No. 204 - Lederer Residence and Immediate Environs

Lederer Residence and Immediate Environs
1934
23134 Sherman Way – map
Declared: 11/15/78

You really can’t see a whole heck of a lot of Monument No. 204, the old Francis Lederer home. It’s perched well on top of a hill (the view must’ve been awesome seventy years ago), the base of which today is surrounded by fencing and warnings to stay away.

Francis Lederer built this home on his 300-acre Canoga Park ranch over a period of years beginning in 1934. (We visited his old converted stable at No. 135 back in April, remember?) It’s worth noting that the Czechoslovakian Lederer, who had spent most of his life in Europe, had arrived in the U.S. only two years earlier to appear on Broadway – the guy must’ve fallen in love very quickly with all things American Southwest to undertake such a project. With the help of builder John R. Litke, Lederer went to great pains to have his estate appear as much a historic Mission-style homestead as possible. For a few years during the house’s construction, Lederer was married to actress Margo (who later married Eddie Albert). He married Marion Irvine in 1941. The home was finished sometime in the early 1940s.

Francis Lederer

You can see some color shots of the house by clicking here. And below is a very fine shot of the landmark by Mr Julius Shulman, plucked from the city’s Department of Planning website.

A big factor in the residence’s 1978 declaration was the decorative and antique furnishings throughout the home. The city called the Lederer Residence

“a distinguished example of Mission Style architecture in which interior and exterior detailing is of museum quality. The Spanish and Italian furnishings are of particular interest, dating back from the 14th century.”

I’m not sure how much of that antique furniture remains. And I’m not sure what “environs” in the city’s declaration refers to, as it seems the land surrounding the home is getting more and more cluttered with buildings that’d make Francis, once the Honorary Mayor of Canoga Park, spin in his grave (he died in 2000 at the age of 100). And, finally, I’m not sure why we drive on a parkway and park in a driveway (ask Gallagher).

The home is still in the hands of the Lederer family. It’s currently undergoing a major renovation.

Up next: Los Angeles Stock Exchange Building

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No. 135 - Canoga Mission Gallery

Canoga Mission Gallery
1936
23130 Sherman Way, West Hills – map
Declared: 12/4/74

Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 135 is a former stable built in the Mission Revival style in 1936 by actor Francis Lederer. You really need to know, as authentic as the building may appear, it’s only about seventy years old. It doesn’t date to the Spanish colonial days.

Even more importantly, you need to know Lederer got to make it with Louise Brooks, at least on screen, in Pandora’s Box.

Czech-born Francis Lederer and his wife, Marion (correction: Lederer didn't marry Marion Irvine until 1941; he had been married twice before - FBB), built these stables for his horses (well, for her horse, Gypsy, mainly) on their 300-acre Canoga Park ranch. Lederer, who would later serve as Honorary Mayor of Canoga Park, has more than seventy credits on the IMDb, most notably the afore-mentioned Pandora’s Box, directed by G.W. Pabst. Having made a ton of dough in real estate, he also founded the National Academy of Performing Arts in Studio City. He died in 2000 in Palm Springs where he and his wife moved after their home was damaged in the Northridge earthquake (the house, HCM No. 204, still exists as a private residence). Lederer reached the rip old age of 100.

As for the landmark, in the mid-1960s the city extended Sherman Way, cutting a swath through Lederer’s property. His wife, along with friends Jody Hutchison and Mary and Obdulio Galeana, destabilized and remodeled the building as a non-profit and cultural center. The Galeanas managed the gallery for twenty-seven years. Since 2001, the former stables have been home to Jill Milligan’s Hidden Chateau and Gardens, an antique shop that’s also “a popular site for parties, weddings, teas, and corporate events.”

Horses lived here:

Up next: St Mary of the Angels Church

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No. 31 - Rancho Sombra del Roble

Rancho Sombra del Roble
c. 1926 – L.G. Knipe
23600 Roscoe Boulevard – map
Declared: 1/22/65

Rancho Sombra del Roble, now more commonly known as the Orcutt Ranch Horticulture Center, was built by W.W. Orcutt and his wife as a vacation and, ultimately, retirement home.

William Warren Orcutt was a Minnesota native who moved west in around 1880 with his family, then to Los Angeles in 1901 where he got a gig with the Union Oil Company. He stayed with the corporation for nearly forty years. Soon after arriving in L.A., Orcutt became the first finder of fossils in the goo in the La Brea Tar Pits. He later went on to become a geological pioneer in the fields of oil and petroleum. Towns in Santa Barbara and Colorado are named after him.

The courtyard.

Northwest corner.

Southwest corner.

W.W. had a couple of ranches in the area, but focused on the approximately 210-acre Rancho Sombra del Roble (Ranch in the Shade of the Oak), then a cattle ranch and citrus orchard, making up a lot of what Canoga Park is today. The original residence, very much in the style of the American Southwest, was finished being built around 1926, although there has been a lot of changes to the structure, including the additions of a new wing and a solarium, over the years.

Hey! What’s the deal with all the swastikas found on the ranch house, above the windows, the courtyard floor, and even in some ironwork? Was ol’ W.W. some sort of Nazi? Nein! Before the Nazis got a hold of it, the swastika stood as a symbol of well-being and good fortune and luck. So Orcutt’s swastika usage predates Adolf’s.

The Valley Oak (Quercus Lobata) in the right rear is about 600 years old.

The barn.

A little sign by the 700-year-old Coastal Live Oak (Quercus Agrifolia) below states:

The limbs of this historical oak tree were cut and hauled to nearby kilns to fire the limestone to a powdery ash. The limestone then was transported to the site of the San Fernando mission. Limestone was combined with the clay to make the mortar for the bricks and tiles in building the mission.

This oak's got a circumference of about 33 feet.

