#115: Upton Sinclair House (Monrovia)

Upton Sinclair photo credit: Public Domain, published by Bain News Service

Added to the National Register of Historic Places (and designated a National Historic Landmark) November 11, 1971

Earlier this year I read The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel about a poor Lithuanian family that immigrates to Chicago at the turn of the 20th century, only to get trapped into cycles of poverty and exploitative labor in the stockyards owned by the meatpacking industry. Nobody would ever accuse Sinclair of being one of his era’s most artful prose stylists. But you can’t beat The Jungle for righteous, politically-motivated anger.

Sinclair’s work represents the uniquely American muckraking tradition that flowered during the Progressive Era. Unlike most of his peers, Sinclair was that rare fiction writer whose work actually led to legislative change – the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act both passed less than a year after The Jungle’s publication in book form. And despite the fact that Sinclair’s aim was to raise outrage at the horrid treatment of workers – not to enhance food safety – the fact that his writing pressured Congress to act is still an inspiring story of how writing can expose wrongs, change minds and force action.

And so it is only right and natural that the Upton Sinclair House in Monrovia, where he lived from 1942 through 1967, would be named a National Historic Landmark, which gave it an automatic spot on the National Register of Historic Places.

Much had happened in the three decades between The Jungle and his move to the house at 464 N. Myrtle Ave. He had tried and failed to establish a socialist colony. He wrote scathing critiques of the press, the education system and the arts in America. And he parlayed his notoriety as a writer into political campaigns, first as a Socialist candidate for Congress and Governor of California, and then again in 1934 as the Democratic candidate for Governor (Bill Nye depicts Sinclair during the 1934 election in the David Fincher film Mank) . None of his campaigns was successful, but he did take nearly 38% of the vote in the general gubernatorial election in 1934, thanks to his popular “End Poverty in California” (EPIC) platform.

Since the 1910s, Sinclair and his second wife Mary Craig had lived in Pasadena. The political campaigns brought a lot of unwanted visitors, so they packed up and moved east to this quiet neighborhood in Monrovia to avoid the looky-loos. The Sinclairs were very private people. In later years, they would double down on the seclusion by planting eugenia bushes as a security hedge, building a chain link fence around the house, and even dismantling the doorbell at one point.

Built in 1923, the Upton Sinclair House was designed by LA architect Frederick H. Wallis. He was half of the firm Norton & Wallis, well known for designing many a landmark building for LA’s Jewish community in the 1920s. The original client was Louis Vollmer, a civic leader and owner of the historic Leven Oaks Hotel; there’s still a “V” engraved in the ornate ironwork on the front door.

It’s a lovely two-story Spanish colonial revival house, ornate but tasteful on the outside, formal but not stuffy on the inside (based on these interior Redfin shots from 2011). I love the corbels that hold up the balcony over the front door, and the asymmetrical arch over the gate on the left of the facade. Batchelder tiles cover the bathrooms, and during the Sinclairs’ time, there was a chair elevator for Mary Craig, who used a wheelchair. Out back, there’s a gorgeous patio with a tiered fountain.

Mary Craig Kimbrough and Upton Sinclair, Monrovia, CA, 1956 (Leigh Wiener Digital Collection, Pepperdine University Special Collections and University Archives)
Upton Sinclair residence in Monrovia (Security Pacific National Bank Photo Collection / Los Angeles Public Library)

Historically most significant are the two detached garages behind the house, which Sinclair used as his study and his “vault.” The study is where he wrote most of his works from the last 15 years or so of his productive writing career. And while his most famous writing was behind him, Sinclair wrote some respected stuff in that study, including most of the 11-novel Lanny Budd series; one of them, Dragon’s Teeth, even earned him the Pulitzer Prize in 1943, the year after he moved in.

The vault was a concrete bunker where Sinclair kept his papers – manuscripts, hundreds of translated editions, thousands of letters, etc. – until they were sold to Indiana University at Bloomington, where they currently reside.

Mary Craig Sinclair died in 1961. Upton remarried, and he and his third wife May Hard stayed in Monrovia for another five years before selling the house and moving back east. Upton Sinclair died at a rest home in New Jersey in 1968, at the age of 90.

There’s one more chapter to the saga of the Upton Sinclair House. In 1991, an earthquake in Sierra Madre did serious damage to the house, and its owner considered demolishing it. Fortunately, a law had recently been passed that prevented demolition of a historic landmark without prior approval of the State Office of Historic Preservation. The demolition was stopped, a local development team bought the house, and within a few years it had been stabilized and restored. It seems like the kind of story that Upton Sinclair would’ve appreciated.