by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Moving into the 1880s with our look at some of the history of L.J. Rose, proprietor of the Sunny Slope Ranch in the San Gabriel Valley, we should note that the “Long Depression” that lasted through most of the prior decade eased up and economic conditions improved with some renewed growth early in the Eighties. The second boom to come to greater Los Angeles was several years away, but there was demonstrable progress made in that first half.
As far back as the 1860s, local viticulturists were unhappy with imposts for brandy, as a fortified wine that was assessed more heavily than so-called “light wines.” The 4 January 1881 edition of the Los Angeles Herald reported that Rose was at the head of an effort to appeal to leaders in the nation’s capital to “have the oppressive internal revenue laws respecting the manufacture of grape brandy materially modified.”
Two days later, the paper commented on another issue, this concerning the demand and supply for California wines, sweet ones in particular. Arpad Haraszthy, a very prominent figure in the industry, wrote in a Sacramento newspaper that “the whole State is stripped bare of sweet wines,” while it was observed that, to supply Eastern markets, manufacturers like Rose “have simply cleaned out their cellars in the past.”
For the current season, however, 150,000 gallons were to kept in the Sunny Slope inventory to allow aging and increase flavor, a practice it was hoped others would imitate and this led the Herald to opine that
The market for our wines is assured from this time forward forever if we do not commit the mistake of flooding our patrons with rank and crude staples.
In its 11 February issue, the paper recorded that Rose’s son-in-law, John V. Wachtel, who was married to the vineyardist’s daughter, Nina, left the Farmers and Merchants Bank, run by Isaias W. Hellman and of which Rose was a major stockholder, to oversee much of the business of [Charles] Stern and Rose in greater Los Angeles. It was stated that Stern offered Wachtel, who was considering going to Arizona to work in mining, the job on a “very advantageous” basis.
In the same edition, the Herald reported on Rose’s plans “to erect a mammoth two-story building for the storage of his wines and brandies.” Measuring 100 x 175 feet, the edifice “will admit, of holding,” such as that 150,000 gallons mentioned above, “for maturity, a large quantity of the choice vintage for which Sunny Slope is famous.” One source of storage was William H. Workman, whose Boyle Heights vineyard in the flats adjoining the Los Angeles River led to wine he sold to Rose in bulk at the end of March.
The paper added that it was an issue that the Blue Elbe and other well-known products were “so eagerly absorbed by the market,” but countered this by saying that this had no palpable effect on the quality by “having been sold while young.” It stated that a “genuine connoisseur” would know what rank an 1880 vintage eight years later and cited the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, a prominent Congregationalist minister, abolitionist and social reformer (his sister, Harriet, was the author of the 1852 anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin) as just such an expert who was “a warm admirer of the wines of Stern & Rose—though whether this had any connection to Beecher’s infamous adultery civil trial of several years prior.
On the 16th, the Herald briefly noted that Rose “is about to build at Sunny Slope stables worthy of the stud from which Sweetheart,” the famous filly sold the prior year and which ended up owned by Bonanza King John W. Mackay, a loaner of substantial sums to Rose, “sprung.” It was added that “they will be on a scale nearly as extensive as his new wine cellars,” and one wonders how much of the borrowed money went towards these major improvements on the ranch.
Sunny Slope was often a site for travelers to visit while in the San Gabriel Valley and, sometimes, rather prominent figures were among them. On 26 March, the Herald reported, Governor George Perkins and his party spent part of the day there, with Superior Court Judge Ygnacio Sepúlveda, one of the Latino in positions of responsibility in Los Angeles at the time, escorting the entourage. The jurist told the paper that horses from Sunny Slope and neighbor Luther H. Titus’ Dew Drop were taken out for exercise on Rose’s training track with “their speed as well as beauty eliciting the warm admiration of the visitors.”
A foreign visitor of distinction, as noted by the Herald of 2 June, was the Duke of Sutherland, who held that office for some thirty years and hosted former U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant at his Scottish estate in 1878. While Sutherland did not venture out to Sunny Slope, though he told locals of his interest in seeing the San Gabriel Valley in a later visit, which did not apparently take place, the paper noted that the duke “ordered in advance a considerable quantity” of Rose’s wine and “avowed himself very much pleased with them.”
