Doheny Mansion

There’s this incredible house in Los Angeles that was once a part of one of the city’s first gated communities. Known as the Doheny Mansion, the house is now a part of the Mount St. Mary’s University campus.  There were once around 20 large houses owned or lived in by wealthy families in the Chester Place and St. James Park area, about a mile from downtown Los Angeles. Many of the houses have been lost to time or demolished, but a few survive like a Tudor-style house once lived in by Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle (at 649 West Adams Boulevard) and the Doheny Mansion (at 10 Chester Place).  

The mansion was built in 1899 by architects Theodore Eisen and Sumner Hunt for Oliver P. Posey’s family. Its architectural style is considered eclectic, as it has a Romantic Revival exterior with elements of Gothic, Chateauesque, Moorish, and California Mission styles. In 1901, pioneering oil baron Edward L. Doheny purchased the mansion with his wife Carrie Estelle, and their family lived in the house for nearly 60 years. Carrie Estelle Doheny supported many charitable organizations and projects over her lifetime, including the Doheny Eye Institute. Mrs. Doheny passed away in 1958 and left the house stewardship to Mount St. Mary’s College, along with all of the surrounding properties on historic Chester Place (the area is now the College’s downtown campus). 

The house is beautifully furnished and has a magnificent room called the Pompeian room. The Pompeian room features an iridescent Tiffany glass dome, Corinthian columns, and a geometrically-patterned Tuscan marble floor.

The mansion is often used as a filming location too. Some notable movies and television shows include episodes of The Mentalist, Night Gallery, Murder She Wrote, Columbo and The Princess Diaries and Drag Me to Hell.