LA Times 1-8-1922

5652 was the modern address given to the 14-room frame residence of William O. Jackson and his wife Harriet M. Hovey Jackson. The Jacksons came to Hollywood from Chicago with their young sons in 1893 and bought a 10-acre lemon ranch between what is now Hollywood Boulevard and Carlton Way and Wilton Place and St. Andrews Place, which they called Lemona.

In 1918, society architect Frank F. Rasche designed a 9-room home for the Jackson’s oldest son Augustus along the property’s south boundary, addressed as 5653 Carlton Way.

The Jacksons witnessed the phenomenal growth of Hollywood within a fairly short period of time and the increasing commercialization of this section of Hollywood Boulevard. In March 1921, William Jackson obtained a permit to build a row of 1-story stores along the property’s Hollywood Boulevard frontage, addressed as 5648-5664 Hollywood Boulevard, also to be designed by Frank Rasche, who the previous year had built a similar retail complex for B.Y Taft at 5524-5528 Hollywood Boulevard (see my post about this property here). The plans were made public in January 1922.

Hollywood Daily Citizen 1/2/1922

Unlike other Hollywood pioneers who may have subdivided their land and moved, the Jacksons remained in their ranch home, which was no longer visible from the street after the stores constructed in front of it. The ranch house was re-addressed as 1680 N. Wilton Place. The retail space now bearing the address 5526 Hollywood Boulevard became Rasche’s office through most of 1928.

Hollywood Daily Citizen 1/14/1925

Hollywood Daily Citizen 3/26/1930.

William O. Jackson passed away at home in March 1930. Harriet Jackson continued to reside in the old ranch house until her own death in February 1940. Son A.W. Jackson also remained at the 1918 home on Carlton way, where he died in 1948.

An apartment building was constructed at 1680 N. Wilton Place in 1953.

The Frank Rasche retail complex has been altered many times since 1922 but is extant- for the time being- an increasingly rare example of the low-rise development that characterized Hollywood Boulevard in the early 1920s.