Few builders and architects left as indelible a footprint in Southern California as the prolific, yet relatively unknown architectural team as the Althouse Brothers John B. and Daniel T.

Daniel T. and John B. Althouse

John and Daniel Althouse were the two youngest sons in a family of six boys (William, Samuel, James, Charles, John and Daniel). Their parents, Julia and Henry Althouse were from Pennsylvania. The family moved from Pennsylvania to Maryland, then to Iowa and finally to California. Their father Henry Althouse was a clergyman. From all indications, the entire Althouse family came to California. William followed in his father’s footsteps and became an evangelical clergyman who had nine children. James was a vegetable farmer who resided in Gardena, Los Nietos and finally Porterville where he was a citrus farmer. Very little could be found on Samuel and Charles, but census records do show both of them in California in the early 1900s.

Julia also accompanied her children west. Presumably, she may have done this after her husband passed away. In the 1900 census, Julia Althouse is living alone a few houses down from Daniel and Maud on Wall Street. She is the head of the household and has a lodger.

John and Daniel started a real estate company named Althouse Bros.

L.A. Times newspaper notices of Althouse Brothers building activity in Ramona Park:

April 25, 1907;
Free excursions to Ramona Park, strategically located San Gabriel Valley subdivision; you can get free tickets at Althouse Bros' office 234 Laughlin Bldg. Take Alhambra or San Gabriel cars on Main St. Get off at First and Main sts., Alhambra. Salesman will meet you. Go out today and look at this remarkable property: $450 and up, 1-4 cash. ALTHOUSE BROS.s

May 26, 1907:
Althouse Bros, report quite a demand for lots in their new addition of 122 acres, "Ramona Park" on the new Covina Line, and report the following sales, which have just been closed:
Althouse Bros. and Arnold & Dodge have sold to John S. Seeley, an unimproved lot on the northwest corner of Ramona Blvd, and Fourth Avenue. Lot 80x140 feet. Consideration $1300. Mr. Steeley, a wealthy merchant from Texas, will make Ramona Park his home and will construct a modern two-story frame residence in the near future, to cost about $8000.

The same agents have also sold to C.M. Spary, an unimproved lot on the north side of Second Avenue, being the fourth lot west of Glendon Way. Lot 50x152 feet. Consideration $625; and also to S. N. Caldwell, a lot off the north side of Fourth Avenue the sixth lot west of Glendon Way. Lot 100x152 feet. The new owner will inprove this lot with a two-story residence for his home. Consideration $1150.

March 6, 1908:
Mary E. Child has purchased through the agency of Althouse Brothers, a modern six-room bungalow and lot 100x162 feet on the west side of Second Street just north of Ramona Boulevard for a consideration of $4,750. The grantors are Althouse Brothers and Arnold & Dodge."

May 10, 1908:
"...to V.O. Warren, an unimproved lot on the west side of Fifth Street fifty feet south of Glendon Way 50x152. Mr. Warren will improve this lot at once with a modern six-room bungalow of stone and frame construction which will cost about $4,000."

June 4, 1908:
"Althouse Bros, etc...to Worth S. Fitts, the southwest corner of Fourth Street and Glendon Way, Ramona Park, unimproved 50x152 feet. Mr. Fitts will build a six-room frame bungalow to cost $2,800 in the near future. The consideration was $625.

August 9, 1908:
"Althouse Bros, and [Otto] Arnold & [Jonathan S.] Dodge to Fannie M. Warren, a lot in Ramona Park, on the southwest corner of Fifth and Glendon Way, 100x152 feet. Mrs. Warren is now building a handsome home on this property...reported consideration is $1,250."

Jan. 22, 1911;
'"Local Realty Men Find the Market Brisk;

Great activity in the Westminster Square Section — Many fine improvements projected for Ramona Park — General activity in houses and lots."

Althouse Brothers report the following sales:
six-room bungalow, Ramona Park, $3,200, to Ramona Park Building Company, ten lots, $7,500;

L.T. Reid, two-story Swiss chalet Ramona Park, $8,500; "

In the 1888 LA Directory, Daniel T. Althouse is living at 529 S. Flower and in 1890 LA Directory, the brothers have a business at 951 S. Hope named Althouse Bros.

1900 Census: John B. Althouse (born in 1867 in Maryland) and Martha Sulp Althouse (born in 1874 in Ohio) with daughter Ruth (born in 1899) are living at 937 Bonnie Brae in LA. His profession is fruit dealer.

Daniel T. Althouse (born 1871 in Iowa) and Maud Luella Althouse (born 1878 in Illinois) were living at 1135 Wall St., LA, CA in 1900. Mr. Althouse’s profession is listed as fruit dealer.

1910 Census: Daniel and Maud have two children (daughter, June born in 1902 and Daniel T. Jr. born in 1907) and are living at 2113 4th Ave. in LA.

1920 Census: John and Martha Althouse are living at 1117 Manhattan Place with daughter Ruth. His profession is listed as being associated with Real Estate/Farms.

1930 Census: John and Martha Althouse are living at 351 Manhattan Place. Daughter Ruth is still living with them. His profession is real estate broker and their home is worth $30,000.

By 1930, Maud is living alone with Daniel T. Jr. She is the head of the household and they are living at 2125 4th Avenue in Los Angeles. Their house is worth $12,000 and her profession is listed as citrus grower of orange groves.

