Villa Madama

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View of the northeast corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue (foreground) in a neighborhood of large 2-story homes, including the 23-room Italian Renaissance Revival mansion, Villa Madama, seen on the left. In the center of the image is Villa Florist, a floral shop.In 1908, architect John C. W. Austin was hired by by Ida Hancock, widow of Major Henry Hancock, to create Villa Madama, which was based on Florence’s Villa Medici. In 1909, the Villa Madama was by built in a subdivision called Shatto Place. After Ida's death in 1913, her son Captain George Allan, with his first wife, Genevieve, moved into the mansion and stayed there until 1938, when it was decided that Villa Madama would be razed. Prior to the demolition, four rooms, the Reception Hall, the Dining Room, the Music Salon, and the Library, of the mansion were dismantled and relocated in the Allan Hancock Foundation Building (1941) on the campus of the University of Southern California.