FORTY YEARS STRONG

Hollywood Heritage was founded in 1980 by Marian Gibbons, Mildred Heredeen, Christy Johnson (McAvoy), Frances Offenhauser, and Susan Peterson (St. Francis), with assistance from former Los Angeles County Supervisor John Anson Ford. The founders met while volunteering for the Hollywood Revitalization Committee,  involved in the first-ever historic survey for world-famous Hollywood.

Marian was a freelance publicist and noticed the Lasky-DeMille barn as it sat on blocks in a parking lot on Vine Street. Being involved in historic preservation in the Midwest, she wanted to join the Hollywood Historic Society - but one did not exist! Hearing a common concern, the five women decided they would start a Hollywood historic society, and thusly Hollywood Heritage was born as a California State 501 (c) (3) membership non-profit.

Following two years of restoration, completed with volunteer labor and donated funds, the Barn opened as a museum in 1985 with a focus on the initial years of the film industry. Additionally, Hollywood Heritage succeeded in having the restored Barn listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

At the same time, Hollywood Heritage was part of a group trying to save the Garden Court Apartments, a 1913 Frank Meline building on Hollywood Boulevard. That effort was unsuccessful but led to the plan to submit as much of Hollywood Boulevard as possible to the National Register as a National Register District, which was successful and added to the Register in 1985.

The organization's initial foray was to save the 1905 Janes House, the only remaining residence on downtown Hollywood Boulevard. However preservation crises don’t wait, and their attention was soon dramatically drawn to the Lasky-DeMille Barn. Donated to the Hollywood Historic Trust arm of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, the building suddenly needed a new home, as it was placed temporarily on a parking lot on Vine Street awaiting its fate.     

Swinging into action, the fledgling group crafted agreements to take on the Barn with the Chamber of Commerce and Paramount Pictures Inc. They drew plans, hired building movers, raised funds and rode along with the 90’ long building to its new home. With the assistance of former Supervisor Ford, and then-current Supervisor Edmund Edelman, Hollywood Heritage obtained a land lease with the County of Los Angeles to have the barn placed on its current site --which was land taken in the 1950’s for a “Hollywood Museum”.

In those first years, Hollywood Heritage submitted a proposal to the City of Los Angeles to assume stewardship of the derelict Wattles Mansion, a 1906 Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey wintering estate, the only one of its kind with extant gardens remaining in Hollywood. Hollywood Heritage garnered local support and spent $2.5 million restoring the mansion and its multiple gardens, additionally completing a Historic Structure  Report and an award-winning Cultural Landscape Report. In 2009 the Wattles Mansion was returned to the city following the restoration.

After 40 years, Hollywood Heritage continues to preserve and protect the historic built environment of Hollywood by actively interacting with city, state and federal agencies, as well as by educating the public through the Hollywood Heritage Museum (the Lasky DeMille Barn) and the Preservation Resource Center through lectures, tours, special events and an ever expanding resource library. Our plan is to be supporting the community for many more years to come.