Coronet Apartments
Designed in 1927 by architect Charles S. Cobb in the Italian-Renaissance style, the 4-story plus basement apartment house opened in 1928 as the Hacienda Park.
Drawing of the Hacienda Park Apartments. Work was underway on the construction as of May 1927.
As the Hacienda Park, Now Opening 1-27-1928
In April 1935, the fashionable address became the scene of a crime when dress designer Paul Ivar Wharton was shot in his apartment during a “dinner party.” Another man, Henry E. Bolte, was shot at another location around the same time. Police charged a young sailor. William McCauley Howard, whose own death was proclaimed a suicide, with both murders, blaming debt as the motive, but the facts of the case were vague.
The Hacienda Park apartments in April 1935. Arrow at right indicates Paul Ivar’s apartment.
By 1938, 8439 Sunset had been renamed the Coronet Apartments. This building, which still stands, is often referred today as the “House of Francis,” a brothel operated by Hollywood madam Lee Francis. It is one of her few known addresses. That’s because Francis was arrested here on morals charges in January 1940, for the first time in her long “career.” She occupied apartment 204 under the name Ruth Marion. According to Francis in her book, Ladies on Call (published in 1965), she had retired from the madam business after trying and failing to open a nightclub on the Strip at 8588 Sunset and was working at a small club as a hostess while living here. Her arrest, she said, was a frame-up. She’d simply arranged for some girls who also worked at the club to have an innocent date with a customer, no prostitution involved. That was her story, but the women pleaded guilty and Francis was ultimately convicted of pandering. Her story of being out of the madaming racket was a lie. In the semi-fictionalized version of her “as told to” memoir drafted in 1939 before her arrest and published in 1942 as Call House Madam, Francis- or “Beverly Davis” as she’s called in the book- tells of resuming the running of new houses of prostitution well after the failed nightclub venture.
Coronet Apartments renting, 8-29-1939 around the time Lee Francis was a resident.
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Top image: 8439 today as the Piazza del Sol. Los Angeles Conservancy photo.
J. H. Graham 
I moved to the Coronet Apts. in 1960 at age 11. My mother was still very young and wanted to live on the Strip. She sold our home on Lexington in Beverly Hills. I loved it. I attended St. Victor’s Catholic Elementary School. The Strip became my home and the shop owners kept an eye out for me. But, the Coronet had it’s share of Stars who used the Apts as offices where they frequently entertained. Only a few “call gilrls” were there and they were stunning and cute and high priced. They became friends of mine. One, retired, call girl had Lewis B. Mayers private phone and they were good friends. He always said to call him if she ever needed anything-if she needed money, he didn’t care how much, just call and he would have any amount sent over. The 3 young, gorgeous girls became friends. I used to visit several times a week and when I turned 14, they showed me “the birds and the bees” as often as I wanted at no cost-they were 23. In 1963, we moved to the El Mirador on Sweetzer and Fountain. At, first I was sad to leave Beverly Hills but West Hollywood was great. It was my home and I got to know many of the Residence of the Coronet, El Mirador and West Hollywood. The stories I could tell you!!
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Hello, I also lived at the Coronet Apartments from 1957 to 1963 with my parents. First on the 3rd floor over looking Ciro’s, then the front right with the balcony. I would catch the school bus to Gardner Street and Le Conte. I spent a lot of time on the roof.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Connie
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