The ranch entrance these days is on Roscoe Boulevard, but it used to be on Justice Street (the disused gate’s above). Just inside the old entrance is the monument below. You can see the WWO intitials, but was there some sort of lamp on top originally?

Orcutt died in the home in 1942. His wife, Mary Logan Orcutt, was still living at the rancho when the city declared twenty-four acres of it a Historic-Cultural Landmark (less than forty years after the residence was built). The designation includes the ranch house, a few outbuildings, the gardens, a bunch of huge, ancient oaks, and the citrus orchards. The city’s Recreation and Parks department bought the site in 1966 and it's now open to the public.

Today, Rancho Sombra del Roble may be rented for special occasions. Docented tours are also offered, but only on nine Sundays in the year, not in the summer. For Judith Stock's take on the Orcutt Ranch, go here and here.

Up next: St Saviour’s Chapel

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No. 9 - Shadow Ranch

Shadow Ranch
1869-1872
22633 Vanowen Street, Canoga Park – map
Declared: 11/2/62

Alfred Workman was a muleskinner who moved here from Australia, winding up running a massive wheat farm owned by a syndicate led by Isaac Lankershim and Isaac Van Nuys. Between 1869 and 1872, Workman built a home for his wife, Henrietta Feliz, and himself by adding onto an existing adobe. He used plenty of redwood and brick. Some say the Australian had eucalyptus trees imported and planted on the estate, and those folks claim all the eucalyptus trees in California stem from Workman Ranch. Other sources show evidence of a San Franciscan planting eucalyptus trees as early as 1853. In any event, there were and are eucalyptus trees on the property.

The Paulls, Willard and Bessie, bought the place in the early 1900s. After a few years of deterioration, the Workman Ranch was acquired by a married, screenwriting couple, Colin Clements and Florence Ryerson (the latter co-wrote the screenplay for The Wizard of Oz likely while living here), who had it restored under the guidance of Lawrence Test. Included in Test’s renovations was attaching the carriage house to the main building. It was Florence who re-named the site Shadow Ranch for the amount of shade provided by the tons of eucalyptus trees planted by Workman decades earlier. In the 1950s, Shadow Ranch was a private girls’ school called “Robinnaire”.

According to a handout a the site, the city of Los Angeles bought the property in 1957. Later, Shadow Ranch was shut for five years when it was extensively banged up in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. It now serves as a community recreation center.

Unfortunately, there aren’t as many of the old eucalyptus trees as there was once were, but you can still see some really huge stumps left behind. In the shot to the left, you can see how at least one of them towered above the place. Compare it - sort of - to the shot above. The picture's from the city's Department of Recreation & Parks website.

McGrew and Julian’s Landmarks of Los Angeles mentions a pair of landscape architects in the site’s history – Charles Gibbs Adams in the Clements years and Arthur G. Barton after the city purchase – and I think they deserve special note.

William Wyler’s The Children’s Hour (1961) was filmed here.

Finally, in the shot above, in the obligatory photo of the main building's northwest corner, it was necessary for me to include the restrooms as somewhat of a focal point. For this, I apologize.

Up next: Eagle Rock

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No. 1 - Leonis Adobe

Leonis Adobe
1844, major renovation in the late 1870s
23537 Calabasas Road, Calabasas – map
Declared: 8/6/62

Way back in 1844, six years before Los Angeles was incorporated and California was given statehood, this modest little adobe structure was built as… well, nobody knows for sure. One theory is that it served as a stagecoach stop on the El Camino Real, the King’s Highway connecting California’s missions. If you want to know how adobe bricks are made go here.

Around 1880, Miguel Leonis and his wife, Espiritu Chijulla, the daughter of a Chumash chief, moved into their adobe abode, enlarging and extensively remodeling the building. Leonis was Basque, born in the French Pyrenees. Once in the U.S., amassing huge wealth from real estate, litigation, and dowry, he came to be known as “El Basquo Grande” and “King of Calabasas” and pretty much ruled a huge chunk of the San Fernando Valley. He died in 1889 from injuries suffered in a wagon accident. In order to inherit the estate, Espiritu had to go to court to prove she was Leonis’s legal wife. She ultimately did, but only a year before her death in 1906.

Jumping ahead to August 6, 1962, the first day of the Cultural Heritage Board’s public business, the Leonis Adobe was literally on the verge of being demolished to make way for an adjacent restaurant’s parking lot. Luckily, the board’s first action was to declare the site Historic-Cultural Monument No. 1. Hats off to Kay Beachy, the woman who really led the fight to preserve the landmark.

In 1975, the Monterey style mansion was entered on the National Register of Historical Places.

The Barn (1912)

If Miguel Leonis were alive today, he’d certainly ask, “Whose idea was it to put the 101 Freeway in my backyard?” In fact, the barn seen here, built in 1912, had to be moved twice in order to accommodate the 101, which runs just a few feet behind the property.

The living room.

The Tank House, Windmill, and eastside of the mansion.

White Oak

That’s one huge White Oak, and an elderly one at that. Estimated at around 600 years old.

Nina Standke, baking

The day I was at the Leonis Adobe, historian Nita Standke had fired up the outdoor beehive oven, baking bread and pies, and lecturing about rancho cooking.

The Plummer House

One more thing. In the southeast corner of the property sits the Plummer House, a Victorian home built by sea captain Eugene Plummer in the 1870s. The Leonis Adobe Association moved the home – or most of it – from its original Hollywood location in 1983 after the deteriorated building was threatened with destruction. While not a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, the Plummer House is Historical Landmark No. 160, designated by the California State Park Commissions. It’s now used as a visitor center/museum/gift shop.

Visit the Leonis Adobe Museum on the Internets.

Up next: Bolton Hall

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