The Althouse Brothers were busy designing and building some very elegant homes during this period. Their office was in the 201 Story Building (Alhambra? Los Angeles?). Here's a quote from the October 19, 1911 issue of "Los Angeles Builder and Contractor" magazine about a new home they planned to erect on Normandie, north of Linden:

"It will contain eleven rooms, and will have concrete foundations, cement plastered exterior, and cement tile roof. The living room will be finished in Peruvian mahogany, the den in Tobacco mahogany, the hall in curly redwood, and the remainder in Oregon pine. There will be oak, pine and maple floors and the service portion and bedrooms will be finished in white enamel. There will be three baths, two of which will have tile floors, furnace, mantel, instantaneous heater, and Hipolito screens. A garage of similar design will also be erected. The cost will aggregate $11,000."

From an application to the City of Los Angeles nominating a Althouse West Adams District home for historic status:

Daniel T. Althouse and John B. Althouse, the "Althouse Brothers," were active , designers, builders and real estate developers in the early part of the 20th century. The pair built numerous substantial homes along Wilshire Boulevard, in the Westlake District and, especially, in West Adams in the W.G. Nevin Tract adjacent to the Los Angeles Country Club's Pico and Western Links.

The pair were among the founding members of the Los Angeles Board of Realtors, and helped develop Ramona Park (now a neighborhood in Alhambra), where the designs of their Greene and Greene-influenced custom-built homes - featuring quartersawn oak and curly maple hardwoods, and river rock from nearby mountain streams - were lauded in an early edition of the Alhambra Advocate.

John Benjamin Althouse and Daniel Tyler Althouse were not the only Althouse brothers. The pair descended from a Pennsylvania Mennonite family. They and their siblings - James, Charles, William, and Samuel - along with their parents the Rev. Henry and Juliana Myers Althouse, moved to Los Angeles from Iowa in the 1880s, where the brothers established themselves in Downtown Los Angeles as fruit growers and sellers. James ("J.A.") Althouse established a 16-acre berry farm in Gardena, while the other family members opened a retail fruit business, under the name Althouse Brothers. This operation continued until circa 1901, when they sold the fruit business and John and Daniel, still utilizing the Althouse Brothers name, rented "commodious offices" in the Laughlin Building, according to a 1913 article in the Los Angeles Times, and became real estate brokers.

"The Althouse Brothers got a full share of the [real estate] business. They listed a great deal of eligible property and were tireless in ferreting out buyers," wrote the Times. "In such a vast extent of territory as the city of Los Angeles comprises [there] has never been any trouble finding buyers. There were few owners of real estate at that time who would not consider an offer….For several years the Althouse Brothers, acting as brokers, were able week by week to give the real estate reporter of The Times a long list of actual transactions."

Soon, the Althouse Brothers began handling the sale of entire tracts, including the West Ninth Street Heights Tract and then the Westminster Square Tract, where they also built the first house. And then, "For months they were alone in erecting buildings in the West Wilshire District, where out in a barley patch they planted here a good residence and away off yonder another." The Althouse Brothers acquired 120 acres just south of the City of Alhambra, and, capitalizing on the romanticism of early California and the legend of Ramona made popular by Helen Hunt Jackson, named the development Ramona Park. In the next few years some 400 homes, most of them large, two-story Arts & Crafts Bungalows, were constructed in Ramona Park, many built by the Althouse Brothers themselves.

In the same era, the Althouse Brothers firm was also actively building distinctive Craftsman and Tudor-influenced homes in the West Adams District. Indeed, Daniel Althouse, by now married (to Maud Shields) and a father (Daniel Tyler Althouse, Jr, was born in 1906; daughter June, in 1902), was living on 4th Avenue, while his brother John and his family lived on Manhattan Place. (The entire family remains "rooted" in West Adams - there is an Althouse family plot where Henry, Juliana and their descendants are buried at Rosedale Cemetery, at Washington and Normandie.)

Their firm was well-established and had a solid reputation, custom building elegant residences designed to the owners' specifications. Indeed, by 1913, by the time of the aforementioned newspaper account, the Althouse Brothers were "builders pure and simple. They operate in high-class residence districts and construct high-class homes [that] cost at the lowest price $3,000 and run from that up to as high as $60,000."

The Althouse firm became known not just for its "high-class" work but also its high quality. Indeed, the brothers were instrumental, according to the Times, in having a City ordinance passed that required builders to dig a foundation trench at least 80 inches deep for the footings and basement of a house (after they "found some rivals laying foundation sills right on top of the ground.")

In the W. G. Nevin Tract, the Althouse Brothers built more than half a dozen homes, two of which are now Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments. The Powers House, HCM No. 627 at 1547 South Manhattan Place, is a superior exemplar of the Althouse firm's signature style, with its Greene & Greene-influenced design motifs. Erected in 1910, the 7,000-square-foot mansion has a full third-floor ballroom, a quintessential Althouse feature. Typical, too, are its multiple gables, partial Tudor cladding and third-floor balcony. Like other Althouse interiors, this one features the luxurious use of matched Guatemalan mahogany and other exotic hardwoods.

Unfortunately, only four known Althouse Brothers homes in the Nevin Tract survive today, including the residence at 1415 South Gramercy. The Mary Chase Residence, a wonderfully intact home at 1520 South Manhattan Place, fell victim to fire during the 1992 civil unrest, burning to the ground on live television.

Three other mansions that stood on the parcels at Venice and Western were burned in 1985.

The residence at 1415 South Gramercy, built in 1912 for William Otterbein Statton at a cost of $7,800, exhibits many of the Althouse Brothers firm's characteristic features, including the expansive third floor, and its distinctive porte cochere.