Bob Crane, 79; Won Heritage Status for Lake Hollywood
Bob Crane, 79, a real estate broker who worked to preserve Los Angeles landmarks, died June 27 in Key West, Fla., after a three-year battle with non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
In the mid-1980s, Crane organized a campaign that resulted in Lake Hollywood, including William Mulholland’s Mission-style dam, being designated a cultural heritage site.
He also was an early supporter of the Hollywood Heritage Society and its efforts to save the Lasky-DeMille Barn, where Hollywood’s first feature-length film was made in 1913, and other landmarks.
Crane was born in Carmel, N.Y., and served in the Army in Germany during World War II. He attended Amherst College and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1950 from the University of Zurich. He later served as deputy director of Radio Free Europe.
After launching Bob Crane & Associates in the mid-1960s, he became known for giving lectures about architecture to the real estate agents who worked for him.
“Selling an average house is a job,” Crane told The Times in 1981, “but selling an architecturally known house is fun.”
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