A little while ago I came across an article in the Ontario Genealogical Society archives website. It was likely from the Millbrook Mirror-Reporter, describing the Millbrook Old Boys and Girls reunion in August 1923, roughly the centenary of the village.
By Dan Bourgeois
This was a huge weekend long event attracting a couple of thousand people from across Canada and the USA. There was a reunion of Millbrook School students, multiple family reunions, concerts and dances, and a parade of decorated cars with lacrosse and baseball games at the fairgrounds.
The article included a letter from Mr F.C. Letts of Toronto(his car was awarded the best decorated car in the parade)mentioning that his brother Arthur, a multimillionaire, had passed away earlier in the year. The letter also stated he and Arthur had arrived in Cavan in 1883.
So, who were Frank and Arthur Letts, how did they end up here and how did Arthur become a millionaire? At first I thought they might be British Home Children; many were so-called Barnardo children, orphans or children of destitute parents sent to Canada in hopes of finding a better future. The 4th Line Theatre has produced an acclaimed trilogy of plays about Barnardo children in this area.
It turns out this was far from the case with the Lett brothers. They were actually sons of Richard and Caroline Letts, an old landed gentry family in Northampshire, England, dating back 600 years. Neither Arthur or Frank was the first-born son so they would not inherit the family estate. By age 21, Arthur had apprenticed at a dry goods store when he decided to set off for Canada to seek fame and fortune. Younger brother Frank went along with him.
How or why they ended up in Cavan in the back woods of Ontario isn’t clear. In any case, Frank found work on the farm of Edward Lawson on the Zion Line, the farm at the site of the old Zion church, and later on at the farm of James Fee further west on the Zion Line. It appears Frank lived in Cavan for some time and became close to a number of people in the area. He eventually moved to Toronto and must have been reasonably successful since he owned a fancy car and had time enough to drive back to visit Cavan and Millbrook on multiple occasions.
Arthur found work on the farm of John Martin on the Fallis Line. It seems he wasn’t cut out for life as a farm hand and he soon moved to Toronto, becoming a clerk for the John Key Company, prominent merchants. He went west in 1885 as a volunteer in the Northwest rebellion and upon his return in 1886 married Florence Phelps, daughter of a minister.
In 1889 Arthur and family set off for Seattle, arriving just before a massive fire destroyed the downtown of the city. In 1895, after only moderate success in the retail trade in Seattle, his best man, now a lawyer in Los Angeles, convinced him move to LA.
It was in Los Angeles that Arthur hit the big time. With largely borrowed money he bought a bankrupt dry goods store, renaming it the Broadway Department Store (on Broadway, of course) and quickly turned it into a very profitable enterprise. From there, his business interests grew, opening other stores, including Bullock’s, a high end department store serving wealthy LA and Hollywood customers into the 1990s.
Arthur’s early life as an apprentice, farm laborer and junior store clerk must have made him sympathetic to his employees when he became successful. At a time when child labour was common, he hired teachers to educate his employees under 18 years of age, who attended 1 ½ hours of class daily, with pay. His stores closed an hour earlier than others to allow employees more time with their families and everyone was given a paid half day off a week during the summer. Men who volunteered for service in the military were kept on the payroll and if they died in service, the family continued to receive their salary as a pension.
Arthur also invested in real estate. He bought a 3,300 acre ranch northwest of Los Angeles. Nowadays Sunset Boulevard runs through this land. Part of the ranch was turned into the planned middle class community of Westwood Village, a new concept at the time. Nearly 400 acres of land was sold for a fraction of its value to the University of California. It’s now the UCLA main campus. Another part of this property was turned into an enclave for the rich and famous, Holmby Hills. Grand estates were owned by folks such as Walt Disney, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Bing Crosby and more recently Sean “Diddy” Combs (at least until his recent change of address to a federal prison).The former mansion of Arthur Jr was sold in 1971 to Hugh Hefner, becoming the Playboy Mansion.
Another parcel of land was donated to the Boy Scouts for a camp. Arthur was very involved in various philanthropies aside from the Scouts, including the YMCA and other benevolent associations.
Arthur died of pneumonia on May 18, 1923 at age 60. His estate was estimated at 25 million US dollars (around 450 million dollars in today’s currency).
As for Frank, it’s a little harder to figure out what happened to him. It seems he eventually headed out to California and died there in 1940.
And so, for those who were wondering, that’s how Cavan and the Playboy Mansion in LA are connected.
Thanks to Kim McLeod for help with research.