The Wattles Mansion–A Special Jewel for Hollywood
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The publication of Hollywood Heritage, a private, non-profit organization dedicated to preservation of the historic built environment in Hollywood and education about the role of the early flim industry and its pioneers in shaping Hollywood’s Winter 2002 www.hollywoodheritage.org Volume 21, Number 4 history The Wattles Mansion–A New Board Members Elected Special Jewel For Hollywood at Annual Meeting his special issue of the Hollywood the Getty Grant report compiled by he Annual Meeting of Hollywood THeritage Newsletter is devoted to Historic Resources Group. We wish THeritage was held at the Wattles Mansion. This spring it will to thank Hollywood Heritage Board Hollywood Heritage Museum in the be 20 years since Hollywood Heritage members Natalie Shivers and Fran Lasky-DeMille Barn on December 10, took over stewardship of this historic Offenhauser who devoted countless 2002. After a delightful social time 1907 Hollywood landmark. In 2002, hours to this project. We also wish to with light refreshments and a chance to mingle, the meeting got down to Special Wattles Mansion Report the main business of the evening, the election of 1/2 of the Hollywood On the occasion of the upcoming 20th anniversary of Hollywood Heritage Board of Directors. Aaron Heritage’s stewardship of the Wattles Mansion, we are dedicating Epstein, representing the nominating this issue of the Hollywood Heritage Newsletter to the history and committee, presented the nominees, importance of our organization’s headquarters. which included: Tyler Cassity, John Clifford, Phil Dockter, Steven Osborn, Hollywood Heritage presented a report thank the consultants, and all the oth- Arnold Schwartzman, Libby Simon, on the historic gardens and landscap- ers who made this report possible. and Kay Tornborg current Board ing to the Getty Foundation, the result THE PURPOSE OF THE RE- members whose first 2-year terms had of a special grant for the purpose of PORT. The purpose of this report expired. In addition, two new board creating said report. is to document the history, existing member nominees were presented: The following is excerpted from conditions, significance, and integ- Julian “Bud” Lesser, retired producer rity of Wattles Gardens as a cultural and long-time Hollywood Heritage landscape and to propose appropriate supportter, and Jeffrey Rouze, devel- treatments for the continued mainte- oper, who most recently purchased nance and rehabilitation of the prop- the Hillview Apartment Building on erty. The report has been funded by a Hollywood Boulevard, which he is in Preserve L.A. grant from the J. Paul the process of restoring to it’s former Getty Trust to Hollywood Heritage, grandeur. Inc. (HHI). There were no additional nomina- Wattles Gardens is an historic, tions from the floor, and the nominees forty-nine-acre estate in Hollywood, were elected by unanimous consent. California. The property was origi- Hollywood Heritage welcomes back nally developed as a winter home at the re-elected board members and the turn of the twentieth century when looks forward to working with our two Hollywood was primarily agricultural, new members. long before its transformation into an THE HISTORIC SIGNIFI- international film capital. Today, Wat- CANCE OF THE WATTLES tles Gardens is the only extant winter- PROPERTIES. Wattles Gardens is ing estate remaining in Hollywood, a the only remaining intact example of unique Southern California cultural a Hollywood estate from the period landscape from the turn of the century Omaha businessman Gurdon Wattles sitting before the area became associated on the steps of the Formal Gardens at Wattles under public stewardship. with the film industry. Wattles Man- Mansion sion and its surrounding historic land- place he named Jualita. Jualita became At the time of Wattles’s arrival, Hol- scape is also one of the largest historic famous throughout Southern California lywood was a growing suburb of Los turn-of-the-twentieth-century estates for its elaborate design, which featured Angeles with approximately 1,600 in Southern California today. Predating formal gardens and naturalistic land- residents. The City of Hollywood had the era of motion picture production, scapes with an abundance of flowers in been incorporated in 1903 and had es- for which Hollywood is best known, it a beautiful mountain setting. tablished a major hotel, a high school, is representative of the initial develop- Wattles was attracted to the Hol- and a library. Several small newspapers ment of the community as a summer lywood site by its proximity to the served the town and transportation to and winter home for wealthy families mountains, its natural beauty, the views Los Angeles was possible via street- escaping from harsher climates in the it offered, and the Southern California car. Gardens were already a part of the East and Midwest. The estate embodies climate. The chaparral-covered Santa city’s