by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As greater Los Angeles entered its Boom of the 1880s in 1886, Leonard J. Rose, a well-known orange grower, grape-raiser and wine-maker and a horse breeder at his Sunny Slope Ranch in the San Gabriel Valley for a quarter century, was poised to cash in. There’d previously been rumors of a sale of the property and this rose anew in the spring, when the Los Angeles Herald of 29 April stated that reports that an English syndicate was buying the ranch “is premature.”
The paper, however, did note that “the facts are that negotiations, which have been pending for some time, reached a point where both parties agreed as to the price, $750,000” and the buyers to acquire the wineries, but Rose would keep his thoroughbreds. Yet, the former wanted to wait until July to complete the deal, while the latter would not wait. The conclusion, simply stated, was “if the foreigners come up at once with the money the sale is made,” otherwise, “if they fail the trade is off.”
The 30 May edition of the Herald published “on authority” that Sunny Slope was sold for the aforementioned price and added that Rose, “who built up this superb property, has earned a little rest from business cares.” Paying further tribute to him, the paper continued,
As the pioneer of the wine development of Los Angeles on a large scale his name will rank high in the annals of Southern California. He unites to great sagacity an indomitable perseverance, and no man in this State has illustrated in a more striking manner than he the great things that can be achieved under the favoring sun and soil of semi-tropical California.
Yet, further haggling clearly took place because nearly a half-year elapsed before the Los Angeles Times of 12 November reported that, “for several years past there have been periodical rumors that L.J. Rose’s famous place had been sold to an English syndicate.” Late in the afternoon of the prior day, however, that Albert M. Stephens, a Los Angeles County judge from 1878 to 1880, filed for official recording an agreement to sell Sunny Slope to John H. Puleston of London (agent there for American tycoon Jay Gould) for just north of 207,000 British pounds or $1,037,500, a quarter more than the previous rumored remuneration.
The paper continued that the nearly 2,000-acre ranch had a little more than 35% planted to grapes, with more than 150 acres of orange and lemon trees, a 20-acre orchard of assorted fruit trees, and north of 1,000 acres of grain. Rose was given $375,000 in fully-paid shares of a new company, L.J. Rose and Company, Ltd., while some $1.7 million in stock was issued and it was added that the sale was to be formally completed by the end of the year. There were, moreover, three existing mortgages totaling $200,000, half to John W. Mackay, mentioned earlier in this post, and the other half to Samuel Rosener, a San Francisco capitalist.
In its coverage of the same day, the Herald commented that the sale was the largest made to date in Los Angeles County and added,
This is as it should be, for no other piece of property has been made to play so important a part in the development of Los Angeles as Sunny Slope. Mr. Rose has been one of its earliest pioneers, and his work has been on a gigantic scale, and as successful as it has been great.
The account went on to forecast that the acquisition “is the beginning of an era of greater exploits on the superb piece of land” as “the possibilities of the great ranch are beyond the grasp of even imagination.” It was deemed certain that an English market would be opened for brandy and wine from Sunny Slope “and these will form the sharp end of the wedge that is to let in all our wines and brandies” in that nation.” Lastly, it was asserted that “the sale of Sunny Slope is the harbinger of things to come.”
A few days later, the Herald elaborated on the importance of the transaction, stating that, while “Sunny Slope is an exceptionally valuable property . . . the price is by no means a large one.” This was because it had abundant water, the best soil on earth and a premium location “in the very heart of San Gabriel valley.” At a $500 per acre price, it was “as clear as day of what will be the value of lands in Los Angeles in the near future,” with raw land expected to cost $250-$500 and from the latter to $1,000 for improved farm and orchard tracts, boding well for the region’s real estate market.
