Baine Building: Hollywood’s First Penthouse
- Dec 14, 2023
- 4 min read
Harry Baine is best remembered for organizing the Santa Claus Lane tradition—but he was also known as “Hollywood’s Penthouse Hermit.”
In 1926, the widowed businessman hired architects Henry L. Gogerty and Carl Jules Weyl to build the three-story Baine Studio Building at Hollywood Boulevard and Whitley Avenue: a bank and shops on the first floor, offices on the second … and his own penthouse on the third.
When the Spanish Revival building opened its doors in March 1927, it was praised for raising the architectural standards of Hollywood Boulevard.