On 10 June that recently finished storage building mentioned above was the site for a “Grand Promenade Concert and Ladies’ Fair” for the Church of Our Savior, which has been in San Gabriel since 1867. In its coverage two days later, the paper wrote,
The beaux and belles, and many of the “solid men,” with their elegant spouses, of our city, rode through the beautiful, moonlit night of Friday to the magnificent domain, “Sunny Slope,” of Mr. L.J. Rose [for the event] . . . More than 300 of the most intelligent and culture people of this city, of San Gabriel and its vicinity, were congregated, at about 8 o’clock, in the new, spacious and handsome building of Mr. Rose to enjoy the music and the dance.
Orchestral music and singing from local amateurs, including Wangeman’s Band, were well-received with the paper observing that the program “would have satisfied the most critical Los Angeles audience. Refreshments and a bazaar (catering to “the plethoric purses of the opulent) were accompanied by Rosalie Loewenstein Prager, whose husband Samuel was a prominent Jewish merchant in the Angel City, as she played a fortune-teller.
The account continued that “Mr. Rose had spared no trouble or expense in arranging and decorating his rooms . . . and his politeness and tact, seconded by all the members of his family, contributed much to the enjoyment of all who came.” The reception and other committees were lionized for their efforts and the promenade concert was adjudged a success, while the Herald anticipated being present for any such events in the future.
A few days later, the Herald related an anecdote involving Edward F. Beale, a former Indian agent and superintendent, owner of the massive Tejon Ranch (with Jonathan Temple as a prior part-owner) and retired in Washington, D.C. with his last job being the American Minister in Austria-Hungary. Discussing Los Angeles wines with his wife and others, Beale related how, at a dinner at his house, “he had some very old port of Mr. L.J. Rose brought on the table” and the English guests, very used to the fortified fine, “pronounced it simply superb” and “one and all they praised it without stint.” The account concluded with,
The “crusty” old port of London, which brings such extravagant prices at occasional auction sales, is mellowed with a round circlet of years. Give the ports manufactured by L.J. Rose, E.J. Baldwin [his neighbor on the Rancho Santa Anita], or those made at Cucamonga [owned by Jewish banker, Isaias W. Hellman, who, in 1882, sold 8,000 acres of the 13,000-acre tract to George and William Chaffey, founders of Ontario], and they would excite a commotion in England or on the continent.
The 26 July edition of the paper opined that Rose’s many improvements at Sunny Slope constituted “a favorable augury for this county” as “all this mammoth investment arises out of, and is referable to the vigor, of the wine interests . . . of which Mr. Rose has been such a persevering and devoted pioneer.” Thanks to him, as well as Mathew Keller, who died three months earlier, and eastern supporters, local wine and brandy was well-known elsewhere.
Dismissively referring to French wines, after the ravages of phylloxera (a pest infestation) ruined that nation’s fabled vines and led to California imports saving its industry, as “mere manipulated dishwater,” the Herald noted that 23 million gallons of wine were made in America, more than half of what it considered “an insignificant total” from the Golden State. It felt, in conclusion, that the growth of the local wine interests “is simply marvelous, and yet it is but the mere beginning.”
The edition of the paper on the final day of August described the recently finished warehouse at Sunny Slope, built by John Burns, and noted that the structure, with brick walls and a corrugated iron roof, had a 2 million gallon storage capacity. The completion, the Herald proudly observed, meant that “Mr. Rose has now the most extensive and complete wine and brandy manufactory in the State” and there was enough room to handle production for years.
The 20 October edition reported that 120 tons of grapes were crushed in one day as the season commenced, while at Sunny Slope and the old Tarbox distillery next to the Los Angeles River just north of Workman’s Boyle Heights vineyard, 180 tons were handled daily. A little more than a week later, the paper noted that Rose was quoted in the November issue of the journal Semi-Tropic California that the Sunny Slope grandee recommended the European varieties (Blue Elbe, Zinfandel, Berger) as among the best of grapes and locals were exhorted to plant them to keep pace with manufacturers in Napa and Sonoma counties, much less in Europe.
