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. 30 - Doheny Mansion

Doheny Mansion
1899 – Theodore Eisen and Sumner P. Hunt
8 Chester Place – map
Declared: 1/8/65

The Poseys – Oliver, a mining engineer, and his socialite wife, Sara, an entrepreneur in her own right – moved into their brand new 22-room Spanish Gothic Revival mansion in 1900. They didn’t stay there long, though. They moved out the following fall, selling the mansion and nearly all its furnishings to oil magnate Edward L. Doheny and his second wife, Estelle.

Backtracking, 8 Chester Place was designed by Theodore Eisen and Sumner P. Hunt, who also came up with Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 241, The Froebel Institute, No. 418, the Owen Residence (demolished), and No. 541, the Irvine/Byrne Building. With Silas Burns, Hunt designed another half dozen landmarks. Eisen was also responsible for No. 493, Casa de Adobe in Highland Park.

The back entrance, leading into the Pompeian Room.

Here are five things to know about Edward Doheny:

-- with his partner, Charles Canfield, dug the first successful oil well in the city Los Angeles
-- established the Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company
-- had the oil rights to more than half a million acres of land in Mexico
-- was implicated in the Teapot Dome Scandal, from which he was cleared after ten years of court action
-- the murder-suicide of his son, Ned, and an employee in 1929 in Ned’s Beverly Hills Greystone Mansion created a media sensation

The Dohenys made a ton of changes to the mansion after buying it from the Poseys, including putting on a third-floor addition in the 1920s and instituting major interior alterations following the Long Beach earthquake in 1933. The most notable change, though, was the 1906 addition of the Pompeian Room, used for special occasions. Today, the room still has its original marble floor and a 24-foot-wide glass dome by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Unlike the rest of the home, the Pompeian Room made it through the 1933 earthquake fine. (Sorry, no photos allowed inside.)

The conservatory/naturarium

The conservatory/naturarium was designed in 1913 by Alfred Rosenheim. (Rosenheim himself was responsible for a couple of other HCMs). Doheny used this 200-foot long greenhouse to keep his collection of crazy plant life, most notably his palm trees and orchids (you know you’ve reached filthy rich status when you begin collecting palm trees). The picture above is how it is now, nearly a century later – no plants, no windows, and no arched glass ceiling (and no canoe in the pool, either.)

Edward Doheny died in 1935 and left his estate to Estelle, who was declared a papal countess by Pope Pius XII four years later. When she died in 1958, the property went to L.A.’s Roman Catholic Archdiocese who in turn gave the Chester Place land to Mount St Mary’s College for what is now known as the Doheny Campus.

Mount St Mary’s offers tours of the Doheny Mansion a handful of times a year, in which you get a look at not only the Doheny home’s interior, but also the inside of 10 Chester Place next door, in which Ned lived with his family from 1916 to 1928.

Now, you should know that not only are you forbidden from taking pictures inside the monument, the college is really uptight about your taking pictures outside, too. In fact, I was busted by security guards twice, even though I was part of the official tour. So just be advised.

Up next: Rancho Sombra del Roble

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No. 29 - Campo de Cahuenga

Campo de Cahuenga
3919 Lankershim Boulevard – map
Declared: 11/13/64

Campo de Cahuenga marks the site where the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed on January 13, 1847, effectively marking the end of the U.S.-Mexican War and turning over Alta California to the United States. (The formal ending came with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo the following year.) Leading the signers to the 1847 agreement were U.S Lieutenant Colonel John Fremont and Mexican General Andres Pico.

Another El Camino Real Bell.

The original adobe farmhouse in which the treaty was signed deteriorated and was torn down more than a century ago. That building was built probably between 1785 and 1810.

The city bought the site in the 1920s and built another adobe there, dedicating it in 1950. The front of this current building mirrors the original’s.

Flash forward to the mid-1990s as the Metro Rail Red Line subway was being dug there on Lankershim Boulevard. Workers uncovered the original house’s foundation and floor tiles, some of which have been preserved and are on display.

Unfortunately, Campo de Cahuenga’s open just a few hours a week – only on Saturdays. But that’s when it is open. Which it’s not, now. I’m told the site will be open again “toward the end of the year”. So no look inside at the museum part, for now.

