On a Los Feliz hill, murder — then mystery
Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times
The hilltop Los Feliz mansion where Dr. Harold Perelson killed his wife and then himself in 1959. It has sat vacant ever since.
Inside a mansion, it’s as if time stopped in 1959 when a doctor killed his wife and then himself. Gifts still sit, unopened. Why?
By Bob Pool, February 6, 2009
It’s a murder mystery that has puzzled a Los Feliz neighborhood since 1959. The criminal-case part was solved quickly enough. Homicide investigators found that Dr. Harold Perelson bludgeoned his wife to death with a ball-peen hammer, savagely beat their 18-year-old daughter and then fatally poisoned himself by gulping a glass of acid.
Authorities removed two other children from the sprawling hillside estate that overlooks downtown Los Angeles, locked the front door to the 5,050-square-foot mansion, and left.
Fifty years later, the Glendower Place home remains empty. On the outside, the mansion itself appears to be slowly decaying.
The estate’s terraced grounds are pockmarked by gopher holes and overgrown with grass that sprouted after recent rains — growth that neighbors know will turn brown when summer returns. A pond is partly filled with rainwater. Weeds poke through cracks in a curving asphalt driveway. Through grimy, cracked windows, one can see dust-covered furniture, including a 1950s-style television set, seemingly frozen in time. What appear to be gaily wrapped Christmas gifts sit on a table.