Rose’s namesake son and biographer wrote that “one one of Father’s trips to San Francisco in 1882, he met Mr. J.E. Bowe, an English subject, who had previously visited Sunny Slope and was greatly impressed with its magnificence.” Bowe went home and, believing he could easily find investors for buying the ranch, secured a year’s option at that $750,000 price, with his commission being a cool 10%, excepting the horses and wine inventory. After a good deal of discussion and plenty of information, Bowe reported back in spring 1883 that a Mr. Porter would visit to compile a report.
The younger Rose told an interesting story of how Porter, after being fleeced by ranch workers in a poker game, was robbed of valuables as he headed to his quarters on Sunny Slope, those these were soon returned. The narrative then ended, resumed with a summer 1886 dispatch by Bowe of another agent, the third since Porter visited, for more investigation and reporting. Rose senior joked about the protracted negotiations, but “the property was paying handsomely, and with each extension there was an advance in the price.”
The biographer said it was early spring 1887 when Bowe sent word that Sunny Slope was sold for £207,000, but, his timing was off by close to six months. In any case, L.J., Jr. rhapsodized about the fact that “if ever there was an Edenlike spot on the surface of the earth, Sunny Slope was the one,” with the 1,960 acres filled with fruit trees, brooks, clean air, all kinds of fowl and other creatures for hunting “and a perfect climate, and perpetual sunshine.” Of course, there were the horses, the wine and the oranges and much more and it was added that the purchase did not include the horses or wine in the inventory.
Moreover, the account continued, “some time previously, Father had purchased 500 acres of moist, water-bearing land three miles south of Sunny Slope near Savannah in the El Monte district.” The tract was tilled, draining much of the water, and alfalfa was planted, while two barns of 150 x 50 feet dimensions and ten box and twenty individual horse stalls with lofts for 300 tons of hay were built and a three-quarter mile race track laid out.
Not only this, but the elder Rose decided to import skylarks from England and released them so they could propagate locally for the new property which was named Rosemead (sometimes styled Rosemeade) and water came from three acres at Sunny Slope which he kept. While Rosemead included a house for Walter Maben, a jockey and then horse-trainer, a ranch foreman’s residence, a workers’ mess hall and then was followed with a 400-acre addition planted to figs, peaches and pears, L.J., Sr. was ready to move to Los Angeles and spend a good deal of his newfound fortune.
The 17 November 1888 issue of the Herald briefly mentioned the area around Rosemead and stated that, among the new developments there, “Senator L.J. Rose has started near the Monte one of the model farms of California.” Almost a month later, the paper, in a report on the sale of 2,500 acres of former Temple and Workman ranch lands south of El Monte, noted that adjacent “are the stables of L.J. Rose, where the breed of Sultan and Alcazar, the most famous horses in the world are found.”
The new owners of Sunny Slope sent out a manager and, as told by the younger Rose, his inexperience and poor decisions meant that “matters rapidly went from bad to rose, and at the end of five years the formerly rich-paying, wonderful Sunny Slope . . . was on the rocks, with a deficit of £57,000. While mention was made of the “boom deflation periods,” meaning the era after the great boom ended in 1888 (Rose’s friend, William H. Workman, was mayor of Los Angeles from 1886-1888), nothing was said about the terrible Anaheim, or Pierce’s, disease, in which a pest infested virtually all of the region’s vineyards and destroyed them, though scale on the orange trees was briefly noted.
Notably, at least in the early stages of the new arrangement, Rose was referred to as the Sunny Slope manager in a 9 September 1887 reference in the Herald with respect to grape purchases in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains (typically known then as the Sierra Madre range), as well as the harvesting, with it added that there was an uneven crop in terms of quality and a later picking time because of conditions.
The 6 October edition of the paper reported,
Mr. L.J. Rose and family have moved into the city of Los Angeles, and will be found no longer at the old center of hospitality of the San Gabriel Valley—Sunnyslope [sic]. The Senator [Rose was elected to the state senate in late 1886 and served a two-year term] has started what promises to be the finest stock ranch in the State in the rich lands between the old Temple homestead and the Monte, aligning the lands recently sold by the Messrs. E.J. Baldwin and Richard Garvey of the old San Felipe Lugo [Potrero de Felipe Lugo, owned by F.P.F. Temple and William Workman until their 1876 bank failure led to its being taken by Baldwin on foreclosure of a loan to the institution].
