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This is the former Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. Okay, here you go - from 1906 to 1910, Sarah Vasen, the first woman doctor in Los Angeles, acted as superintendent of what was then the Kaspare Cohn Hospital, which moved to Whittier Boulevard in 1910, and then in 1930, to 4833 Fountain Avenue, where it was renamed Cedars of Lebanon. Since it was 1930, the new building, which you see here, was flamboyantly Art Deco.
It's still pretty amazing, although now the centerpiece of the Scientology complex – the center of it all, known to Church members as Pacific Area Command. And it now sits at the corner of Fountain Avenue and L. Rod Hubbard Way.
This happens out here a lot. See this well-research piece by Dana Goodyear, in the New Yorker, on how, in the seventies, the Church of Scientology purchased just about every available architecturally significant building in Hollywood and restored it to its original condition, if not better. This is one of them, which the Church acquired in 1977 and for some reason decided to paint this chalky azure color. It had been the usual light-beige stucco.
As for the hospital, Cedars of Lebanon and Mount Sinai Hospitals merged in 1961 to form Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and this building was abandoned. Donations from the Max Factor Family Foundation allowed the construction of their current medical complex, the very modern Cedars-Sinai Medical Center next to Beverly Center on San Vicente. That's where the stars, like Frank Sinatra, go to die, with its George Burns Road and Gracie Allen Drive.
But there is history here too. The Monkees' Micky Dolenz was born on March 8, 1945, at this Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. That will have to do
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