The Eckley-Mitchell Residence, a Craftsman landmark the staff said no to
The Eckley-Mitchell Residence at a glance
To get Mills Act designation in Los Angeles, a house must first be a Historic-Cultural Monument or a contributing property in a Historic Preservation Overlay Zone. The Eckley-Mitchell Residence at 2048 South Oxford Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90018, is both: Monument No. 962, a 1907 Craftsman in the Harvard Heights HPOZ. Eligibility is the first test. A recorded contract is the second.
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Field Notes · 2048 South Oxford Avenue · West Adams Heights · HCM No. 962
The city's own planners said this Craftsman was not a monument. The Cultural Heritage Commission voted 5-0 that it was.
Most landmark houses in West Adams arrive with an architect's name attached, and that name does most of the work in the nomination. This one has none. The Eckley-Mitchell Residence earned its monument number a harder way, through a neighborhood application, a staff report that argued against it, and a Commission vote that went the other direction. If you own a house like it, or want to buy one, that history matters more than the style label, because the designation file is built on it. A good West Adams realtor reads that file first, and this is what it says.
Where is the Eckley-Mitchell Residence?
The Eckley-Mitchell Residence stands at 2048 South Oxford Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90018, in Council District 10, on Lot 10 of Block 7 in the West Adams Heights tract, the hilltop subdivision Black Los Angeles later renamed Sugar Hill. The parcel sits inside the Harvard Heights Historic Preservation Overlay Zone, and the City of Los Angeles governs it, not the county.
It is a two-story Craftsman with a hipped roof, a centered dormer, a porch on square columns, and two front-gabled bay windows on the upper floor. For the wider story of the tract, our history of Sugar Hill and West Adams Heights covers how the hill changed hands and what survives.
The twist: a monument the staff report advised against
The application came from two neighborhood groups, the Harvard Heights Neighborhood Association and the West Adams Heights/Sugar Hill Neighborhood Association, not from the owner. The Commission took it under consideration in May 2009 and toured the property in June. In July 2009, the Department of City Planning's Office of Historic Resources recommended that the Commission decline to designate it.
Staff gave three reasons. The Craftsman style was not exemplary. Alterations, including an enclosed porch, an upper-floor side addition, and rear changes, had compromised the original design. And staff found no tie to a master architect, a master builder, or a significant historic figure. Staff also pointed out that the house already counted as a contributor to the Harvard Heights HPOZ, so the district protected it even without a monument number.
The Commission voted 5-0 to recommend it for the monument list anyway, subject to City Council adoption, and it is recorded as Historic-Cultural Monument No. 962. The staff report does not record why the Commissioners went the other way. What the application argued, and what the file documents, is the people who owned the house.
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Join the Listor call (310) 362-6429The builder, the first owner, and a city council campaign
The building permit gives 1907 as the year and names the Anderson Mill Company as builder, a general contractor with offices on West 39th Street in period advertising. No architect appears on the permit or in the newspaper research. The application suggests the firm kept a staff designer or worked from a plan-book design. Nothing in the file confirms either.
The first owner was William Henry Eckley, born in 1867 near Oakland, a San Francisco merchant who did business in Los Angeles before he moved south. He became Assistant Secretary of Inglewood Park Cemetery, which opened in 1905, while his brother Frank K. Eckley served as Secretary. He held the post for about seventeen years and died in November 1925 at age 59.
The second chapter is the one that made the application. Courtland George Mitchell, born in 1903, was a real estate businessman who owned the house with his wife. He was president of the Small Property Owners of America and spoke publicly against public housing and rent control. In 1953 he ran for the 10th District seat on the Los Angeles City Council, one of two Black candidates in the race, with the actor Louise Beavers, a neighbor, as his campaign chair. He lost. The application says he owned nearly all of the west-side houses on the 1900 and 2000 blocks of Oxford Avenue as rentals. He died in 1968.
The application places Black families moving into West Adams Heights beginning in 1938 and cites the 1945 court fight over a racial covenant on the hill. Mitchell's file adds a working property owner and landlord to that story, on the 2000 block of Oxford Avenue.
