by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Taking in a decade or more of the last years of the remarkable life of L.J. Rose, long the proprietor of the well-known Sunny Slope Ranch in the San Gabriel Valley, we summarize a wide array of activities undertaken by the seemingly indefatigable entrepreneur who built a sizable estate and substantial reputation over more than a quarter century in breeding horses, raising citrus and growing grapes and winemaking.
When just shy of sixty years of age, Rose engineered a deal to sell the nearly 2,000-acre ranch to an English syndicate of investors for just north of $1 million, with a firm called L.J. Rose and Company formed and stock issued to manage and expand operations at Sunny Slope, which was dedicated in small measure to orange growing and largely in winemaking. The assumption was that growth in the latter would also involve further opening of outside markets, especially in England, would more than compensate investors, including Rose.
With his windfall from the sale of the ranch, Rose, befitting the superheated environment of greater Los Angeles’ Boom of the Eighties and verifying once again his namesake son and biographer’s observation that his father was “always inclined to be a plunger,” dove headlong into a series of expensive projects, no doubt believing that his long career of success would continued unabated. Booms go bust, of course, and no one could foresee that the next decade would also bring a debilitating national depression after 1893 and, locally, several years of drought.
The Nineties began with Rose moving more heavily into a field in which he limited involvement previously: mining. In 1891, he and Los Angeles partners took over a townsite project called Oro Grande (Big Gold), located just north of modern Victorville in the High Desert above Cajon Pass, while the Stamboul Mining Company was formed and named for one Rose’s more famous horses.
Speaking of those animals, and recalling Rose, Jr.’s statement that his father’s dream was to be a horse breeder first and foremost, it was a busy year as the management of the Rosemead (sometimes called Rosemeade) farm a few miles south of Sunny Slope and comprising hundreds of acres involved heavier investment.
Early in 1891, the Times of 19 January made note of an article in a trade publication titled “The Luck of L.J. Rose,” in which the horse-breeder attributed so much of his success to date to good fortune, though it was added that those who knew him pointed to “pluck rather than luck.” Recalling the serendipity in the acquisition of Stamboul, which he sold for $50,000 and Moor, which he allowed was “the greatest stallion in the world,” Rose asked “Will Dame Fortune favor my thoroughbred venture?”
This was because Rose decided to end his career raising prize trotting horses, so many with enviable race records throughout the country, and focus on fleet thoroughbreds. He had a conversation with a Los Angeles Herald sportswriter about his entries in a New York City race and it was noted that Rose had just purchased a pair of yearlings at Palo Alto and intended to buy more when on the east coast. The article ended with,
The Sage of Rosemeade, in conversation with the sporting editor, said that he will not consider that he had given the thoroughbred business a trial, until he starts some of his own breeding. This will not be until 1893, when several youngsters by the stallion Argyle, out of the imported Australian mares [also recently purchased and established at Rosemead], will be cut loose.
Significant sales of Rose-owned horses took place in June and October, the first privately and the latter in New York City, where “the entire stud” involved thirty-seven steed fetching just under $30,000, with the highest price received being $8,000. Yet, in late August, Rose openly contemplated selling Rosemead, telling the Herald of 26 August, as he expressed pride in the farm and the quality of its horses.
He went into great detail about his animals and offered that “I have ever felt that this county could and would produce the ideal race horse or thoroughbred, and my experiment is on the eve of fulfillment.” Despite this, Rose continued, “it is very hard for me to abandon this enterprise,” of some two decades in his dreaming, “but prudence dictates to forego this long cherished dream.” He was clear that he was not “broke,” but stated that “it is rather an accumulation of ills, which come like a thief at night, which bids me halt while I can.”
Rose added that the project cost $100,000, but a year-and-a-half would have to pass before any profit could be realized and these time frames “are not so certain to be counted on as formerly” and borrowing was not an option. He felt comfortable handling 25% of the cost, but also could not see obtaining investment of the remainder because of some hard times and he told the paper, “I feel I can’t afford to take risks which would endanger even Rosemeade, and desire and sentiment have to stand aside for prudence.” Still believing that Los Angeles County could be “the foremost . . . in the world as a horse county,” Rose concluded, “the imagination plays many tricks of disappointment.”
