Mi Caddy es su Caddy - 75 years of "Casa de Cadillac"
05/09/2025
The building - the "Casa" in the true sense of the word - is even a year older. As early as May 1949, the building designed by Randall A. Duell and Philip A. Conklin was opened on Ventura Boulevard in Los Angeles. However, it was not given its Spanish name, under which the dealership in the San Fernando Valley still trades today, until eight months later.
After the death of Donald M. Lee in 1934, his son Tommy took over the management of the Cadillac sales network on the West Coast, but retained the established name, so that all branches opened later also operated under "Don Lee Cadillac". Until Thomas S. Lee jumped out of a twelfth-floor window at his dentist's office on Wilshire Boulevard in January 1950.
Martin Pollard then took over the Cadillac dealership in North Los Angeles and put the lettering that still exists today on the roof. Pollard gradually expanded the dealership to include a petrol station ("Casa de Petrol") and a car wash ("Casa de Cascade") before joining forces with James "Jim" Wilson in 1966, who continued the business alone after Pollard's death in 1970. Daughter Susan has been running the "House of Cadillac" since 2008.
With the help of the Los Angeles Conservancy, even General Motors was convinced of the historical significance. Today, the branch on Ventura Boulevard at the corner of Tyrone Avenue is the only Cadillac dealership in the entire USA that does not have to follow the current corporate image, but is allowed to shine in the sky above Sherman Oaks just as it did 75 years ago.
