Hollywood Heritage Museum facts for kids
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| Established | 1985 |
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| Location | 2100 North Highland Avenue, Hollywood, California |
| Type | Heritage centre |
The Hollywood Heritage Museum is a cool place in Hollywood, California. It's also known as the "Hollywood Studio Museum." This museum is special because it's inside a really old building called the Lasky-DeMille Barn.
The museum is right across from the famous Hollywood Bowl. The Hollywood Heritage organization bought this old barn in 1983 and moved it to where it is now. They worked hard to fix it up, and it officially opened as a museum on December 13, 1985.
Hollywood Heritage was started in 1980. Their main goal is to save and restore important old buildings and items from Hollywood's early days. Their first big success was saving the Lasky-DeMille Barn and turning it into this museum.
Inside the museum, you can see lots of interesting things. There are old photos from the silent movie era, movie props, historical papers, and other cool stuff related to movies. You can also see old pictures and postcards of Hollywood's streets, buildings, and homes from its "golden age." The museum also hosts special events called 'Evenings at the Barn' where people can listen to speakers, watch old movies, or see slideshows about Hollywood's early history. Sometimes, they even show old silent films!
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The Barn's Amazing History
The building that is now the Hollywood Heritage Museum was built way back in 1901. It started as a stable for horses! A man named Col. Robert Northam owned the land. In 1903, he sold the property to Jacob Stern, who was a real estate agent.
Hollywood became a city in 1903. Back then, it was against the rules to show movies in Hollywood. But things changed! Hollywood joined the city of Los Angeles in 1910. In October 1911, the very first movie studio opened in Hollywood.
The barn became the second movie studio in Hollywood. Two men, Louis Loss Burns and Harry Revier, rented the barn from Mr. Stern around May 1912. They even got a permit to build an office inside the barn. Their company was called Burns and Revier Studio and Laboratory. They were special because they had a film lab right there! The barn itself was used for dressing rooms and editing, while the office was for the company leaders.
In December 1913, a famous director named Cecil B. DeMille came to California. He was part of a new company called the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. The partners were Lasky, DeMille, and Samuel Goldfish (who later changed his name to Samuel Goldwyn).
They met with Burns and Revier and decided to rent the barn and studio. They paid $250 a month! On December 22, 1913, they signed the papers. Soon after, they started making a movie called The Squaw Man. This movie came out on February 14, 1914. It was the first full-length movie ever made in the Hollywood area! DeMille also bought out Burns and Revier's part of the business.
In 1916, Lasky's company joined with another company to become The Famous Players - Lasky Corporation. Later, this company became Paramount Pictures Corporation.
By 1926, the movie studio had grown much bigger than just the barn. Paramount Pictures moved to a larger location on Melrose Avenue, where it still is today. But the founders loved the barn so much that they moved it with them to the new lot!
The barn was used for many different things over the years. It was a film set, a research library, a meeting room, and even a gym for Paramount employees in 1929. It stayed a gym until 1979. The barn was moved a few times on the Paramount lot. Its last spot was next to Cecil B. DeMille's office. You can even see the barn in some old movies like "The Rainmaker" and TV shows like "Bonanza."
On December 27, 1956, the Lasky-DeMille Barn was officially recognized as "Hollywood's First Major Film Company Studio." It was named California State Historic Landmark No. 554. This means it's a very important historical place that marks the beginning of the Hollywood movie industry.
How the Barn Became a Museum
In 1979, Paramount Pictures gave the barn to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. It was moved to a parking lot on Vine Street.
Then, in 1980, Hollywood Heritage, Inc. was started by Marian Gibbons, Christy Johnson McAvoy, Frances Offenhauser McKeal, and Susan Peterson St. Francis. Their goal was to save and restore early Hollywood treasures.
The barn stayed in the parking lot until the Chamber and Paramount gave it to Hollywood Heritage. The Chamber moved it again, this time to the parking lot of The Hollywood Palace theater. It was boarded up and fenced in while they looked for a permanent home.
Hollywood Heritage found out about some land on Highland Avenue that was set aside for a film museum back in 1960. A museum hadn't been built there yet. Hollywood Heritage decided to combine their efforts with this old plan. They moved the Lasky-DeMille Barn to the Highland Avenue spot in February 1982.
For the next three years, many volunteers and people who donated materials worked hard to restore the building. The museum officially opened in December 1985. This was 72 years after Cecil B. DeMille and his partners first signed the agreements to use the barn for making movies!
The museum had to close from 1997 to 2003 because of a fire. Luckily, the fire only damaged a small part of the building, and none of the museum's important collection was harmed.
A Special Historical Marker
The Lasky-DeMille Barn was already a California State Historic Landmark. In 2013, it was also added to the National Register of Historic Places. This happened 100 years after Lasky and DeMille first arrived!
There's a special plaque at the site that says:
- NO. 554 CECIL B. DeMILLE STUDIO BARN - Cecil B. DeMille rented half of this structure, then used as a barn, as the studio in which was made the first feature-length motion picture in Hollywood-The Squaw Man-in 1913. Associated with Mr. DeMille in making The Squaw Man were Samuel Goldwyn and Jesse Lasky, Sr. Originally located at the corner of Selma and Vine Streets, in 1927 the barn was transferred to Paramount Studios.
See also
- Cinecon
