Los Angeles has always been a city of strivers and social climbers. In the 1920s, this proclivity for luxury and respectability manifested in an unprecedented construction boom.

The boom transformed the city from a Wild West outpost of small Victorians and adobes into a concrete and steel metropolis rivaling the great cities of the East Coast. On North Rossmore Avenue, in sophisticated Hancock Park, several “New York style” high-rise apartments were built near the new Wilshire Country Club to house the city’s self-proclaimed aristocracy.