The 3 November issue of the Herald lionized Rose and his herculean efforts in developing Sunny Slope, including borrowing heavily at high interest, and noted that “Mr. Rose has now achieved the ownership of an estate the like of which cannot be paralleled on the American continent.” In a few years, it continued, he “will be one of the leading millionaires of the western side of the continent” and be content that, not only did he fill his coffers, but “created an industry which adds to the wealth of his neighbors, the county, the State and nation.” Anyone following would be indebted to “all the experience which the proprietor of Sunny Slope has acquired.”
The Los Angeles Times, which debuted just under two weeks prior, in its 15 December edition, went into some significant detail about “the great enterprise of Messrs. Stern and Rose” and began with the statement that it was widely known that, not that long prior, California wines were “of but little intrinsic value” and many viniculturists contemplated tearing out their vines in favor of planting orange trees. The paper claimed that “today the grapevine receives as much attention as did the olive tree in the days when Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth.”
As to why it was so common to see orange trees planted with vineyards, it was explained that many growers were not receiving enough from their grapes or their products, while “oranges were all the rage at that time” and grapevines were expected to be torn out as soon as the citrus trees matured. It was added, however, that “the grape pays better than the orange” and it felt that “every tree that was planted in vineyards then will be pulled up to give up room to the grape.”
Rose was hailed for being “the principal mover in the great advancement in the prices of the grape in this county” and for the fact that Sunny Slope “stands ahead of any vineyard in the world.” It continued to record that the first vine was planted by Rose on 29 November 1860, noting that the ranch contained 1,900 acres, nearly 40% in grapes and the rest to lemons, oranges and olives. The orange grove had 12,000 trees (a recent finished artesian well undoubtedly helped to irrigate these), while Stern and Rose purchased nearly 9.5 million pounds of grapes and produced 375,000 gallons of all kinds of wine and 100,000 gallons of brandy with the current products such that they “give promise of being better in quality than any previous season.”
With regard to the new “model” cellar, the first floor had nearly 50 casks of over 2,000 gallons of storage each, as well as 800 smaller pipes and puncheons of some 120-170 gallons each, and all were filled with the current vintage. Part of the second level was devoted to brandy storage in barrels, half-barrels and kegs, while the office was “handsomely finished in Port Orford cedar and California laurel,” with furniture made from a specialty Mexican wood called prima (from the primavera tree). All of the storage vessels were made at Sunny Slope, while the brick for the walls of the edifice were burned on site, as well.
Stern and Rose operated branches in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and Charles Stern, its senior partner, was based in the Big Apple, with frequent visits to Boston and Chicago to check in on operations there. It was added that, since the first of March, the firm shipped from Sunny Slope 178 car loads of brandy and wine and the Times ended with this fulsome praise:
Sunny Slope is without doubt one of the largest and finest vineyards in the world. It is situated on one of the most beautiful spots on God’s footstool, about two miles from the old Mission San Gabriel. It attracts general attention, and is probably visited by more strangers than any place of the kind in the State.
While the lion’s share of attention in the local press in the first year of the Eighties concerned the viticulture at the ranch, with only a brief reference to oranges, Rose and his livery stable partner William Ferguson tore down the old building on Main Street in Los Angeles and built a modern brick commercial building that reflected what Rose’s son and biographer indicated was the reason for his father’s acquisition of the property—the value of the land for development, rather than the stable. The Herald cheered the project as helping to rid the Angel City of its old “dobies” or adobe buildings, a topic recently discussed in depth here.
The only other reference to horses, aside from the governor’s visit, was that one of Rose’s studs foaled a mare called “Black E” that, at age seven, was offered for sale by a recently settled neighbor, tobacco magnate Abbot Kinney. Kinney lived in the Sierra Madre Villa hotel until he could build his house, Kinneloa, nearby. The mesa at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, then still mainly known as the Sierra Madre range, has long retained the name Kinneloa Mesa.
We’ll carry on tomorrow with part six, so please come back and check that out.