Until the re-opening, you can look through the gate bars at the new building. On Lankershim, you can see the fancy paving and brickwork denoting the location of the original building, which measured about ten by forty feet. You might be driving over it every day and not even know it.

The outline of the original adobe on Lankershim Boulevard.

Here’s the official webpage for Campo de Cahuenga. The site’s also on the National Register of Historic Places, and is designated California Historical Landmark No. 151.

Where are those L.A. blue skies?

Up next: Doheny Mansion

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No. 28 - William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
1926 – Robert D. Farquhar
2520 Cimarron Street – map
Declared: 10/9/64

Oh, man. You might want to skip this post. It’s really disappointing.

William Andrews Clark, Jr, made his money through inheritance (copper mining in Montana) and the stock market. He had Robert D. Farquhar (who also designed HCMs No. 43, downtown’s California Club, and No. 391, the Canfield-Moreno Estate, as well as Beverly Hills High School) create this French Renaissance Revival building to house his rare books and manuscripts collections, which emphasized 17th- and 18th-century English literature and history, Oscar Wilde, and fine printing.

Upon his death in 1934, Clark left the building and his collections to UCLA in memory of his astronomically wealthy dad, a Montana senator who died in 1925.
Clark, Jr’s house, which was also on the West Adams grounds and pre-dated the library, has been demolished.

William Andrews Clark, Jr, founded the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra at the end of World War I and bled money into the organization while he was alive.
So the disappointing part is the library’s undergoing some interior renovations. I first tried to schedule a tour, available only during weekdays. When that didn’t work out, I decided just to pop by for a few quick photos. However, when I got to the north entrance, a security guard prevented me from going too far inside the compound. Or, rather, from going inside the compound at all. Further, the grounds – which take up the whole block – are surrounded by a very tall wall, preventing any glimpse inside.

Up next: Campo de Cahuenga

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No. 27 - The Castle

The Castle
1882
Former locations: 325 South Bunker Hill Avenue, 3800 Homer Street
Declared: 5/8/64

The Castle, built around 1882 on Bunker Hill, was moved to Heritage Square in 1969 to be restored as part of the site’s collection of Victorian architecture. Unfortunately, the building was burned to the ground by arsonists on October 9, 1969, the same night as the Salt Box.

A shot of the Castle being dismantled for relocation.
Here’s a picture of the Castle and Salt Box being moved.
The 10/9/69 fire.

The artist in the above photo (from UCLA’s Digital Collections) is Mr Leo Politi. Politi (1908 – 1996) was a children’s book author/illustrator with a passionate dedication to the city of Los Angeles. Some of his more L.A.-centric books include Pedro, The Angel of Olive Street (1946), and 1989’s Angeleno Heights. He was also responsible for a few murals downtown, most notably the Blessing of the Animals at the entrance to the Eugene Biscailuz Building on Olvera Street. Today, there’s a Leo Politi Elementary School, dedicated in 1991, on West Eleventh Street, and a Montecillo de Leo Politi Park in Elysian Park.

Here’s the cover to the 1964 book, Bunker Hill, Los Angeles, which features Politi's artwork of the once exclusive, upper-class area, painted during the Hill’s last, sad days (that’s the Castle in the upper left).

In the book, Politi writes that the Castle “was also called the Armour House, because it was believed to be built by the Armour meat packing people of Chicago in 1882. Daniel Francis Donegan, an early-day grading contractor, bought it in 1893.”

"The Castle" by Leo Politi

The book, originally published by Desert-Southwest, Inc., has long been out of print.

Up next: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

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No. 26 - The First Cemetery of the City of Los Angeles

The First Cemetery of the City of Los Angeles
1826 – 1844
521 North Main Street – map
Declared: 3/20/64

If you were Catholic and died in the pueblo of Los Angeles prior to 1820 or so, you were probably buried at the San Gabriel Mission, home to the only Church-consecrated ground back then.

With the Plaza Church on the right.

Then, with the building of Iglesia Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles, or Plaza Church, on Main Street, folks began to be buried on a plot just south of the new church (actually, according to San Gabriel records, they were buried there as early as 1820, two years before Plaza Church went up). Between 1826 and 1844, about 650 people were interred in the cemetery, according to the church burial register.

