Hersee Carson | Playground to the Stars

Former Ziegfeld Follies dancer “Queen” Patricia Noblesse Hogan had been leasing Mt. Kalmia, a 16-room mansion above the Sunset Strip that she had re-purposed into a rooming house, for six years when, on January 24, 1947, she and her boarders were abruptly evicted and the mansion was sold for unpaid taxes. Via the 1947 Project:

Two days after Eviction Day at the fabulous Mount Kalmia Castle, fancy flophouse at 8311 Sunset Blvd., the 38 hapless lodgers of ex-Follies star “Queen” Patricia Noblesse Hogan continue to hustle for new homes. Back in February, the grand, turreted residence overlooking the Sunset Strip was sold to dentist Manuel H. Haig at auction for $83,000, but Her Majesty had nimbly ignored every order to quit the premises.

Until four days ago, that is, when the Sheriff arrived with a twelve-hour notice to vacate, which was the first any of the tenants — from the $300 a month suite men to the gals who shared the basement barracks for $85/per — heard about the sale. Twenty-nine hours after the deadline, moving vans still crawled up and down the hill like ants, bearing away segments of the Queen’s $300,000 trousseau, while the tenants sat glumly on hastily-packed trunks awaiting taxi cabs to who-knew-where. And on the driveway, Tootsie Berry, Hogan’s daughter, tried to calm her boxers Major and Colonel. Tootsie wasn’t worried; the Queen would always land on her feet.

Mt. Kalmia was built in 1932 by Hersee Carson, who, because of her charity toward poor children was referred to as the “Fairy Lady.” Its address today is 1486 N. Sweetzer Ave.

This item appeared as a “Quick Take” in the Times yesterday:

Niemeyer a month before his 103rd birthday

Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer celebrated his 103rd birthday Wednesday with the launch of a museum dedicated to his career.

The Oscar Niemeyer Foundation outside Rio de Janeiro will house exhibits about the legendary architect’s 70 years of work.

Niemeyer is responsible for more than 600 modernist projects around the world. They include the sweeping concrete structures that house Brazil’s government in the capital, Brasilia, and U.N. headquarters in New York.

Niemeyer is still working and has won numerous awards, including the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1988.

There is a significant commerical building by Niemeyer right here in the Times’ backyard, of course. The former Beauty Pavilion, at 8760 Sunset Blvd. on the Sunset Strip, was commissioned by a famous plastic surgeon in the 1960s and is still in use as the headquarters for Mutato Muzika, a music production company that scores television shows and movies owned by Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh.

The building’s original white finish has been painted a traffic-stopping chartreuse, which could well be a tad too post-modern for the great modernist architect’s tastes.

Beauty Pavilion

The design was commissioned in the mid-1960s by Dr. Robert Frankyn, a plastic surgeon to the stars, who specialized in what he called “beauty parlor” surgery. Franklyn was also the author of a series of books on beauty: “The Art of Staying Young,” “A Doctor’s Quick Way to Achieve Lasting Beauty” and “Developing Bosom Beauty,” as well as a 1960 autobiography titled “Beauty Surgeon.”