Very likely named for department store exec Malcolm McNaghten (1890-1959): this street was laid out in 1923 by the Janss Investment Co. as part of Westwood – and McNaghten was brother-in-law to Harold Janss. (Both had married daughters of Arthur Letts, president of The Broadway department store and owner of the land that became Westwood. See Holmby Ave. for more on Letts.) Boyish and bespectacled, the Ohio-born McNaghten was no mere relation: after coming to L.A. and marrying Edna Letts in 1912, he soon became her father’s lieutenant in business affairs. He represented Letts’s Holmby Corporation after the old man’s death, approving every Westwood and Holmby Hills tract right there with the Jansses. In 1926, Arthur Letts Jr. sold The Broadway to McNaghten and other store executives; McNaghten was named president of the chain and served until 1945.
Find it on the map:
