Man’s Home Was Bastion Only Death Could Breach

‘I’m going to live here until I die’

Luther Conroe

His love for his neighborhood never wavered.

Luther Conroe was the last man on his block.

He lived 45 years in his tiny Sherman Oaks cottage, quietly tending a small fruit orchard and vines that gave his sycamore-shaded place the look of a farmhouse.

His love for the neighborhood never wavered, even when the 14200 block of Dickens Street around his house became walled in by apartments and condominiums.

One of the San Fernando Valley’s first condominiums was built next door to Conroe in 1957. In 1983, a town-house project was built on the other side, leaving his as the last single-family house on the street.

But the 79-year-old retired fire-extinguisher salesman steadfastly refused to sell his 50-year-old, two-bedroom house to developers, even when he was offered hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“My house is not for sale,” he would tell real estate agents who regularly knocked on his door. “I’m going to live here until I die. They’re going to have to carry me out of my house.”

On March 2, they did.

Neighbors whose condominiums overlook Conroe’s house called authorities when they realized that he had not been seen for two days. Rescuers found the man dead of a heart attack inside the house that he loved.

This week, Conroe’s niece traveled from San Francisco to retrieve family heirlooms from the house. It must be vacated by June 29, when it will be sold--to an apartment or condominium developer.

Letters From Developers

Along with photographs and other memorabilia, niece Sandra Reed discovered stacks of letters from developers imploring Conroe to sell. Some of them dated from 1963.

“I know the answer was ‘NO’ when I spoke with you about a year ago,” wrote one builder in 1982, “but we are prepared to pay a substantial price for your property and provide you with comfortable living quarters in a unit in the condominium at no cost to you.”

An apartment developer bragged in 1985 that “being intimately familiar with your neighborhood, we believe that we are best suited to develop your land.”

Real estate agent Sherry Cash sent a hand-written letter in 1983. “I’m making my annual stop at your house to see if you want to sell your house before they start building condominiums next door!” she wrote, underlining the word “annual.”

On Tuesday, Cash recalled that Conroe had been polite but firm each time she approached him.

“He was very adamant about liking it there,” she said. “He said he was going to live there until he died. I don’t think it had anything to do with greed. He didn’t want to sell at any price.”

Next-door neighbor Madeline Harrison, who has lived nearly 30 years in a condominium built as Sherman Oaks’ first apartment co-op, said Conroe joked on his 70th birthday that he planned to live to be 100.

“I told him I hoped so, because I’d hate to see anything happen to his house,” said Harrison, who alerted authorities when Conroe died.

“He loved the place and took care of everything himself. He’d use an old-fashioned hand scythe to cut weeds. Every year he’d either pick sacks of fruit and bring them to us or invite us to come over and pick what we wanted ourselves.”

Reed said her uncle was raised in Pennsylvania in a home that had been in his family for generations. Conroe and his wife, Stony, who died in 1977, had no children, she said.

Conroe lived long enough to see Los Angeles city officials adopt restrictions on apartment and condominium construction in Sherman Oaks to protect single-family homes on his street.

Real estate agent Alexandra Gross, who is handling the probate sale of Conroe’s house, said the property will probably fetch $350,000. The proceeds will be divided among his relatives.

The new city rules will probably allow about seven town-house units instead of the 16 or more that could have been built in the past, Gross said.

Either way, Luther Conroe’s cottage will be torn down.