The history of the Neighborhood Church begins in 1864 with the birth in London, England of the original builder of the Church – John Joseph Haggarty. .John emigrated to the US in 1887 and married one Bertha Schneider of Duluth, MN in 1902. Ten years later, the couple was living in Los Angeles and operated a very successful women’s clothing chain. The Haggarty’s lived at 3330 West Adams, then the most fashionable area of Los Angeles, and also owned a weekend retreat at 1800 E Ocean Blvd in Long Beach. But, of course, two mansions were not enough! In the mid-1920’s, there was a new high high-end project up the coast in an area called Palos Verdes, where the Haggarty’s bought 5 lots on the bluff below Malaga Cove Plaza. In January 1928, they got approval to build a 15,000 square foot, one-level Florentine mansion, which included a 6-car garage, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2 waterfalls, a pool, a formal garden, and a partridge in a pear tree. The place was finished in 10 months. However, evidently Bertha was high maintenance and hated the location (which was way too far from her friends on West Adams). The Haggarty’s never moved in. In 1930, a second master bedroom was added on the west end as well as the iconic pier. After the October 1929 stock market crash, the Haggarty’s department store business headed straight south. In 1931, the Haggartys were forced to sell the residence, although they reacquired title a few months later. The Haggerty’s then sold the property a second time in 1933 to John Thistle, who added the two lots to the west of the current property on which houses now stand. JJ Haggarty passed away in 1935. Meanwhile, Thistle sold the property to the London Exploration Company in 1936, who owned it until Neighborhood Church acquired it in 1950. Mr. Wheeler never moved in either; rather, he used the property to house his graphic “art collection”.
Since the late 1920’s, a group of PV neighbors had been meeting in various homes holding informal church services. They referred to themselves as the Neighborhood Church. In the mid-1930’s the group began using the auditorium at Malaga Cove School for services. Since it was the only church on the Hill, there were many influential and famous people who attended including Charles Laughton, Ray Milland, Ethyl Barrymore, Ralph and Lois Jester (Ralph was Cecil B DeMille’s costume and set designer), Gracie Armstrong (wife of Superior Court Judge Donald Armstrong), and Dennis Vincent Smith, a member of the first City Council when PVE was incorporated in 1939. There were others that I can’t recall now, since I was only born in 1947, when my parents moved to PV and joined Neighborhood Church. In 1949 we got word that, due to the burgeoning postwar enrollment at Malaga Cove School, the auditorium was going to be turned into classrooms and would no longer be suitable for church services. The members (my parents among them) began looking around for a new location and, given all the open space in PV at the time, many sites were considered. One at first dismissed as unaffordable and needing too much work was the old Haggarty mansion on the bluff near Malaga Cove School. It had sat vacant for nearly 20 years and was on the market for the then-astounding sum of $250,000. In 1950 the membership toured the property, then had a meeting on the back patio to vote on whether or not to pursue purchasing it. By a narrow margin, they voted in the affirmative and an offer was put together with a down payment of $60,000, with the then-owner (still the London Exploration Company) carrying the balance. Ralph and Lois Jester, Gracie Armstrong, and Dennis Smith (who mortgaged his house at 3405 Via Palomino to come up with $10,000) all contributed, as did most of the members. My parents threw in $500, which would have made their house payments for nearly a year. After a few weeks, Gracie Armstrong received a telegram that the seller would take the $60,000 as payment in full, and the Church now owned the property . . . but by now it was a big-time fixer and had homeless people and animals living in it.
Once escrow had closed in late 1950 we (OK, I was only 3) got word that, as the property was zoned R-1 Residential, the City would not allow us to use it as a church. This was not good. Now what? I can remember a meeting of what must have been the trustees in the living room of our new house at 4205 Via Pinzon to figure out what to do. There were actually contingency plans made in case we had to re-sell it.
Meanwhile, the women of the Church got down to converting it for Church use. There was a huge rummage sale at which many of the furnishings were sold off, including the [ahem] “art collection”, and the locks were all changed. The building had basically never been occupied and homeless people and animals had been living in it for decades. It was a fixer-upper of the first order. We were extremely fortunate to have among our members Ralph Jester, who was the set and costume designer for Cecil B DeMille Productions. The contributions of Mr. Jester and his wife Lois (recently deceased) are too numerous to mention. The Church would not be what it is today without Dennis Smith and Ralph Jester, who began design and construction of the chancel, choir loft, etc, figuring that we would somehow be permitted to use the place as a church. The two lots to the west, on which houses now stand, were sold off to finance the renovation.
Dr Smith, Ralph Jester, Gracie Armstrong, my father, who was a commercial artist, and others orchestrated a publicity campaign in the Palos Verdes News to make the City look cruel and heartless in denying the Church a permit to use the building. My father did a series of cartoons and Dr Smith, still on the City Council, and Gracie Armstrong were twisting arms behind the scenes. The combination of efforts caused the City to relent and issue a Conditional Use Permit in the Fall of 1952, under which the Church still operates. The City required that we affiliate with a major denomination, so we became a Congregational church. And so it was that on October 5, 1952, the first services were held in the now-iconic building.
The next problem was that the animals and homeless hadn’t gotten the memo that it was now a church. About this time we hired our first full-time minister, Richard Dawson who, along with his wife Virginia and two daughters, lived in the west wing. It was not uncommon for them to discover one of the bedrooms occupied by a vagrant. The City would allow no sign of any kind, and no cross on the tower. In late 1952 Rev Dawson asked my father to paint the words “This House Shall Be Called A House of Prayer For All Peoples” just to the right of the front door, where you can still see them. In fact, if you look closely, you can still see the remnants of the pencil lines my father drew to keep the letters straight. He did it all free-hand.
The Church grew by leaps and bounds in the post-War housing and baby boom. Malaga Cove School was still being used for Sunday School classrooms but, in 1956 ground was broken for a new Sunday School building where much of the old rose garden then was. In 1958 Dennis Smith Hall was completed and all us kids marched over from Malaga Cove School and stood on the balcony for the picture below. At the same time, the two bedrooms behind the living room were converted into a badly needed social hall. This is now the rear of the sanctuary, but you can see the difference if you’re standing there. In 1996 a new social hall was built on the east end of the church where the servants’ quarters, original kitchen, and 6-car garage had been.
Other than that, the property has remained relative unchanged since. In 1953, believe it or not, my father took me fishing on that wood and canvas pier. He’d be arrested today for child endangerment. In 1957 the insurance company made us fill in the swimming pool since we were not Baptists, to the chagrin of all us kids. The edges were just broken down and most of the structure was simply filled in. If you stand at the northern edge of the west lawn, you can still see the original pool tile lining the edge of what had been the deck.
