4409 Kingswell Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90027

There are several Hollymont neighborhood structures still standing, which are associated with Walt Disney’s story. One could swiftly drive by this modest home at 4409 Kingswell Avenue, completely unaware of the role it played in Walt Disney’s story during his first few years in California. Please step this way, for a short visit to one understated former residence of Walt and Roy Disney!

Just a few month’s after signing their historic distribution contract with Margaret J. Winkler, Walt and Roy moved from their uncle Robert’s home. Walt and Roy no doubt searched for inexpensive rooming within close proximity to the space they were renting at 4651 Kingswell Avenue (in order to run their Disney Bros. Cartoon Studio). Their search was successful, as they found an inexpensive unit inside the Olive Hill Apartments which made due for about a month’s span. Walt and Roy soon found a much nicer place (at 4409 Kingswell Avenue) almost across the street from their uncle Robert’s house.

For a little over a year (from late 1923 to July of 1925), Walt and Roy rented an economical second story room in the home of Charles and Nettie Schneider. This is the home you see before you. According to the documentary “Walt - The Man Behind The Myth”, “Walt and Roy took a room together, but the place was small and the two men got on each other’s nerves.” Expanding on Walt and Roy’s time with the Schneiders, Walt before Mickey : The Early Years 1929 -1928 states :

“In December, around the time of Walt’s twenty-second birthday, the Disney brothers found a cheaper room at 4409 Kingswell Avenue , directly across the street from Robert’s house, for $15 a month. They moved into the room-what Roy called ‘just a single room in a house’- in a boardinghouse owned by Charles and Nettie Schneider.

Charles (fifty-nine) and his wife Nettie (fifty-eight) were from Iowa and born to parents who had emigrated from Germany. Charles and Nettie married in their early twenties, and lived with their five children in Plymouth, Iowa, where Charles was a farmer. By the time their children reached adulthood, the Schneiders had moved to Le Mars, Iowa, where Charles became a real estate agent. Their youngest child, Lester, an auto mechanic, still lived at home, as did Nettie’s eighty-three-year-old father.

Within three years, the Schneiders retired to California, and purchased the house on Kingswell. While the Disney Brothers cooked and ate their meals in the first apartment they shared, they did not cook at the Schneider house. ‘Later’, Walt recalled, ‘[after living in an apartment], we took just a sleeping room and got our meals at a cheap cafeteria to save time. We worked out a system in that cafeteria. Roy and I always went in together. One would get a meat order, the other a vegetable. When we reached our table, we would divide up.’ The cafeteria was ‘inexpensive’ and ‘dreary'.’ walt recalled ‘there was many a week when Roy and I ate one square meal a day-between us.’”

During their residency here, several progressive things would occur. Walt and Roy would rent a vacant lot (at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Rodney Drive), in order to film the live action portions of early shorts. Alice’s Day at Sea (the first in a series of Alice shorts), would soon premier on March 1, 1924. During this time, demand for the Alice shorts would grow, and the Disney Bros. studio staff would increase, demanding that the Disney Bros. Cartoon Studio take over the larger storefront space next door (4649 Kingswell Avenue). With a steady income now secure, Roy decided to propose to his childhood sweetheart Edna, who accepted!

It’s clear that saving money on room and board contributed toward production of Walt and Roy’s personal life, production of shorts, and other good things to come. While uncle Robert Disney’s former residence has been placed on a registry of culturally significant structures, this former Hollymont residence of Walt and Roy just doesn’t receive similar fanfare. But today we raise our crop in recognition of the role it played in aiding the establishment of Walt and Roy’s Disney Bros. Studio!

STEP THIS WAY, BUT PLEASE REMEMBER TO RESPECT THE RESIDENTS OF THIS PRIVATE HOME.