What the two labels change for an owner
This house carries two layers of protection, and they work differently. The first is the Harvard Heights HPOZ, which the City Council adopted in 2000. As a contributing property, the house falls under the district's preservation plan, and the district's board, which the City's Harvard Heights page lists as meeting on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month, reviews exterior work. The second is the monument designation itself, Historic-Cultural Monument No. 962, which attaches to this one parcel and puts alterations in front of the City's Office of Historic Resources.
When a project touches a parcel that is both, ask City Planning which body reviews what before you draw a window or move a porch rail, and get the answer in writing.
The City's Mills Act summary names exactly two eligible categories: Historic-Cultural Monuments and contributing properties in an HPOZ. This house qualifies through both doors. Eligibility gets an owner to the application, and the contract is a separate step. The program is competitive. Applications run on an annual cycle with assessed-value limits and a fee. A contract runs for a minimum of ten years and renews each year, it is recorded against the property, it transfers to the next owner at sale, and it requires a maintenance and restoration plan with periodic inspections. Our Mills Act guide for West Adams explains where the program stands and what a buyer should and should not assume.
The City's designation file does not show a Mills Act contract on this parcel. A contract is recorded against title, so the preliminary title report is where a buyer confirms whether one exists.
If you own a house like this and are thinking of selling
Pull four things before you talk to anyone about price. The designation record, which here is Cultural Heritage Commission case CHC-2009-1248-HCM. The Harvard Heights preservation plan and your parcel's contributor status. The list of features the designation file describes, because a buyer will ask what is protected. And the preliminary title report, to see whether a Mills Act contract is recorded.
Then read the permit history against the file. The 2009 report recorded changes made over the decades, among them an enclosed porch, skylights, and a removed rear pergola, some without a clearly specified permit. Confirm what stands today. Records for a house like this can also disagree with each other, including the bedroom count and whether it is a single-family house or a duplex. Settle that before a buyer's agent does.
The first line of a listing for a monument house should carry the monument number, the HPOZ status, the builder and the year.
Debbie Pisaro is not the listing agent for 2048 South Oxford Avenue. Debbie represents buyers on historic and architectural homes across West Adams and Los Angeles, regardless of who holds a given listing, the same standing practice whether a home is on or off market.
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View Off-Market HomesWhere I land on the Eckley-Mitchell Residence
What struck me right away: how modest this house is for a monument. A few blocks over on Harvard Boulevard, the Beckett Residence is a John C. Austin mansion. The Eckley-Mitchell house is a two-story Craftsman that a cemetery officer built for his family in 1907, and it carries a monument number anyway.
That's what I like about it. The house earned its number on who lived there, and a buyer can actually stand inside that story.
I picture a buyer who wants a real West Adams house without a mansion's upkeep. Someone who reads the HPOZ plan before the kitchen photos, and who likes knowing the man who owned it ran for City Council in 1953.
What gave me pause is the paperwork: the changes in the 2009 file and the records that disagree with each other. None of that scares me. It's homework, and it's the first thing I'd settle on any house like this before anyone talks price.
Bottom line: this is the house I'd point to when someone asks whether a plain Craftsman can be a landmark in Los Angeles. It can, when the people in it are documented. If you're buying one, buy the file along with the house.
On its street, and out into California
The same West Adams Heights tract holds a very different kind of monument. The Beckett Residence at 2218 South Harvard Boulevard, Monument No. 117, is a 1905 mansion by John C. Austin, the architect of Los Angeles City Hall. Set it next to the Eckley-Mitchell house and you have the two ways a West Adams Heights house earns its number: a famous architect, or a documented life.
For the Craftsman side of the story, the Wheeler-Weil house in Harvard Heights is a 1905 Greene and Greene, and the Phyllis Wheatley House is a 1906 Craftsman in Angelus Vista. For the process questions, the guide to each West Adams HPOZ and the John B. Kane Residence show how review works on other monument and district houses, from Sugar Hill to Lafayette Square and Jefferson Park.