image. Artist Paul De Longpre the unique integration of architecture, Monica Mountains dominated the land- had purchased three adjacent parcels natural landscape, and gardens that scape. On a clear day one could see the of land at Hollywood Boulevard and became Southern California’s distinc- ocean from the Wattles property and Cahuenga Avenue in 1902 and con- tive regional style in the hands of archi- much of the Los Angeles basin. Lo- structed a grand residence surrounded tects like Hunt and Grey. The Mission cated on the western edge of the newly by a profusion of flowers and vine-cov- Revival Mansion remains intact and incorporated town of Hollywood and a ered arbors. Edmund D. Sturtevant’s the various sections of the landscape mile west of its small town center, Wat- Cahuenga Water Gardens, which fea- continue to evoke the designed land- tles’s new property was nestled against tured tropical water lilies, were nearly scape principles popular during the era. the mountains and surrounded by small as famous as De Longpre’s flower gar- dens. While tourists were beginning to visit De Longpre’s mansion in greater numbers, local business leaders were encouraging the further development and subdivision of the land, promoting Hollywood as a beautiful new suburb. Estates surrounded by lemon orchards dotted the landscape. Gurdon Wattles, who was one of the wealthiest men in Southern California in 1905, began his career as a teacher. Born in Richford, New York in 1855, Wattles and his family lived on a farm in New York. The family moved to Iowa when he was a young man. After attending Iowa State College, Wattles worked as a teacher, a school principal, Construction begins on what will become the Wattles Estate in a hillside canyon above Hollywood and a school superintendent. He stud- Boulevard ied law briefly, sold school furniture, and worked in a small law office. After It is also a rare example of an historic farms and orchards. a few months, Wattles’s boss decided to estate, with residence and site intact, In April 1905, Wattles paid $3,000 to organize a bank and offered him a loan under public stewardship. William Holler and Mrs. E. A. Moore to become a partner in the new busi- Wattles Gardens is eligible for list- for the ninety acres. The property ness. Wattles accepted. Over the next ing in the National Register of Historic purchased by Wattles was divided decade, Wattles made a series of very Places as an estate, a particular type of into two basic parts: a vast expanse of profitable investments and became a historic designed landscape defined by mountainous area (eighty acres) and successful banker. He was named Vice the National Park Service. a long, narrow strip of land descend- President of Union National Bank and GURDON WATTLES AND THE ing from the mountains south to Hol- later President of United States Nation- HISTORY OF THE WATTLES lywood Boulevard (ten acres). The al Bank. He served as Chairman of the PROPERTIES. Enchanted with upper part of the property was divided Board of Directors of the Omaha Street Southern California and planning to into two equal-sized, adjacent forty- Railway, President of the Trans-Mis- build a retirement home, Gurdon W. acre squares. The lower portion of the sissippi and International Exposition Wattles, a wealthy banker and railway property was bounded by Hollywood in Omaha in 1898, Nebraska Commis- company president from Omaha, Ne- Boulevard on the south, Curson Av- sioner at the Saint Louis Exposition in braska, purchased ninety acres of prop- enue on the west, Sierra Bonita Avenue 1904, and a delegate to the 1904 Re- erty in Hollywood, California in 1905. on the east. From the south end of the publican National Convention. Soon thereafter Wattles developed the property to the foothills at the north Wattles first came to Hollywood dur- property into one of the most impres- end, the property rose nearly 1,000 feet ing a visit to California with his wife, sive estates in Southern California, a in elevation. Jennie Leete Wattles, sometime around 2 Hollywood Heritage Newsletter/Winter 2002 1904. In his autobiography, Wattles home and orchard were located south Spier families in Pasadena and the describes his first (and unfavorable) of Prospect Avenue (now Hollywood Cochran family in Los Angeles prior impression of California: Boulevard). Edwin O. Palmer describes to their project for Wattles. Drawing “One spring Mrs. Wattles visited her Grey’s first years in Hollywood. upon their earlier work and taking parents, who had removed from Iowa to “In 1901, Col. Robert Northam, advantage of the characteristics of the Santa Barbara, California, where their a wealthy, middle-aged, robust city site, Hunt and Grey designed a two- son, Charles N. Leete, resided, and was horse fancier and liveryman, bought story Mission Revival house with a charmed with all she saw. Later her the block south of Prospect Avenue formal, terraced garden surrounded niece, Carolyn Leete, who was born in between Vine Street and Ivar Avenue by open space.