Peninsula People Sept 2017

Peninsula paradiso
The rear of the Shriver residence shows architraves or moulding around the windows characteristic of Italianate design.
by Stephanie Cartozian
Back in the early 1930s Frank Vanderlip’s
attorney E.D. Levinson walked on these
now worn paver stones leading to the front
yard gardens and courtyard.
The Italian villa wasn’t for sale. The Shrivers made an offer, anyway, with fortunate results.
Charles and Jean Shriver waited four years to hear from a sealed bid
they submitted in 1980 for a sprawling, Portuguese Bend compound.
They came across the property on a class tour for new appraisers.
The house was not for sale. The class was there to learn how to appraise.
A friend of Jean’s had invited her to join the class for the day, so she could
see the secluded home. Neither she nor her husband were in real estate.
Jean was a Manhattan Beach librarian and Charles an engineer. They were
living on Paseo Del Mar in Lunada Bay.
Four years after the tour, the property owner, Seymour “Skip” Warner
and his wife Virginia unexpectedly accepted the Shriver’s offer. The time
was serendipitous. The Shrivers were about to begin a remodel of their
residence. Instead, they moved into what Jean describes as her “dream
family farmstead.”
The Italianate residence was built for E. Douglas Levinson, the attorney
for Peninsula founder Frank Vanderlip. Levinson’s wife never visited the
property because it required taking a train from Los Angeles, then the Red
Car to Redondo Beach and then a mule over the hill to the residence.
In 1931, Levinson hired architect Gordon Kaufmann who, at the time,
was also working on the Hoover Dam. Kaufmann’s other notable works
include the Doheny Greystone Mansion, the Los Angeles Times building,
Scripps College and the Santa Anita Park Clubhouse.
Charles and Jean met in the late 1940s when he attended the then all
male Princeton and she attended the then all female Vassar. Albert Einstein
Photos by Tony LaBruno
Jean and Charles Shriver in the home
they’ve owned for over three decades.
32 Peninsula • September 2017