Casa de Cadillac in Sherman Oaks. Image courtesy Casa de Cadillac Facebook; photograph credited in the image to Mike Kelley.
One of Ventura Boulevard's most recognizable survivors could finally become an official Los Angeles landmark. Casa de Cadillac, the glass-walled automobile showroom that has displayed new Cadillacs in Sherman Oaks since 1949, is the subject of a new Historic-Cultural Monument nomination.
The 224-page application presents the dealership as more than a familiar neon sign. It argues that the building is a rare, remarkably intact record of the San Fernando Valley's postwar car culture, a distinctive work of Mid-Century Modern commercial architecture, and a legacy business that has continuously sold Cadillacs from the same Ventura Boulevard address for more than seven decades.
Quick Facts
| Historic name | Don Lee Cadillac |
|---|---|
| Current name | Casa de Cadillac |
| Address | 14401 W. Ventura Boulevard, Sherman Oaks |
| Built / opened | Constructed in 1948-49; opened in 1949 |
| Architect | Randall A. Duell; Phillip A. Conklin is also historically associated with the design |
| Original owner | Thomas S. Lee Enterprises / Don Lee Motors Corporation |
| Original use | Automobile showroom and service facility |
| Architectural style | Mid-Century Modern |
| HCM case | CHC-2026-4302-HCM |
| Environmental case | ENV-2026-4303-CE |
| Applicant | Andrew Salimian, Los Angeles Conservancy |
| Owner support | Listed as unknown in the nomination |
| APN / Council District | 2265-014-017 / Council District 4 |
An "ultramodern" showroom for the postwar Valley
The paper trail begins in 1948. Building permits issued on August 9 and October 18 authorized a two-story masonry automobile agency for Thomas S. Lee Enterprises. The first permit reported a construction cost of $325,000 and the second $235,000. Both name Randall Duell as architect, S. R. Barnes as engineer, and Kersey & Kinsey as contractor.
A contemporary Los Angeles Times announcement called the project an "ultramodern sales and service building." It described approximately 34,000 square feet of floor area, with roughly 25,000 square feet devoted to service, and emphasized the transparent, jewel-box showroom facing Ventura Boulevard. Don Lee Cadillac opened there in 1949.
Don Lee Cadillac, 14401 Ventura Boulevard, 1949. Postcard photograph; photographer unknown. Image credited to the City-Data.com Forum.
The design made the car itself part of the streetscape. A double-height wall of floor-to-ceiling glass offered motorists an unobstructed view of the showroom. Flat roofs, broad overhangs and an open-air central courtyard - called the "lanai" - created an indoor-outdoor setting suited to Southern California. Above it all, a tall stucco slab carried the block-letter Cadillac sign, while long neon script traced the edge of the showroom canopy.
Don Lee, Tommy Lee and the dealership's difficult beginning
The Don Lee name was already famous in California automobile sales. Don Lee built a major Cadillac distribution network and expanded into radio broadcasting before his death in 1934. His son, Thomas S. "Tommy" Lee, inherited the business and began laying the groundwork for the new Valley dealership.
Tommy Lee's life, however, had become increasingly troubled. He was placed under a legal guardianship in 1948, while construction was underway, and remained under court supervision as the dealership opened. On January 13, 1950, Lee fell to his death from the Pellissier Building in Los Angeles. He was 43.
Veteran Valley automobile dealer Martin Pollard then took over the operation and renamed it Casa de Cadillac. Advertisements were using the new name by 1950, although the nomination says the prominent building signage was not changed until January 1958.
Martin Pollard and the making of Casa de Cadillac
Martin Pollard, owner of Casa de Cadillac, circa 1963. Photographer unknown.
Pollard had opened his first San Fernando Valley automobile dealership in 1922. At Casa de Cadillac, he turned a short-lived Don Lee outpost into an enduring Valley institution and operated it for the next two decades.
His influence extended far beyond the showroom. Pollard was a banker and real-estate developer, served as president of the Los Angeles Airport Commission, sat on regional transportation agencies, and raised money for political campaigns and charities. After his death in 1970, the Sherman Oaks branch of the Los Angeles Public Library was rededicated in his honor in 1972.
The forgotten "Casa Corner"
Casa de Cadillac once belonged to a small roadside district built around a shared name. The nomination identifies four automobile-oriented businesses at or near the intersection: Casa de Cadillac, the Casa de Petrol gas station, Casa Burger and the Casa de Cascade car wash. The crossing was reportedly known as "Casa Corner." Of those four businesses, only Casa de Cadillac survives.
