2341 Scarff St
Los Angeles, CA 90007, USA

Machell-Seaman House (Seaman House) - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:

The Machel1-Seaman House is architecturally significant as a large Queen Anne style residence built for a middle-class family in Los Angeles. The house is remarkably intact on both the interior and exterior. It was built in the late 1880s at the height of a real estate boom in the area that followed the establishment of the nearby University of Southern California, and the expansion of the railroad system in Southern California. The house is typical of Victorian residential construction, and was probably designed and erected in 1888 by a local builder who may have drawn inspiration from a pattern book design and who used stock woodwork, mantels, and hardware, some of it probably shipped to Los Angeles by the railroad, such as the hearth tiles stamped "U.S. Tile Company, Indianapolis, Indiana". Among the relatively few intact exuberant 1880s Victorian houses remaining in Los Angeles, the house is also of significance as one of the first built and oldest remaining residences in the neighborhood around Chester Place and St. James Park in South Central Los Angeles. While the significance of the house is primarily architectural, it is also of interest as the home of several important educators in the early history of Los Angeles.

At the time the house was built is was considered to be in part of "West Los Angeles". It is located in the Ellis Tract which was recorded in 1886 at the request of C. J. Ellis, Dan McFarland, and L. T. Garnsey. Scarff Street appears on an 1888 map of the city, showing that it was 2-1/2 miles from the courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. The area was connected to downtown by streetcar lines in the early 1890s, with lines running along Figueroa, Hoover, and 23rd Street. In the mid-1890s Chester Place, the neighborhood directly east of Scarff Street, was developed by Judge Charles Silent as an exclusive residential park. By that time the area had become recognized as the most fashionable section of the city as wealthy residents moved from Bunker Hill and South Grand Avenue in the heart of the city to West Adams Boulevard, St. James Park and Chester Place.

The original owner and builder and exact construction date of the house are not known for certain, although strong evidence point to William W. Seaman as the original owner, and 1888 as the construction date. According to a L.A. County Tax Assessor's Building Description Blank completed in 1921, the estimated construction date was 1888.

The 1888 Los Angeles City Directory lists W.H.H. Russell, President Security Title Insurance and Abstract Co., as residing on the west side of Scarff Street between Ellis Avenue and Thompson, and by 1891 when house numbers had been assigned on Scarff Street, Russell is listed as living at 2341 Scarff. He may have been the first resident of the house.

In 1892, a deed was recorded in Los Angeles County showing the lot was sold by John Machell and Adelaide C. Machell (not listed in the city directories) to William W. Seaman for $3,500, and it would seem almost certain that the house had been constructed before this transaction, given the relatively high purchase price at a time when lots in this section were selling for no more than a couple hundred dollars. It may be that the Machells held the mortgage on the property for Seaman up to 1892, with the Machell deed representing a sum to finance one of Mr. Seaman's many oil and real estate ventures. William Seaman (who was the county superintendent of schools until 1893) is listed as living elsewhere in the Los Angeles city directories for 1888, 1891, and 1892, but by 1893 he is listed at 2341 Scarff Street, along with Josephine E. Seaman, a teacher at the State Normal School, and presumably William Seaman's sister. (The State Normal School of Los Angeles opened in 1882 with a principal, two teachers and 61 students. In 1919 it became the southern branch of the University of California, and it eventually was renamed U.C.L.A. Statistics were not located to determine how many women professors there were at the school at the time that Josephine Seaman was an instructor. However, it would seem likely that she was one of the first women professors at the school. Josephine E. Seaman continued to be listed in the city directory as a teacher at the State Normal School until 1920.) William Seaman's wife, Alice Rhodes Seaman, was originally from Rosendale, New York and had moved to Los Angeles and was married to Seaman by 1888. They evidently had two children, George W. Seaman who passed away at an early age, and Josephine Seaman.

Although the Seamans continued to own the house, by 1896 William Seaman was the Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of California where he had his office. He then lived at 1419 0 Street in Sacramento. By 1896, the Scarff Street house was the residence of Seaman's successor as Superintendent of Schools, James A. Foshay, and Miss Amelia M. Foshay, a teacher at the Norwood Street School. James Foshay and William Seaman were also both on the board of directors of the Los Angeles-based Banner Oil Company from 1891 through 1894, and both served on the Board of Education of Los Angeles County, in addition to serving succeeding terms as County Superintendent of Schools.

James Foshay lived in the house until the turn-of-the-century (at this address in 1899; not in 1905; intermediate city directories not available). James A. Foshay served as the school superintendent until 1906 when he entered the insurance business. Born in 1856 in Cold Spring, New York, Foshay graduated from the State Normal College in Albany in 1879, was married in 1885 and came to California in 1887, and taught in Monrovia before he was elected to the Los Angeles County Board of Education in 1889. After serving as the president of the Board of Education in 1891-1892 he became the deputy superintendent of schools, and was chosen superintendent in 1895. He was active in various educational associations, and served as a vice-president of the National Educational Association. Foshay was a prominent citizen who was active in the Masons, the Republican party, the Jonathan and University Clubs, and the Temple Baptist Church. He died in Los Angeles in 1914, according to one source, and in 1915 according to another.

For several years the occupants of the house are not known, although the 1905 reverse city directory lists Harry V. Carter, president of the Pacific Electrical Works, at this address. By 1910, and for many years thereafter, the Seamans again lived at 2341 Scarff Street. William W. Seaman's occupation was not listed in the 1910 city directory but was listed in 1908 as "real estate" and beginning in 1915 as "clerk" and "clerk, city auditor". By 1910, Alice R Seaman (William Seaman's wife) was also listed as an owner.

By 1924, Alice and William Seaman's daughter, Josephine, is listed in the city directories as residing in the house with her parents. Her name was listed as "Josephine Roberts (Mrs.)". She was a graduate of a Miss Head's School in Berkeley, according to an undated newspaper clipping announcing her marriage. Little is known of her husband, James Albert Roberts, whose name is not listed in city directories as residing at 2341 Scarff Street. Josephine Seaman Roberts apparently survived her parents, her Aunt Josephine Seaman, and her husband Mr. Roberts, and continued to own and live in the house until her death in the early 1970s. Josephine Seaman was an artist and art teacher who taught at Santa Monica City College. She was also a collector of oriental art and rugs. Following her death the house was sold and rented to students for about five years until it was purchased by the present owners, Jean Frost and Jim Childs, in 1978.