In Part VII in an ongoing series featuring some of the most historic houses in Hermosa Beach, The Beach Reporter delves into the lifespan of three houses including one that housed a Titanic survivor and another believed to be linked to the famed newspaper giant William Randolph Hearst.

According to Patricia Gazin’s book “Castles on the Sand,” 1023 Sixth St. is one of the most unique houses in Hermosa Beach because it started out as a one-story home. According to legend, one of the original owners climbed up on the roof, discovered a breathtaking view and thought he should take advantage of it. The owner added another room on the west side of the house and built an exterior curving staircase to the room, which now serves as a studio apartment.

Phyllis Marek-Urlich and David Urlich bought the two-bedroom house in the mid-1970s. Marek-Urlich is a longtime resident of Hermosa Beach, but moved out of town to Long Beach for a short stint before returning to her hometown.

“I was only in Long Beach, but it was the edge of the earth as far as I was concerned,” said Marek-Urlich.

The house’s living room still has an original wall knob used to plug the hose of a vacuum into. The vacuum would then suck up the dirt on the carpet that would enter the inside of the wall and funnel down below into the garage. The house also comes with a ventilated air system where outside air is channeled into the house through vents located on the ceilings of some of the rooms.

“We like that it’s paid for, but we also like the location and the view,” said Urlich.

Marek-Urlich, who grew up in Hermosa Beach and attended Hermosa Beach schools, remembered walking by the house as a young child and thought of one day owning it.

“When I was a kid this house appealed to me,” she said. “We once had a tenant upstairs who was a photographer and would take the most interesting photos of the staircase. I know the previous owner lived out of town and rented it out before we bought it. We also bought the house next door so that no one would tear it down.”

The house next door, 1021 Sixth St., is where Edwina Troutt-Mackenzie, a survivor of the Titanic, lived from the 1940s until her death in 1984.

Mackenzie was born in Bath, England, in 1884 and boarded the Titanic at the age of 27 to be with her sister in Auburndale, Mass., for the birth of her child. Mackenzie first came to America in 1907 and spent nearly five years in the United States working as a waitress and a maid.

She returned to England in 1911 and decided to return to the states in the latter part of 1912 to be with her sister. She was supposed to travel on the Oceanic but was later transferred to the Titanic due to coal strikes. She boarded the massive ship in Southampton, England, as a second-class passenger.

When the ship hit the iceberg, Mackenzie left her cabin to investigate. She was rescued on a lifeboat and remembered hearing the band play “Nearer My God to Thee” as the ship went down.

Mackenzie was also the woman who was said to have rescued a 5-month-old child from the sinking ship. As the ship’s crew lowered the boat, a Lebanese passenger, Charles Thomas, begged that his nephew be saved. Mackenzie took the child on the boat with her.

In 1916, she moved from Massachusetts to Southern California where she joined the Army Corps as an apricot picker. In 1918, she married her first husband, Alfred Thorvald Peterson. They operated a bakery together in Beverly Hills until his death in 1944. Her second marriage was to James Corrigan. She married for a third time to James Mackenzie in 1964 at the age of 79. Mackenzie died at the age of 100 in December 1984.

According to Gazin, 1901 Manhattan Ave. is probably the only piece of architecture built by the noted African-American architect Paul Williams in the beach cities. Williams graduated from Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. It was the year-round home of Ralph E. Matteson and was built in 1921. He lived in the house since the day it was completed. Matteson’s first home at 1040 Manhattan Ave. was built in 1906. Matteson settled in Hermosa Beach in 1905 after accepting a job as the first manager of Western Fuel Gas and Power Company.

Thad Mercer, a stockbroker, is the second owner of the five-bedroom house and bought it in 1986. Matteson lived in the house until his death at the age of 100 in 1978. The house comes with a large living room, two dining rooms, a large kitchen, an outside bar that Mercer built on the outside deck and a multimedia room.

“I’ve restored the house with the exception of about 10 percent,” said Mercer. “I love the view, the character and the privacy. There are trees all around the house so it really has a serenity and peacefulness to it. I decided to buy the house because I thought Hermosa Beach to be such a nice little community that reminded me of the community I grew up in.”

Mercer, originally from New Jersey, lived in Marina del Rey from 1971 until the time he bought the house. The house comes with a library in which an antique pool table sits.

According to legend, Matteson was a friend of millionaire journalist and newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst who founded the Los Angeles Examiner in 1903. Hearst was also very involved in politics and associated with the Hollywood elite as the producer of hundreds of films.

He also took over the operations of the San Francisco Examiner after his father acquired it in a gambling debt.

Hurst and Matteson went out to dinner one night and Hurst mentioned he had some extra building materials from the additions to the now-famed 250,000-acre Hearst Castle he inherited from his mother and father, a wealthy miner, in 1919. By 1947, Hearst had created an estate of 165 rooms along with 127 acres of gardens, terraces and pools.

It is believed that Matteson took Hearst up on his offer, and now fixtures and amenities found at 1901 Manhattan Ave. bear an eerie resemblance to some of the amenities and fixtures in the Hearst Castle.