctor Hodel and his common law wife Amelia, in the late 1920s. In 1932, Doctor Hodel enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley as a pre Med student. After the birth of Duncan. He was married to another lady by the middle of the 1930s and the two of them produced a daughter together, who they called Tama. This is around when he enrolled in the medical school at UC San Francisco to study surgery.

After receiving his degree, Doctor Hodel divorced Tamara mother and began working as a physician in a logging camp in Arizona, however. By the early 1940s, he had relocated back to Southern California, where he married Dorothy Houston Hodel and became the chief of Venereal Disease Management for the Los Angeles County Health Department. Around 1 mile away from the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, which is thought to be one of the last locations short was seen alive before her terrible murder. Later in January of 1947, Doctor Hodel also maintained a medical office on 1st St. in downtown Los Angeles. This clinic was located around one mile away from the hotel.

Despite the fact that Doctor Hodel and Dorothy had divorced by 1946, she and their kids continued to reside at the Southden House on an irregular basis while he was living and working in Shanghai, China. He held the position of Lieutenant General for the United Nations REL. And reconstruction administration during the same year, doctor Hodel said that he would stay in Shanghai until the spring of 19. 47 in a letter that he sent to Lloyd Wright personally. Doctor Hodel was at the time attempting to persuade Lloyd Wright to work in city planning in Shanghai. In spite of this, he unexpectedly resigned from his position in September of 1946 for personal reasons.

And then moved back to Los Angeles, despite the fact that short and Doctor Hodel lived in close proximity to one another and were involved in similar activities. It wasn't until 1949 that he became a target. Of the investigators. At that time, his daughter Tamar, who was 14 years old at the time, reported to the authorities that she had been subjected to sexual assault at the Selden House during the investigation of the Selden residence, the authorities found and confiscated a number of pornographic artifacts, as well as.

To be sexually explicit. According to an article that was published in the Los Angeles Mirror in 1949, Doctor Hodel made the following statement. The action that I was accused of participating in is unclear, and I'm not sure if I was dreaming or if it was real and if I was. Hypnotized or hypnotizing someone else. It was before he sought advice that he made the statement. These things must have happened. Although the evidence was devastating, Gurdj was able to establish a case with the assistance of his highly renowned and successful attorney, Jerry Geesler, and he was ultimately found not guilty in the early 1950s. Gilsa was informed by one of the witnesses, a border called Joseph Barrett, that Tamar had told him this house has secret passageways. This statement was made throughout the course of the case.