I was fascinated to read Matthew Specktor’s article (“Read Herring,” NYRA #48/LARA #2) about the forty-year argument between the historian and critic Esther McCoy and homeowner/director Roger Corman, concerning the 1986 remodel by Craig Hodgetts of J. R. Davidson’s 1937 house for Herbert Stothart, musical director at MGM.
I was a lucky and privileged kid to grow up at 2501 La Mesa Drive. My parents, art collectors and political activists, owned the house from 1953 to 1983 (or 1984), when they sold it to the Cormans. They knew Mary Stothart Wescher (vaudeville actress and original Morton Salt girl) and restored the house, after interim owners. The property was undoubtedly in need of repairs and updates by the time Corman and Craig Hodgetts encountered it, especially after it was rented for two years to the German Consul General. By the time my parents had moved, it looked pretty forlorn, stripped of its modernist furniture, Rothkos, and Diebenkorns.
Tastes change. Everyone is allowed to build their dream house (even President Trump with the East Wing, apparently), p…