With respect to his horses, Rose had at least two major sales in 1887, with forty animals placed in New York City in May and almost all sired by his late Sultan, with one selling for $2,000 and the aggregate just above $25,000, while an October offering took place at Agricultural (now Exposition) Park in Los Angeles for fifteen mares, as well as a dual team of ponies with a harness and light wagon. For this latter, Rose advertised that “being overstocked, I am reluctantly compelled to sell.”
In May 1889, after not receiving the $200,000 he asked for the sale of Rosemead and its prized trotting horses, Alcazar, Mascot, Minnehaha and, especially, Stamboul, Rose was able to take the latter, two brood mares and forty-eight steed to New York and sell almost all for nearly that amount “and still have the ranch.” Rose junior commented that, once Stamboul was sold, for $50,000, he stopped breeding trotters.
In November, however, the elder Rose bought, from the prominent railroad tycoon and politician, Leland Stanford, five two-year old and ten year-old colts for his Rosemead farm, paying $18,000 and told the Herald he was not ending his trotting enterprise completely, but was focusing on thoroughbred race horses.
In March 1890, another important sale of Rosemead trotting horses took place at the American Institute in the Big Apple, and Alcazar, who was not sold the prior year, fetched nearly $26,000. Another two-dozen steeds, sold from $1,000 to $9,000, were part of a lot of forty-three head that were sold and the total realized was not too far south of $140,000.
In addition to the major investment at Rosemead, the elder Rose purchased a 10,000 square foot lot at the southeast corner of Grand Avenue and 4th Street on Bunker Hill, where a good number of luxurious mansions were constructed “and a palatial residence was built upon it.” The younger Rose added that “the house was complete in every detail, the ceilings beautifully done by an Italian artist of note, and the hardware throughout was solid silver.” The edifice cost a princely $110,000 and Rose also distributed $25,000 each to four of his children.
The Herald of 4 August 1888 reported that, with stained glass being one of the finest art forms, “possibly nothing more elaborate and artistic has been reached in local endeavor and place than can be found in the new and palatial residence of Senator L.J. Rose of Los Angeles.” The paper said that the owner deviated from “the antique style,” whatever that meant, and “adopted the more pleasing effect of the French renaissance and branching at times to the Moorish style,” though the design was executed by the architectural firm of Aleck Curlett, Theodore Eisen (whose son, Percy, was well-known later in the firm of Walker and Eisen, which worked on Walter Temple’s La Casa Nueva and most of his commercial buildings), and Walter J. Cuthbertson, who did the plans for the new county courthouse, as well.
A staircase stained glass window was singled out for its beauty with images of valuable gems, roses (for obvious reasons) and “a cornucopia overflowing with the flowers and plants of South California.” Other windows had a wide range of colors and geometric patterns, while the dining room featured renderings of a hunting dog, a fox head, ducks by the ocean and pieces of fruit. Importantly, the design and sketches of these were executed by Rose’s son Guy, then a student at a San Francisco art school and who went on to be a widely recognized painter.
Beyond this, L.J., Sr. invested much of his profits from the Sunny Slope sale on real estate projects, including the Raymond Opera House in Pasadena, the townsite of Altadena, and, as covered here in previous posts, the communities of Inglewood and Redondo Beach, including the landmark hotel at the latter seaside resort. He was also a stockholder in the Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank of Los Angeles, run by Isaias W. Hellman, former part of Temple and Workman, and in October 1888, sold $25,000 worth of city property to the bank president and large landholder.
The focus of this post has been on Sunny Slope because of the artifacts from the Homestead’s collection related to the famed ranch and, having discussed its sale, we’ll summarize the last decade of Rose’s life in a final tenth part coming tomorrow, so check back with us then.