Walter Farnan Schuyler (1874-1930) and Jessie Isabella Schuyler (1882-1964) were a Denver couple who came to Beverly Hills in late 1921 and built their mansion “Villa Tranquilla” at the corner of Schuyler Road (named in 1923) and Doheny Road. Walter, a Colorado Springs boy, was a successful corporate lawyer with his brother/partner Karl. In 1911, they established the Midwest Oil Company and quickly became millionaires, which allowed Walter to retire at 42 and spend much of the rest of his life traveling with Jessie, a Denver native whom he’d wed in 1910. (Their only child, Walter Jr., died in infancy.) Walter passed away shortly after the Schuylers came home from a yearlong European vacation and Jessie took on an unexpected new role: as financier and confidante of dinner theatre impresario Earl Carroll, whose Hollywood nightclub was famous for its celebrity clientele and its scantily-clad dancers. Carroll himself would take over the Schuyler mansion – now lost to the wrecking ball. Family footnote: Walter’s uncle James Dix Schuyler was a hydraulic engineer who worked with William Mulholland on the Los Angeles Aqueduct.
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