Added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 15, 2005

In the pantheon of residential architecture in LA, the Italian renaissance revival style separates the merely wealthy from the very wealthy. We can find plenty of examples of small-scale homes in Spanish and American colonial or English Tudor revival styles. But with Italian renaissance, bigness is sorta the point – those classical proportions and repeated archways just don’t look right unless they’re stretched over multiple stories and tons of floorspace. How are you gonna fit in one of those grand entrances that screams “Welcome! Now kiss my ring” with under 7000 square feet? For the 1% who own an Italian renaissance revival building in Los Angeles, a mere home will not do. They require a palace! 

When it comes to “eff-off” architecture, as I like to call it, you don’t get much better than the Petitfils-Boos Residence. This Windsor Square palazzo, completed in 1922, has it all. The Medicean proportions, stretched over an impressively symmetrical L-shape, the tri-color exterior tiles, fired by famed architectural terracotta manufacturers Gladding, McBean. Every column its tasteful capital, every balcony its elegant balustrade. 

And don’t even get me started on the inside. If original oak floors and a handcrafted walnut staircase don’t do it for ya, how about the murals and decorative beams by Anthony Heinsbergen (see Etan Does LA visit #112)? Heinsbergen was mostly known for his stunning murals for theaters, hotels and civic buildings, like LA City Hall, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, United Artists Theatre, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and more than 20 theaters for the Pantages chain. If you have the money, THAT is the guy you want painting cherubs and nymphs above your foyer. And since it was for a private home, the nymphs could even be nekkid 😉

A Sweet Deal

So who are these “Petitfilses” and “Booses” whose names adorn the Petitfils-Boos Residence? Interesting story there, about the interconnections between business, food and architecture in those LA boom decades of the 1910s and 1920s. The “Petitfils” part of the home’s name was Walter Petitfils, a big-time rancher and auto enthusiast whose main claim to fame in LA was as co-owner of the successful Chocolate Shop Corporation. 

In 1914, Petitfils and his cohorts commissioned the firm of Plummer & Feil to design them a shop covered entirely in brown tiles, crafted by Ernest Batchelder (this still exists btw, and is vacant and bewilderingly not open to the public, though Esotouric is hoping to start up their tours there again). Around the same time, Plummer & Feil also designed a new chain on South Broadway for Henry and Horace Boos, who (along with two other brothers) had pioneered the “cafeteria” concept with their Boos Brothers Cafe in 1906. Think quality food, served without waiters, you return your tray yourself, no tip required, that kind of thing. Keep in mind this was 25 years before Clifton’s arrived. 

Petitfils and the Boos Brothers were pals in addition to being successful food industry types. So why mess with success? When it was time to settle down, Horace Boos and Petitfils both hired Charles Plummer, the same architect that helped establish their mini-empires, to build their mansions in the hoity-toity Windsor Square neighborhood. In 1917, Horace had Plummer fix him up an English Tudor confection at 535 S. Plymouth. As we know Petitfils opted for an Italian Renaissance joint on the lot literally next door, which was completed in 1922. That same year the other brother Henry Boos moved into a home just a couple blocks away, at 454 S. Windsor, with his wife Cassie.

So here’s where the story gets strange. Petitfils and his family only lived at their new home for about four years. In 1926 it was sold to none other than their neighbors, Henry and Cassie Boos! And who do you think bought Henry and Cassie’s house, two blocks away? That’s right, Walter Petitfils – though he only stayed there for about a year. One source says that Petitfils moved to yet another Windsor Square abode after his brief time at 454 S. Windsor. 

Forever Behind the Security Hedges

Unless I make an effort to befriend its current owners, plastic surgeon Brent Moelleken and TV journalist Dayna Devon, I will never get the chance to step inside the Petitfils-Boos House. It’s pretty tough to get an unencumbered view of the outside, too. So I must learn to savor the various scenes in Hollywood, Dexter, Scorpion and this Jennifer Garner photo shoot that were shot there.  

Sources & Recommended Reading

+Petitfils-Boos Residence’s NRHP nomination form

+Nelson White Preservation: Windsor Estate: A History

+”A Piece of History in the City of Angels” (Frontgate: Home + Style, 2014)

+”Petitfils-Boos Residence” (LA Conservancy)

+”The Petitfils-Boos Residence from “Hollywood”” (IAMNOTASTALKER, 2020)

+Fassbender, Tom: ”Dutch Chocolate Shop” (Los Angeles Explorers Guild, 2021)

+Rasmussen, Cecilia: ”4 Brothers Made Dining History” (Los Angeles Times, 1998)

+Vincent, Roger: “This 105-year-old restaurant is a secret, tiled masterpiece. And it’s up for sale” (Los Angeles Times, 2019)