El Greco of Chandax, present day Heraklion) on Crete, El Greco was descended from a prosperous urban family, which had probably been driven out of Chania to Candia after an uprising against the Catholic Venetians between 1526 and 1528. El Greco's father, Geórgios Theotokópoulos (d. 1556), was a merchant and tax collector. Nothing is known about his mother or his first wife, also Greek. El Greco's older brother, Manoússos Theotokópoulos (1531 – 13 December 1604), was a wealthy merchant and spent the last years of his life (1603–1604) in El Greco's Toledo home. El Greco received his initial training as an icon
El Greco Apartments was raised to pay for the cost of the land and refurbishment of the building. Among other efforts, Leonard Nimoy (Spock in the 1960s television series "") staged a fund-raiser for the effort to preserve the El Greco. In September 1985, the El Greco was carefully carved into four pieces and hauled from its original site in Westwood to its new location in the Beverly-Fairfax district. Architect Peter de Bretteville, who was in charge of the move and refurbishment, noted: "The difficult relocation was accomplished by dividing the apartment into four separate sections, preserving all of the structure's Spanish roof