HISTORY OF ROSSMORE AVENUE

Ida Hancock Ross named Rossmore Avenue, the western border of the Hancock Park residential area, in honor of her second husband, Judge Erskine Mayo Ross. The couple was married in 1909, a merger of an oil multimillionairess and an esteemed California judge.

She was the widow of Major Henry Hancock who had purchased claim to the title of the Rancho La Brea property in 1863. He died in 1883, leaving Ida with two sons, Allan and Bertram. She lived in a small house adjacent to the tar pits, deriving a meager income from the asphalt.

When oil was discovered on the property, Ida and her son G. Allan Hancock granted a 20-year lease to the Salt Lake Oil Company for 1,000 acres of Rancho La Brea. Between 1901 and 1915, 350 wells had been drilled on the property.

With her newfound riches, Ida took trips to Europe where she purchased antiques to furnish the mansion she was building at Vermont Ave. and Wilshire Blvd. Modeled after the Villa Medici in Florence, the mansion’s music room was the scene of concerts and recitals.

Her husband, Judge Erskine M. Ross, had served as a Confederate officer in the Civil War. He came to Los Angeles in the mid-1800s, and joined the law office of his uncle, Cameron E. Thom, a former state senator who would later serve as mayor of Los Angeles.

In 1888, Ross was elected to the Supreme Court of California, and later was nominated to a newly created position on the United States District Court for the Southern District of California by President Grover Cleveland. One of Glendale’s earliest founding fathers, he developed a section of Glendale which he named Rossmoyne.

Ida Ross died in 1913, and her husband died in 1928.

Rossmore begins at Wilshire Blvd. and ends at Melrose Ave., where it is named Vine St.

Jackson Barnett, a wealthy eccentric oilman form Oklahoma, lived in a mansion at the northeast corner of Rossmore and Wilshire, in the 1930s. He lived to direct traffic on the busy boulevard, some say as a hobby.


MARLBOROUGH SCHOOL, equestrian club circa 1916.

The address of Marlborough School since 1916 when it moved from downtown Los Angeles to the northeast corner of Third St. and Rossmore, the street has been home to well known residents.


EL ROYALE has been home to numerous celebrities.

The El Royale apartments have been home to Huell Howser, Nicholas Cage, Cameron Diaz and, at the Ravenswood apartments, Mae West. An apartment at The Mauritania was home for a few weeks to President John F. Kennedy during the 1960 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles.

It was in 1920 that Wilshire Country Club opened on Rossmore Ave. and Beverly Blvd. on property leased from G. Allan Hancock.

The avenue also serves as the eastern boundary of Hancock Park.