Casa Corner also has a place in Hollywood history. On September 30, 1955, James Dean stopped at the neighboring Casa de Petrol station to fuel his new Porsche 550 Spyder before heading north toward a race in Salinas. It was his final fuel stop in Los Angeles. Dean was killed later that day in a collision near Cholame, making the Sherman Oaks station—and the photographs taken there—an enduring part of the story of his final drive. Sherman Oaks Patch documented the connection.
James Dean and his Porsche 550 Spyder at Casa de Petrol on September 30, 1955, before his final drive north. Photograph by Sanford Roth.
That lost cluster helps explain why the dealership matters beyond architecture. It is a tangible remnant of the era when Ventura Boulevard became the Valley's principal commercial spine and businesses designed their buildings, signs and parking around customers arriving by car.
Casa de Cadillac on screen
Casa de Cadillac's glass showroom and unmistakable script sign also made it a natural screen location. The dealership appears behind Tom Petty in the 1989 video for “Free Fallin'”, across Ventura Boulevard from the video's fictional Future Dogs stand.
Tom Petty with Casa de Cadillac in the background of the “Free Fallin'” music video, 1989.
The showroom had a more direct role in the 1985 action film Commando, when Cook helps himself to a Cadillac before confronting Arnold Schwarzenegger's John Matrix. Two decades later, the building became part of another automotive spectacle: Transformers (2007) used the dealership for the sequence in which the Autobot Jazz makes his entrance.
The building returned to music-video prominence in 2017. HAIM's one-take video for “Want You Back” begins outside Casa de Cadillac before the three sisters walk east along a nearly empty Ventura Boulevard at dawn.
Danielle Haim outside Casa de Cadillac in HAIM's “Want You Back” music video, 2017.
Randall Duell: from MGM to Magic Mountain
Randall A. Duell graduated from USC's architecture program in 1925 and worked on projects including the Avalon Casino, Harold Lloyd's Greenacres estate and buildings at Pomona College. During the Depression he moved into motion pictures, joining MGM's art department and earning three Academy Award nominations. His screen credits included Ninotchka, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Intruder in the Dust and Singin' in the Rain.
Duell maintained an outside architecture practice while working in Hollywood. After leaving MGM, he became an influential theme-park designer whose projects included the original Universal Studios Tour and Magic Mountain in Valencia. That gives Casa de Cadillac a particularly appealing Valley connection: the designer of Sherman Oaks' cinematic automobile showroom later helped shape one of the region's best-known amusement parks.
Phillip A. Conklin is frequently credited alongside Duell. The nomination notes, however, that the original permit lists only Duell as architect and that a 1948 newspaper account described Conklin as representing Duell at the groundbreaking. The application therefore leaves open the possibility that Casa was principally Duell's design.
Mid-Century Modern - not quite Googie
Casa de Cadillac, circa 1959. Photographer unknown.
Casa de Cadillac is often described as Googie, and it is easy to see why: the glowing roadside signs, glass showroom and obvious celebration of the automobile belong to the same optimistic postwar world. The nomination makes a more precise architectural distinction.
Typical Googie buildings employ upswept roofs, exaggerated curves, boomerang-like geometry, rough textures and Space Age motifs. Casa is comparatively restrained. Its simple rectilinear volumes, flat roof, unornamented stucco and brick walls, thin steel framing, floor-to-ceiling glass and carefully controlled indoor-outdoor courtyard place it more squarely within Mid-Century Modernism.
It shares Googie's roadside showmanship and car-culture setting, but the nomination argues that its architecture is best classified as Mid-Century Modern.
The 2012-13 restoration
Casa's survival was not guaranteed. When General Motors promoted standardized dealership remodels in 2005, the Los Angeles Conservancy contacted the owner and urged preservation of the showroom's defining features. The resulting project ultimately moved in a very different direction.
Work performed in 2012 and completed in 2013 reversed accumulated alterations. The showroom ceiling was returned to its earlier appearance while mechanical systems were upgraded; non-original glazing was replaced; and the west entrance canopy was restored closer to its historic form. The project retained the terrazzo floor, glass walls, lanai, neon and other features that make the building recognizable.
Ceiling removed from the Casa de Cadillac showroom during restoration, September 28, 2012. Photograph by Steve Vilerino.