As space ran out in the mid-1840s, the bodies – primarily early Mexican and Spanish settlers along with a few Gabrielino Indians – were dug up and moved to Calvary Cemetery on Eternity Street (now North Broadway). (The bodies didn’t stay there too long, either. In 1896, they began being moved again, this time to the (New) Calvary Church in the City of Commerce, a process which lasted until the 1930s. That cemetery is still in operation.)

Does anyone know when the cemetery was paved over for a parking lot? Does anyone know when it was unpaved to its current condition? Does anyone really know what time it is? Does anyone really care? The black and white photo above, probably from the mid-1980s, is from L.A.'s Department of City Planning website.

There is still some conjecture as to whether all the bodies were exhumed from the cemetery back in the 19th century. This means that those folks who eventually work in the 1883 Plaza House building next door (currently being converted into a center for Mexican-American history, genealogy, and culture), covered in black in the shots above, could literally be working on top of an old Indian burial ground.

Taken from the back of the cemetery.

For what it’s worth, the first public cemetery in Los Angeles was on Fort Moore Hill.

The back entrance of the cemetery. Donna and Troy here told me there was a $25 per picture fee for taking shots of the cemetery. I was skeptical, but I really wanted that shot.

Up next: The Castle

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No. 25 - General Phineas Banning Residence

General Phineas Banning Residence
1864
401 East M Street, Wilmington – map
Declared: 10/11/63

Folks say they can’t imagine a better example of Greek Revival architecture in Southern California, and I can’t imagine a Los Angeles building built in 1864 in this good of shape.

Phineas Banning was a Delaware boy, born in 1830. After a few years at his brother’s law office and some dockworking in Philadelphia, he went west at the age of 21. (Well, not straight west. He first sailed to Panama, then cut across the Isthmus, and finally took a boat up to San Pedro).

The enterprising Banning made his first fortune in the staging and freighting business. In 1857, he bought some land above San Pedro, creating a landing and monopolizing the business in the harbor. The next year he and his partners founded New San Pedro on 640 acres. In the early 1860s, Banning was the sub-contractor in setting up the first telegraph line between the town and L.A. He renamed New San Pedro in 1863 after his hometown in Delaware – Wilmington.

During the Civil War, Banning, a rabid abolitionist, and a business partner sold a chunk of land to the Union Army getting $1 a piece. (The pair later were returned the land, buying a bunch of Camp Drum’s buildings in the process.) Banning was then commissioned with the honorary title of General in the California State Brigade of the National Guard.

At the end of the war, he was appointed president of the Pioneer Oil Company. He then served as California State Senator from 1865 – 1868, during which tenure he took part in California’s ratification of the 13th Amendment.

There used to a fountain here in front of this below-ground-level door. Coaches would pull up (down?) here dropping off and picking up guests.

Banning played the good guy in giving up the Los Angeles and San Pedro Railroad – not only the first railroad in Southern California (given the go-ahead in 1868) but also a vital (and lucrative) 21-mile link between L.A. and Banning's Landing – to the Southern-Pacific Railroad. Without that link, the SP would’ve bypassed L.A. in favor of San Bernardino.

You can see where the original home ends and where the later additions start.

Phineas Banning spearheaded the charge to get the government to fund the 1871 dredging of San Pedro Bay, then building a breakwater (closing the gap between what were then known as Rattlesnake and Dead Man’s Islands) in making the Port of Los Angeles.

The stagecoach barn, part of the tour except when I'm there.

In 1885, the indefatigable Banning, “The Father of Los Angeles Harbor”, ultimately proved very fatigable, dying in March from results of being hit by a San Francisco streetcar the previous summer.

His sons, William, Joseph, and Hancock, bought Catalina Island in the early 1890s, owning it until World War I.

The site's first structure, the pumphouse. The land was extra soggy, so besides this, there were tons of eucalyptus trees planted to soak up the groundwater.

Oh. The Landmark. Built during the Civil War, the residence stayed in the Banning family until 1927, when the city bought it along with the surrounding twenty acres. Tours are now offered of the site, which is now a museum. The drag is that when I was there, our group got a walk-through of the house only. I found out later that the park’s one-room schoolhouse and stagecoach barn should’ve been included on the tour. But they weren’t. If you go, make sure you get a look at them.

The Banning Residence is also a California landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Up next: The First Cemetery of the City of Los Angeles

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