A Historical Treasure on Via de la Paz

By Libby Motika, Senior Editor

2010-05-13
In these daysof million-dollar homes, imagine drawing up plans for your new house at the kitchen table. This was exactly what happened when Rev. Charles Scott, a Methodist minister and the founder of Pacific Palisades, hastily drew up a floor plan for his family home over breakfast one morning as his wife looked on apprehensively.

??Conceived for both a growing family (the Scotts had six children) and the official parsonage, the house on Via de la Paz, midway between the commercial center and the ocean bluffs, was considered spacious compared to the few dwellings that other founders built. The first private house was built at 819 Hartzell in Founders Tract I (the Alphabet streets).

??During construction of their home, which began in 1922, the Scott family lived in a cottage on the Assembly Grounds in Temescal Canyon for a year. When they moved to the undeveloped Via neighborhood, their two-story English cottage-style home was one of just a sprinkling of homes in the infant community. The Scotts owned a pony and cart, which carried the children on excursions up the street and down to the Assembly Grounds, where the action was. The pony was kept staked out on the vacant land across the street.

??The home was designed with the needs of the large family in mind: the four boys bunked together in one of the upstairs bedrooms, the two girls in the other. Charles and his wife Anna occupied the bedroom, which featured a bank of windows offering panoramic views of Temescal Canyon and Santa Monica Bay. Ever the responsible parents, the Scotts liked to keep an eye on their offspring through a peephole drilled from their room into the children's rooms.

??Anna Scott, a deeply religious woman who had met Charles while both were students at USC in the first decade of the 20th century, was a woman before her times. She appreciated the value of natural foods and exercise. She and Charles believed in the nutritional value of vegetables and coarse-grained cereals from the gristmill. Mrs. Scott even wrote an article for Bernarr MacFadden's magazine, 'Physical Culture,' espousing the cause of wholesome food.

??The Scotts made time for family devotions at breakfast time, followed by Bible readings.

??'There was always a big pot of cereal which had cooked all night in the deep well of the electric stove in the kitchen by the time the children came down for breakfast,' recalled the Scotts' elder daughter Martha, who up until her death in 2008 provided a valuable history of her family's years in the house.

??'For both Dr. and Mrs. Scott, religion provided a deep-seated faith, a special buoyancy of body and mind,' she recalled in 'Pacific Palisades: Where the Mountains Meet the Sea,' the book by Betty Lou Young and Randy Young.

??'Both were physical-culture enthusiasts, exercising each morning and allowing the children a bedtime romp through the house'in the buff'to be sure they would sleep soundly.'

??Dr. Scott's dream of a burgeoning community slowly faded as property sales began to slump as early as 1924. Most of the Association's assets were taken over by the Pacific Land Corporation under the guidance of Robert Gillis. When the Methodist Church responded to the crisis by offering to transfer Scott to Hawaii, he decided instead to go into real estate, encouraged by his relationships with Gillis, Alphonso Bell (who developed Bel-Air) and the Janss brothers (who developed Westwood Village).

??In 1927, Scott left Pacific Palisades to move closer to downtown, and his house was given to Dr. Oren Waite, director of education for the Association.

??Despite Waite's valiant efforts to keep up the quality of the summer Assembly programs in Temescal Canyon and guiding the Association through the difficult times of the late 1920s and 1930s, the Association went bankrupt in 1934 and Dr. Waite accepted another assignment and moved from the house.

??A series of owners and renters moved in and out of the house over the succeeding decades, including actress Beryl Mercer, who owned a large piece of property in Las Pulgas Canyon and made her home there. She rented the house on Via de la Paz to a friend who, in turn, rented out rooms. The next owner was Sam McKee, who operated a piano school on Sunset in Hollywood. When he died, he left the property to the Methodist Church, which rented it to various tenants for short periods of time. Eventually, the house, which at this time was in poor repair, was put on the market. The Schleed family, who lived across the street, bought the house and brought the kitchen up to date and converted the laundry room to a breakfast room. In the dining room, they added French doors, finished the walls with French padding and built a deck off the back.

??Susan Schleed's philosophy was to keep the original atmosphere of the house as much as possible, a sensibility that the current owners, Jan and Jack Chatten-Brown, appreciated when they bought the house in the summer of 1983.

??At that time, both were working downtown; Jan was Ira Reiner's special assistant for environmental quality in the City Attorney's office, and Jack was a deputy district attorney, a career he enjoyed for 34 years until he retired this January.

??With two small boys, the Chatten-Browns had been planning to move to Hancock Park from the Hollywood Hills, where they had lived for 10 years. 'We wanted a place with sidewalks, where the kids could walk and ride their bikes,' Jan says. 'But Cato Fiksdal [L.A. County Agricultural Commissioner] suggested that we take a look at his town of Pacific Palisades, where the kids could walk to school. For years, whenever we came through the McClure Tunnel and saw the ocean, we'd say 'This is paradise.''

??Ironically, in 1974, when Jan was working in the California Attorney General Environmental Unit, she represented the state in an amicus case in the No Oil battle, insisting that a full EIR should be required of Occidental. But she never had come out to look at the proposed site'right below the end of Via de la Paz, along Pacific Coast Highway.

??The Chatten-Browns came to look at the Scott house and, Jan recalls, 'I found it really appealing. I loved the views and I found a great window to put the Christmas tree.'

??The Schleeds agreed to the sale, but insisted that the Chatten-Browns wait until after the Fourth of July parade to move. They complied.

??The Chatten-Browns valued the intent of the house and have retained the integrity of the living and dining rooms. Enthusiastic cooks, they remodeled the kitchen 15 years ago, which had already been updated from the original.

??The boys, Josh (30) and Justin (33), both graduated from Palisades Elementary, just down the street. Josh went on to Paul Revere, while Justin attended Walter Reed. They both graduated from Harvard-Westlake. Justin, an emergency department doctor, lives with his wife Jessica and son Sebastian in Northern California; Josh, a lawyer, lives with his wife Amy in San Diego.

??Now with their sons married and living away, the Chatten-Browns are reluctantly leaving Pacific Palisades and moving to La Jolla to be closer to Josh and Amy.

??Reflecting on their history in the house, they say that one of the annual highlights was the Fourth of July'a day that began with the 10K run up and back to Will Rogers, followed by brunch at their house, the parade and snacks for a late lunch, and then a barbecue and the fireworks show at dusk. 'We were never away for the Fourth,' Jan says.

??'Funnily enough, we will be moving to a community with a Fourth of July parade, where we can walk to the village and where, like in Pacific Palisades, we'll have a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean.'