SFV Blog appears in the nomination record
There is also a satisfying bit of local-history circularity in the nomination package itself. The supporting material reproduces a Casa de Cadillac reference list that cites Marty McFly's January 9, 2013 SFV Blog story, "Casa de Cadillac Completes Sensitive Renovation", as reference No. 2. In other words, SFV Blog's contemporary coverage of the restoration is now part of the documentary record submitted with the building's landmark nomination. The citation appears on PDF page 39.
Why the nomination says Casa qualifies
Los Angeles has three basic tests for Historic-Cultural Monument designation. A place may be associated with important events or broad patterns of history; associated with an important historic person; or embody a distinctive architectural type, period or method of construction, including the work of a master designer. A property needs to meet only one criterion.
The Casa de Cadillac nomination argues that the property meets two:
- Criterion 1 - history: Casa exemplifies the Valley's postwar, automobile-oriented commercial development and has remained a prominent Cadillac dealership since 1949.
- Criterion 3 - architecture: The building is a distinctive and rare Mid-Century Modern automobile showroom with simple geometric volumes, a double-height glass facade, flat roof, broad eaves and prominent integrated signage.
SurveyLA had already identified the property as an excellent and rare example of a 1940s Valley automobile showroom and as an excellent example of Mid-Century Modern commercial architecture. The nomination also finds that the property retains all seven recognized aspects of historic integrity: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association.
What Historic-Cultural Monument designation would mean
An HCM designation would recognize Casa de Cadillac as significant to Los Angeles history and subject proposed major changes or demolition to review under the City's Cultural Heritage Ordinance. It would not require the dealership to close, turn the building into a museum, or freeze every detail in place. Continued use, maintenance and compatible alterations remain possible.
Designation is also not an absolute guarantee that a building can never be demolished. It creates a public review process, allows the City to delay demolition while preservation alternatives are considered, and gives decision-makers a formal basis for protecting character-defining features.
Casa de Cadillac history timeline
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1948 | Building permits are issued for Thomas S. Lee Enterprises; construction begins on the new Don Lee Cadillac sales and service building. |
| 1949 | Don Lee Cadillac opens on Ventura Boulevard. |
| 1950 | Tommy Lee dies; Martin Pollard takes over the dealership and adopts the Casa de Cadillac name. |
| 1955 | A canopy is added over the west-side entrance. |
| 1958 | The prominent Casa de Cadillac signage is installed. |
| 1970 | Martin Pollard dies after operating Casa de Cadillac for roughly two decades. |
| 1972 | The Sherman Oaks library branch is rededicated in Pollard's honor. |
| 2005 | The Los Angeles Conservancy begins working with the owner after standardized remodeling threatens the showroom's historic character. |
| 2012-13 | A sensitive rehabilitation restores glazing, the showroom ceiling and other character-defining features. |
| 2026 | The Los Angeles Conservancy submits an HCM nomination; City records list CHC-2026-4302-HCM and ENV-2026-4303-CE. |
Current status
The nomination was signed May 4, 2026, by Andrew Salimian of the Los Angeles Conservancy. The application lists the property owner's support as unknown. A ZIMAS parcel report dated August 19, 2026, records the nomination as CHC-2026-4302-HCM and the companion environmental case as ENV-2026-4303-CE.
As of August 24, 2026, this is a nomination, not a completed designation. The case must proceed through the City's HCM review process before the property can become an official monument. SFV Blog will update this story as hearing dates, staff reports and decisions become available.
Casa de Cadillac on Google Maps and Street View
If the panorama does not load in your browser or email reader, open Casa de Cadillac directly in Google Street View.
Historic photo gallery
Gallery images reproduced from the Casa de Cadillac Historic-Cultural Monument nomination. Captions retain the dates and credits given in the nomination.
Related Stories
- Casa de Cadillac Completes Sensitive Renovation
- Explore More Sherman Oaks Stories
- SFV Historic-Cultural Monuments
Sources & Further Reading
- City of Los Angeles - Casa de Cadillac Historic-Cultural Monument nomination package
- Los Angeles Conservancy - Casa de Cadillac
- Los Angeles Conservancy News - "Casa de Cadillac's Road to Preservation" (July/August 2013)
- SurveyLA - Commercial Development and the Automobile, 1910-1970
- SurveyLA - L.A. Modernism, 1919-1980
- HistoricPlacesLA - Don Lee Cadillac resource report
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