VERDUGO VIEWS:

When Doris and Jack Quinn moved into the Chevy Chase area in 1965, their home was surrounded by many others, including one of the oldest in the neighborhood, a brick house built by Tom and Valley Knudsen, of Knudsen Creamery fame.

The Knudsens were living in Eagle Rock when the creamery was founded in 1919. As their business prospered, they began searching for a new home. This was about the time that 1,600 acres of canyon land known then as the San Rafael Hills opened for development.

This huge property had been owned for many years by Crampton Anderson, a wealthy oil man and brother-in-law of E.L. Doheny. Anderson paid some $500,000 for the land, saying he intended to subdivide, but instead he erected massive gates and hired watchmen to keep people out.

But some youngsters did get in. Joseph W. Harasta wrote glowingly, in 1913, about this pristine canyon, then called Sycamore, where he had spent many Saturday afternoons and Sunday evenings.

“There was a small, live stream flowing toward the west. There were a lot of large sycamore trees lining this stream. These were a regular roost for wild pigeons, which migrated here by the hundreds. Sometimes the small limbs of the trees would break on account of being overloaded. Hunting or firearms was forbidden on the property as Mr. Anderson called his place a kind of shelter for wildlife.”

In the early 1920s, this idyllic spot was purchased by Burt Farrar, who rebuilt the dirt road paralleling the stream into a 30-foot-wide concrete drive that continued on to Flintridge. It became Chevy Chase Drive.

On Jan. 28, 1925, Glendale Evening News headlines read: “Chevy Chase to Link Four Southland Cities.” Further text proclaimed: “Probably the most important event in real estate in Glendale for many years is the pre-opening of Chevy Chase.”

Farrar opened his divisions a street or two at a time; the many hills and canyons made traditional development impossible. He also began construction of a nine-hole, championship-length golf course and clubhouse.

The fairways had been laid out by the time a new area went on sale in February 1926. The Knudsens purchased nine acres in the new area and began building.

“Valley Knudsen went to the foundry and picked out every clinker brick for their house,” present owner Linda King Read said recently. The Knudsens moved into their new home in 1929.

Both were very active in the Los Angeles community and attended social events around town. Farrar boasted that many prominent people had purchased lots.

“Many are longtime residents of Los Angeles who are well acquainted with what Chevy Chase has to offer,” he told the Glendale Evening News in March 1929.

Nearly four decades later, the Quinns moved into their Chevy Chase home. They met the Knudsens, but had only brief contacts. Tom Knudsen passed away later the same year.

During the 1972 Christmas season, the Quinn family received an invitation from Valley Knudsen. She served them refreshments and showed a home movie of the property when it was first built.

“There were very few trees around it in those days,” Jack Quinn said.

Valley Knudsen died in 1976. The house was purchased by Norman and Julie Adams, who lived there for 16 years. Now Linda King Read and her husband Nat Read live in the home.

?KATHERINE YAMADA is a Glendale resident and historian. To contact her, call features editor Joyce Rudolph at (818) 637-3241. For more information on Glendale’s history, visit the Glendale Historical Society’s website: www.glendalehistorical.org; call the reference desk at the Central Library at (818) 548-2027; or visit the Special Collections Room at Central (open by appointment only).