Los Angeles is full of hidden gems – you just have to know where to look. And location managers always do. So when it came to pinpointing spots to portray 1930s L.A. for HBO’s 2020 “Perry Mason” reboot (streaming now on HBO Max), the production team did not disappoint. From Pasadena to San Pedro to Santa Clarita, cast and crew shot at myriad historic sites to bring a Depression-era City of Angels to life on the small screen.
For the boarding house where Della Street (Juliet Rylance) – the tenacious right-hand-woman of both titular character Perry (Matthew Rhys) and his mentor E.B. Jonathan (John Lithgow) – lives along with a ragtag group of fellow lodgers, the team zeroed in on an exquisite Craftsman/Tudor property located in the Alvarado Terrace Historic District, a tiny enclave in the Pico-Union area chock full of architecturally significant residences.
Tucked away atop a small bluff on a curving block overlooking the adjacent Terrace Park, the district is home to six turn-of-the-century properties designated as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments. Though massive, the homes sit largely cloistered from their incongruous and bustling surroundings of commercial storefronts, apartment buildings and more modern tract houses. A quick turn south off busy Pico Blvd., though, lands you smack dab in the middle of the neighborhood – and seemingly decades back in time. As noted by the Los Angeles Conservatory, “The collection of noteworthy residences surrounding the park creates a complete historic neighborhood ensemble. The grouping of houses in its landscaped setting constitutes an oasis of the past within contemporary Los Angeles.”
At the forefront of it all, almost serving as a gateway to the small district, is 1317 Alvarado Terrace, the spot that portrayed Della’s home. Known as the Boyle-Barmore House in real life, the three-story structure was designed in 1905 by architect Charles E. Shattuck.
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake Mostly Craftsman in style but embellished with many Tudor details, the home is a true architectural marvel! Though sizing details of the place are rather scant online, a 1958 Los Angeles Times advertisement notes it as having 25 rooms, including 16 bedrooms. Property Shark fills in some of the remaining measurement gaps, tallying the square footage at 6,793, the number of bathrooms at five and the lot size at 0.40 acres.
The residence was initially constructed as a single-family home for Calvin A. Boyle, who, per a National Register of Historic Places Inventory, was “active in the founding of the Hollywood Board of Trade.” By 1908, ownership had shifted to Los Angeles Transfer Company president/general manager Edmund H. Barmore, hence the property’s hyphenated Boyle-Barmore name.
Barmore’s tenure was short-lived. By 1911, the title had changed hands once again, this time to investment banker George Henry Cutts, who made the pad his longtime home. After George passed away in 1935, his second wife, philanthropist/socialite Helen Franklin Cutts, continued to live on the premises until she met an untimely demise in 1954 via an accidental fall from a train while on safari in South Africa at the age of 68.
The Boyle-Barmore House subsequently went up for auction in 1958 and, thanks to its vast size, was being billed as a possible rest home. By the 1960s, it had been transformed into a convent and it later operated as a women’s shelter run by the Union Rescue Mission. Today, it is zoned as a Home for Aged & Others and is protected under the Mills Act.
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Image Credit: The Luxury Level Despite the many changes in ownership and iteration, the interior of the property remains virtually untouched from its 1905 construction and is an exquisitely preserved representation of turn-of-the-century Craftsman style.
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Image Credit: The Luxury Level Artfully crafted built-ins line almost every inch of the home, including the formal dining room which features a wall-length wooden sideboard with leaded glass cabinetry and, according to the Los Angeles Conservancy, “original wall-mounted oil paintings and the original tapestry fabric wall covering,” as well as a tiled fireplace topped by a “mantle with back-lit scenic stained glass and original lighting fixtures.”
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Image Credit: The Luxury Level The uniquely framed living room fireplace also boasts an original wall-mounted landscape oil painting above the mantle, along with matching green tiles below.
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Image Credit: The Luxury Level Each room seems to feature more immaculate detailing than the last, the likes of which aren’t often found in mid-city L.A.
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Image Credit: The Luxury Level Even the stairs are worthy of admiration!
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake So it is no wonder the house wound up onscreen in a period show. We are first introduced to the property, as well as to Della’s live-in girlfriend, Hazel Prystock (Molly Ephraim), in the episode titled “Chapter Four.” The residence then goes on to appear throughout the rest of the series.
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Image Credit: The Luxury Level The interior was featured numerous times, as well, and, in its heavily preserved state, proved the perfect backdrop to serve as a 1930s-era Los Angeles boarding home. Aside from removing a modern cooler case from the kitchen, few alterations had to be made to get the property camera- and period-ready for the shoot.
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Image Credit: The Luxury Level The production team also exchanged the red paint in the bedroom that served as Della’s with more feminine floral wallpaper.
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Image Credit: HBO Along with the kitchen and bedroom, numerous other areas of the property appeared onscreen, though very little of the masterful detailing can actually be seen due to the dark-lit nature of the series, as well as the tight angles utilized in the filming.
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Image Credit: SM Genie Music South Korean pop group Red Velvet does a much better job showcasing the home’s striking architecture in their 2017 “Peek-a-Boo” music video, for which the Boyle-Barmore House served as the main setting.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: The Boyle-Barmore House, aka Della’s boarding home from “Perry Mason,” is located at 1317 Alvarado Terrace in Los Angeles’ Pico-Union District. Disclaimer: Please remember this is a private home. Do not trespass or bother the residents or the property in any way.