The Deodars
The Deodars was Archie M. Andrews' home in Altadena. An undated newspaper article related the purchase of the house:
"[by] A. M. Andrews, a several years resident, of house and grounds of E. M. Taylor on Santa Rosa Ave. [...] largest sale in years, $200,000, not including furnishings. The residence is on Santa Rosa between Alameda and Calaveras."
Handwritten notes on the article said the house was 'designed' in 1911, and destroyed by fire in 1938, and the address was 610 E. Calaveras.
The 1915 Press Reference Library relates that architect Myron Hunt was "finishing the residence of E. M. Taylor, Altadena". Given the notation on the article above, this probably refers to the construction of The Deodars.
An October 4, 2007 article in The Los Angeles Times reviewed a book about L.A.'s lost homes, Houses of Los Angeles, 1885-1919 by Sam Watters, in which the E. M. Taylor house, presumably The Deodars, was described:
Some of the greatest so-called "traditional" houses in early Los Angeles are really tradition turned upside-down, he adds.
"American Colonial, for example. People think they're California copies of all those houses in Connecticut. Not at all," Watters says. "The 1910 E.M. Taylor house in Altadena designed by Hunt and Grey was no copy. It's an abstraction, an interpretation, specifically designed for California life. The house has no center hall; they eliminated it. You walk right into a room that is the precursor of what we today would call a great room, with big windows so you can see the gardens from everywhere. It's very much like how we live now."
Watters' book does seem to confirm that the E.M. Taylor house is Andrews' Deodars. It describes the house as being on a lot bounded by Calaveras Street, Santa Rosa Street, and Alameda Street. This corresponds to the modern 600 block of Calaverss, and descriptions of The Deodars location. Watters' book contains several photographs of a large, luxurious home on expansive, well-kept grounds.
Another undated newspaper article also described the second fire of two within a month which destroyed the house:
The first listing for Andrews on Calaveras was in the 1927 Pasadena phone book, showing the address as both 530 E. Calaveras and 540 E. Calaveras. All subsequent editions of the phone book listed it as 530 E. Calaveras, so we'll presume that the one listing for 540 was an error.
The last listing for Andrews on Calaveras was in the 1928 phone book. The 1939 Pasadena phone book listed the resident of 530 E. Calaveras as Caroline Kreiger. Kreiger was also listed as the resident in the 1940 and 1941 phone books.
The 1942 Pasadena phone book shows that the addresses all around The Deodars had been changed. There was no longer a 530 (or 540) listed, and new addresses 500, 533, and 570 E. Calaveras appeared for the first time. It's possible that this was a result of the fire and subdivision of the property that occurred some time after Andrews' death in 1939. It might have also been a general change of street addresses in the area, as numerous addresses on other streets in the area also changed in the 1942 phone book.
According to a conversation with the current residents at 610 E. Calaveras, they understand that their house sits on the original Deodars site, and is fact built on the original Deodars foundation. The pool in their yard is reportedly the original Deodars pool.