Summary: The hilltop Japanese estate and gardens located at 1999 N. Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood.
Herman J. Schultheis was born in Aachen, Germany in 1900, and immigrated to the United States in the mid-1920s after obtaining a Ph.D. in mechanical and electrical engineering. He married Ethel Wisloh in 1936, and the pair moved to Los Angeles the following year. He worked in the film industry from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s, most notably on the animated features Fantasia and Pinocchio. His detailed notebook, documenting the special effects for Fantasia, is the subject of a 14-minute short-subject included on the film's DVD. In 1949, he started employment with Librascope as a patent engineer. Schultheis was an avid amateur photographer who traveled the world with his cameras. It was on one of these photographic exhibitions in 1955 that he disappeared in the jungles of Guatemala. His remains were discovered 18 months later. T he digitized portion of this collection represents the images Schultheis took of Los Angeles and its surrounding communities after he relocated to the area in 1937. Historical Notes: This 1914 hilltop estate was originally built to house the priceless collection of Asian treasures owned by brothers Charles and Adolph Bernheimer. In order to have an authentic Japanese design, hundreds of skilled craftsmen were brought from Asia to recreate an exact replica of a palace located in the Yamashiro mountains near Kyoto, Japan. The original Bernheimer structure included a 10-room teak and cedar mansion, where carved rafters were lacquered in gold and tipped with bronze dragons. The grounds included superbly landscaped Japanese gardens and a Sacred Inner Court in the center of the home filled with sculptured plants, pools and fish. The colorful hillside terraces included 30,000 varieties of trees, shrubs, waterfalls, hundreds of goldfish, and even exotic birds and monkeys. After the death of one of the brothers in 1922, the art collections were auctioned off. A few years later, around the time this photograph was taken, the estate served as headquarters for the exclusive Hollywood "400 Club," an organization for the elite of the motion picture industry. After WWII, the home was remodeled and converted into apartments. Soon thereafter, Thomas O. Glover purchased the property and began the ongoing restoration of what was to become the Yamashiro restaurant. The structure has been a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument since 2008.
http://yamashirohollywood.com/about/yamashirohistory/
http://yamashirohollywood.com/
Photograph dated 1937. Photographer: Herman J. Schultheis Photograph Origin: Herman J. Schultheis Collection LAPL Photo Archive