El Palacio Apartments, 8491 Fountain Ave., in a photo from the Los Angeles Herald-Express, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.

El Palacio in 2008, as shown by Google Street View.

Los Angeles Times, May 10, 1931: El Palacio is dedicated.

El Palacio Apartments, where Georgette Bauerdorf was killed, were designed and built by William R. Hauptman, with gardens by Seymour Thomas. By the time El Palacio opened, Hauptman had built several apartment buildings in West Hollywood, including the Coral Gables, Royal Madrid, Royal Palms, Villa Poinsettia and   Wyngate Manor. The Times noted that in December 1928 that the emperor of Japan attended the dedication of the Lotus Garden apartments, which adjoin El Palacio.

Georgette Bauerdorf, an Unsolved Murder:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 |  Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31

Los Angeles Times, May 10, 1931: El Palacio is dedicated.

The Times said the building consisted of 18 four- and five-room apartments, with each two to four units having its own entrance. The four-room apartments consisted of a living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom and stall shower and a Murphy bed. The five-room units were two-story apartments with the living room on the first floor and bedrooms on the second floor. El Palacio offered underground parking beneath the building.

The Times noted that the building had “warm air heating,” a “circulating hot water system, a refrigerating plant” and most significant for the Bauerdorf case: soundproof floors and walls.

A 2004 sales brochure gives a more detailed breakdown of El Palacio: one studio; 14 one-bedroom, one-bathroom units, two two-bedroom 1 1/2-bath units; and one two-bedroom, two-bath unit.

On Nov. 22, 1942, El Palacio was the site of a bedroom raid by former prizefighter Jack Dempsey, who claimed that he and several private detectives caught his wife in bed with fight trainer Benny Woodall.

Although none of the newspaper reports give the number of Bauerdorf’s unit, the Daily News published a photo of exterior, showing its location. Based on a comparison with the photo in the Herald-Express, the Bauerdorf apartment appears to have been in the center of the building.

To be continued.