Downey City

Los Angeles County, California

Downey City Hall is located at 11111 Brookshire Avenue, Downey, CA 90241.
Phone: 562‑904‑7284.

Beginnings [1]

Originally subdivided in 1865 by John G. Downey, a governor of California, the city of Downey was not developed as a residential community until the mid-1940s. For almost one hundred years, the area remained agricultural, divided primarily into large citrus ranches. Casa de Parley Johnson is a product of this citrus growing period in the community's development and one of its most prominent remaining residences. The remaining 1-1/2 acre estate was the centerpiece of a once-larger citrus ranch which has been lost to suburbanization in one of Los Angeles' largest bedroom communities. Viewed in the midst of endless tracts of postwar residential development, the Casa de Parley Johnson is remarkable for the very fact that it has survived to the present. This 1926-27 complex is the work of an acknowledged master of the Spanish Colonial Revival, Roland Coate.

1. Christine Johnson McAvoy, Preservation Consultant, Johnson Research Associates, Casa de Parley Johnson, Los Angeles County, California, nomination document, 1985, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.

Nearby Towns: Lakewood City •