Argyle was once three separate streets: Linden Place between Hollywood and Sunset, Grand View Boulevard between Franklin and Yucca, and Schloesser Terrace above Franklin. Likely because of its tricky spelling, Schloesser was folded into Grand View in 1905; the whole thing became Argyle in 1910. Schloesser’s background may lend a clue to the Argyle name. Dr. Alfred Guido Rudolph “A.G.” Schloesser (1851-1933), a flamboyant physician/quack from Chicago, moved to L.A. with his wife Emma and daughter Daisy in 1900 and got into real estate. He set up the Schloesser Terrace tract in 1904; four years later, he built a mansion on the northeast corner of Franklin and Grand View and dubbed it “Glengarry Castle” – a nod to Emma’s ancestral home in Scotland. I suspect Schloesser himself named Argyle Avenue as part of the Scottish theme and/or as a play on his initials (A.G. – ArGyle). In 1911, he started building an even bigger mansion across the street called “Castle Sans Souci”; Glengarry later became the home of silent movie star Sessue Hayakawa. Schloesser, who anglicized his surname to “Castles” during WWI’s anti-German fervor, demolished Sans Souci in 1928 and replaced it with the Castle Argyle Arms apartments, which still stand.
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