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Secrets of the Spiderpool Part 1: 1769-1919

by Rowan

1769-1887: The Lay of the Land

Only Southern California could have provided the setting for the series of unlikely events – and even more improbable characters – that combined to bring the Spiderpool to life.

The players included Hollywood legends and the all-but-forgottens, oddball inventors and secret agents, and of course a parade of well-proportioned young women, nubile and pulchritudinous, and eager to smile for the birdie.

Before any of this cast had assembled, the lay of the land had to be made ready.

Los Angeles was founded by the Spanish in 1769 and become an American city in 1850. The Santa Monica Mountains, called in later days the Hollywood Hills, run from east to west just north of LA, and separate it from the San Fernando Valley. Still farther north, beyond the valley, rise the parallel mountain chains of the Verdugo Mountains and the more distant San Gabriels. The view from the Santa Monicas that met the first Spanish explorers that stood as backdrop for many a Spiderpool photography session, today differs only in the smog and suburban clutter. The mountains are the same; any Spiderpool fan, whether from Iowa or Australia, upon cresting the Hollywood Hills, would instantly know where he was on Earth, within four miles.

Other familiar names first appeared on maps in 1887: the town of Burbank was laid out to the north of the Santa Monicas, and a real estate development known as Hollywood was laid out to the south. Sited a few miles west of Los Angeles, Hollywood was nestled against the foothills of the Santa Monicas and gradually expanded up the slopes. For that reason, the Santa Monicas began to be called “Hollywood’s hills”.

1892-99: The Birth of Our Protagonists, Including Los Angeles Itself

Los Angeles, though founded a century earlier, began its rapid rise to metropolitan status only following a catastrophic economic collapse in 1889. Then a financial and cultural backwater compared to San Francisco, LA used the opportunity to shake off the dust of its cattle-grazing past, and the development that began in the “Gay ‘90s” was just in time to provide a uniquely suitable stage for the colorful events to follow. John W. “Jack” McDermott, who would own the Spiderpool property from the 1920s until 1946, was born on September 9, 1893, in the Union Pacific town of Green River, Wyoming. Harold Lloyd, later a silent movie legend and the best known of the Spiderpool cast, was born in Burchard, Nebraska just a few months earlier.

1900-1910: Boomtown!

Eastern immigrants had begun to focus on southern California, as opposed to San Francisco, around 1900, attracted by the promise of a more pleasant climate for retirement, money to be made in citrus and oil, and after 1906 the desire to avoid earthquake-shattered “Frisco”. LA’s population more than tripled between 1900 and 1910, from 100,000 to nearly 320,000.

The Lloyds and McDermotts had not yet arrived, but it isn’t hard to imagine them, or their families, shivering through the Nebraska and Wyoming winters while poring over sun-baked promotional literature distributed by LA realtors’ energetic publicity agents.

Prehistory: The Stone Ruins in “Hollywood’s Hills”

Part of the allure of the Spiderpool is the wide variety of elements that comprise the estate. Certainly the oldest man-made element is the crumbling stonework of a building that early Spiderpool investigators nicknamed the Stone House, or simply the Ruins.

Educated guesswork dates the Ruins to no later than 1900. The hills were then a considerable trek from Los Angeles, which was confined to the basin to the south. Tales of banditos, highwaymen, and hidden gold and treasure in the hills and passes were fresh in local memory. Well into the new century, the remote “cañons” in the hills were visited chiefly by hunters, and the public record often cites their expeditions for leading authorities to corpses uncovered in the remote terrain.

Even when the Spiderpool’s neck of the Hollywood Hills was finally surveyed and divided into lots, it was not with large-scale residential development in mind. The area was too rugged and remote to be attractive for urbanization, but it could provide mountain retreats or hunting camps within a reasonable distance of the city, especially as the automobile began to reduce travel time to and from the city. Road access in the hills remained limited; hiking trails were often the best available thoroughfare.

The Spiderpool’s Ruins have all the markings of an early cabin retreat, and it was probably in place by the year 1900. Whether or not records of this structure’s origin will ever be discovered is one of the Pool’s lingering mysteries. The topographical mantra of the Search for the Spiderpool, “The folds of the earth hold many secrets”, has long been true of Hollywood’s hills.

1910-20: Go West Young Man

Early 20th-century southern California offered many opportunities to those looking for a new or better life, and it was at this time that the movies – previously an eastern monopoly – came to town. The first motion picture studio in Los Angeles was established in 1906, and the first of many to come in Hollywood opened in 1911.

The Lloyds and the McDermotts were among this hopeful wave of immigrants. Harold Lloyd, with stage acting ambitions, had emigrated from Nebraska to San Diego with his father, only to be lured to Los Angeles and a career in movies starting in 1913. He was a three-dollar-a-day extra for a while, and earned his first credit for a walk-on in "The Old Monk’s Tale".

As far as the McDermotts go, the family was in Los Angeles by 1914, selling wholesale dry goods.

John McDermott, like Harold Lloyd, began his Hollywood career with acting ambitions. “J.W.” McDermott was listed among the cast of 1915’s "Old Heidelberg", and in 1916 “John” McDermott played Rance Clifford in "The Chalice of Sorrow". John did not last long in front of the camera, but by 1916 he was described as a “director with a staff of four actors, a megaphone, and horn-rimmed glasses and puttees.”

John McDermott’s first writing credit appeared in 1918’s "Fast Company". He finished the decade with credit for writing or directing a dozen short films.

1912-19: Hollywood Park

The history of real estate development in the Hollywood area during this period focuses on the luxury developments immediately adjacent to Hollywood, most notable Whitley Heights and Outpost Estates. Only later did developers begin to eye the Cahuenga Pass region for luxury home subdivisions. These subdivisions, Hollywood Knolls and Hollywood Manor, are east of the Pass and some of the homes are visible in the "Three Graces" photographs. They were first developed in the mid-1920s, and until very recently were the first documented subdivisions adjacent to the Pass.

Neighborhoods all around the Spiderpool seemed to have been part of some named subdivision or other – from Whitley Estates to Hollywoodland – but the Pool always seemed to fall into the cracks. That is, until 1912 references revealed the development of a tract marketed as Hollywood Park. Ads appeared in local newspapers as early as 1912, with the lots marketed for “bungalows”, not the palatial estates under construction closer to Hollywood.

Development in Hollywood Park progressed in fits and starts through 1916, when marketers resorted to contests – on at least two separate occasions -- in which the grand prizes were free lots in the tract. In 1916 several new miles of streets were paved, and in 1919 the residents petitioned Los Angeles for city water service.

1920: Setting the Stage

The War to End All Wars was over. Southern California was the land of endless sunshine, endless promise, and thanks to Chief Engineer Mulholland endless water. Swimming pools were the latest rage among the rich and famous. Prohibition had been enacted, but the Roaring Twenties were still about to take off like a new Chrysler Six, and in his own little corner of the world, Jack McDermott was slipping in behind the wheel.

Spiderpool
Spiderpool - Spiderpool-01 - Spiderpool-02
The House that Jack Built
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