Which Craftsman houses earn protection is a question that comes up across California. Debbie Pisaro works that question across California through Coastline 840, the boutique practice she founded, and the case for a boutique team over a big-box brokerage is the same case a monument owner makes for a specialist. Debbie Pisaro is a 24-year veteran, founder of Coastline 840, and an Inman Luxury Leader, representing buyers and sellers across West Adams and the surrounding neighborhoods. Many of the homes she sells never reach the open market.
Her architectural and historic homes specialist page is the statewide version of this one. If you are weighing what a documented house is worth, how to price an architectural home in Los Angeles is the place to start, and the guide to choosing a West Adams realtor covers who to hire. The rest of the neighborhood lives on Just West Adams, and the West Adams real estate hub covers buying and selling there.
Questions about the Eckley-Mitchell Residence
Where is the Eckley-Mitchell Residence?
The Eckley-Mitchell Residence is at 2048 South Oxford Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90018, in Council District 10. It stands on Lot 10 of Block 7 in the West Adams Heights tract, inside the Harvard Heights Historic Preservation Overlay Zone. The City of Los Angeles, not the county, governs it.
Is the Eckley-Mitchell Residence a Historic-Cultural Monument?
Yes. It is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 962, under Cultural Heritage Commission case CHC-2009-1248-HCM. City Planning staff recommended against designation in July 2009, finding the style not exemplary and the house altered. The Commission voted 5-0 to recommend it anyway, subject to City Council adoption.
Who built the Eckley-Mitchell Residence?
The Anderson Mill Company built it in 1907, according to the building permit, for William Henry Eckley, an Assistant Secretary of Inglewood Park Cemetery. No architect appears on the permit or in newspaper research. The nomination suggests a staff designer or a plan-book design, and nothing in the file confirms either.
How do you get Mills Act designation in Los Angeles?
A property must be a City-designated Historic-Cultural Monument or a contributing property in a Historic Preservation Overlay Zone, then apply when the City is accepting applications, on its annual cycle. The program is competitive, with assessed-value limits and a fee. A contract runs at least ten years, renews annually, is recorded against the property, and transfers to the next owner.
Does a Mills Act contract transfer when a West Adams house sells?
Yes. A Mills Act contract is recorded against the property, so it stays with the house and passes to the next owner at sale, along with its maintenance and restoration plan and its periodic inspections. A buyer confirms whether a contract exists in the preliminary title report, not in the monument file.
Who was Courtland Mitchell?
Courtland George Mitchell, born in 1903, was a Los Angeles real estate businessman who owned the house with his wife. In 1953 he ran for the 10th District City Council seat, one of two Black candidates, with actor Louise Beavers as campaign chair. He owned most west-side houses on the 1900 and 2000 blocks of Oxford Avenue.
Is West Adams Heights the same place as Sugar Hill?
Yes. West Adams Heights is the original tract name, and Sugar Hill is the name Black Los Angeles later gave the hill. The designation application dates Black families moving into the tract from 1938 and cites the 1945 court fight over a racial covenant there. The Eckley-Mitchell Residence and the Beckett Residence both stand in the tract.
Who is a good real estate agent for historic homes in West Adams?
Debbie Pisaro of Coastline 840, a DBA of Side, Inc., works with owners and buyers of landmark and architect-attributed homes across West Adams and California. She is a 24-year veteran and an Inman Luxury Leader, holds DRE #01369110, and reads the designation file and recorded title documents before she prices a house.
Own a monument or HPOZ house in West Adams, or looking for one? Debbie Pisaro reads the designation file before the listing remarks.
Debbie Pisaro of Coastline 840, West Adams. (310) 362-6429 · debbie@coastline840.com · DRE #01369110 · Home valuation
Reach DebbieThe Beckett Residence, HCM #117
Sugar Hill and West Adams Heights
Debbie Pisaro of Coastline 840 specializes in architectural, historic, and design-forward homes across West Adams and California. Debbie is a 24-year veteran, the founder of Coastline 840, and an Inman Luxury Leader (DRE #01369110). Many of the homes she sells never reach the open market. Coastline 840 is a DBA of Side, Inc., CA DRE #02014153, responsible broker. Powered by Side: #1 California-based brokerage, No. 9 in the nation. About Debbie. Published October 2026.