Hathaway Hill Estates, developed between 1983 - 1985, is built over 37 acres of the historic Garbutt Hathaway hilltop estate, offering Silver Lake location convenience, round-the-clock guard gated security, privacy and head-on Downtown Los Angeles city views. Hathaway Hill Estates offers almost 100 single family homes on cul-de-sacs off McCollum Drive, including Aaron Street, Apex Avenue, Benton Way and Branden Street.
The homes are available in three, four and five bedroom layouts ranging from 2,100 square feet up to almost 3,500 square feet. They feature grand double door entry, large windows, formal living room with fireplace, formal dining room, expensive kitchens with breakfast area and luxurious master suites. Many offer private pools and spas and have been upgraded with hardwood floors, granite counters, marble baths and stainless steel appliances.
The Garbutt House History
Frank A. Garbutt – inventor, industrialist and silent movie pioneer – built the 11,743 square foot three story high house in 1926, on a 37-acre hilltop estate. The 20 room house has a 360 degree view of the Pacific Ocean, the Santa Monica and Verdugo Mountains, and the Downtown skyline. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1987 located at 1809 Apex Avenue.
The house was built like a citadel out of concrete to survive earthquakes, floods and fires. His daughter Melodile later recalled that the entire first floor was poured in one pouring that took two days and one night of steady pouring with three shifts of workers. Due to an intense fear of fire, Garbutt even had the roof and walls built of concrete, installed steel-reinforced doors and allowed no fireplaces in the home. A subsequent owner noted that the concrete construction was "comparable to any of the finest bunkers. The house also had bronze window frames, hand carved teak and marble floors. The first floor was entirely travertine, and Garbutt hired an artist who spent several months painting the beams in the living room.
The story of how the Hathaway summit with its spectacular views became a gated enclave began on July 7, 1846, with the conquest of Monterey, the capital of Alta California. The City of Los Angeles inherited that hillside as part of its legacy of four-square leagues (about 17,000 square acres) of municipally owned lands from the pueblo of Los Angeles. (W. W. Robinson, Land in California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1948), pp. 34-40.). The American city mayor gave away the hill above Silver Lake where the estate now is as one of the City's "Donation Lots." Several private wealthy men built houses on the hill before Garbutt. In 1960, Garbutt's children sold the property to a corporation that rented the houses on what had become the Hathaway Estate (named after Charles F. Hathaway, Garbutt's son-in-law).