The Herald even called for a joint stock company to be formed to keep the experiment going, telling its readers “it will be a very serious loss to Los Angeles county if the breeding farm at Rosemeade is broken up.” Rose established “one of the finest breeding farms for blooded stock in the United States,” with “some sixty head of the best thoroughbreds in the country,” while the endeavor was deemed “one of great promise.” Concluding that it did not know what was behind Rose’s thinking, the paper asserted that Rosemead was sure to be “the nucleus of an industry which is susceptible of great and unlimited expansion,” but the owner decided to continue on, after all.
The L.J. Rose and Company report at the start of 1891 included some promising news from ranch foreman Joseph Heslop (a grandson of old San Gabriel settler Michael White) who was “directing the Chinamen what to do,” with a 17-year veteran, Ah Hop, the only one named, and from Sunny Slope manager, Emmo C. Bichowsky regarding, from 7,000 trees (there were also 15,000 deciduous fruit trees), 12,500 boxes of citrus (10,000 oranges and the rest lemons) compared to just 700 the previous year. This was, however, still far below the 20,000 to 30,000 boxes that were typical in days of yore.
As for grapes, despite the terrible toll taken on regional vineyards by Anaheim, or Pierce’s, Disease, which ravaged most of the vines in Los Angeles and Orange counties, there were still 700,000 vines at Sunny Slope, with 1,300 tons of grapes rendered into up to 200,000 gallons of brandy and wine. A new $5,000 distillery was planned for the summer before the grape harvest and 100 acres of new vines were to be planted, while new reservoirs for storing water were to be constructed. Finally, it was noted that a part of Sunny Slope was to be subdivided into small farms.
A problem with Sunny Slope arose in July, when the Times of the 20th printed a letter from C. White Mortimer, who informed the paper that, in 1885, he wrote a valuation report for Rose, stating that the ranch was worth the $700,000 the owner sought. Yet, “the promoters in London floated the company at $1,750,000,” which Mortimer did not know until after the ranch was sold late the following year. He added that he informed the stockholders of this inflated figure and observed,
The result has been that the promoters have given up their stock and the property stands the shareholders but little more than the amount Mr. Rose asked ($700,000). I may add that my conduct in the matter was investigated by the Government, and that subsequently, at a meeting of the L.J. Rose Company the chairman intimated that the Government was entirely satisfied with me.
For 1892, the Times of 8 February reported that Rose, “who has been singularly unfortunate of late,” sent a railcar of young steeds from Rosemead, including some sired from Stamboul and Alcazar, to New York City for auction. By the end of August, commented by the paper, Rose “has finally resolved to dispose of all his thoroughbreds” by having a “clearing-out sale” at Sacramento during the ensuing California State Fair, and the brief report ended by stating that the word was that Rose intended to return to his long-time emphasis on trotters.
The Herald of 21 November revealed one of the “many reverses” afflicting Rose, this being the deaths of horses, within under two years, valued at $50,000, and that this seemed to be the main reason for his consideration of abandoning “the unequal struggle.” Cataloging some of the major losses, the paper ended with, “with such disheartening rebuffs coming in so short a space of time, the only wonder is that the genial master of Rosemeade did not abandon his new undertaking sooner than he actually did.”
Despite the misfortune, Rose was appointed to be the regional representative for California’s entries in the World’s Fair of 1893, held at Chicago—the importance of this event cannot be underestimated in terms of promoting the Golden State and greater Los Angeles to the rest of the country and abroad.
He also chaired a late November meeting of a group of concerned taxpayers, including ex-Governor John G. Downey, James B. Lankershim, David Burbank, Aurelius W. Hutton, John M.C. Marble, Prudent Beaudry, John S. Griffin, and former mayor William H. Workman, who wanted to promote more efficient and less expensive municipal government in Los Angeles—recall that Rose built his opulent mansion on Bunker Hill several years prior.
Another mining enterprise was launched early in 1893 as Rose and unnamed associates developed the Plomo, which was located in the hills to the west of Perris in Riverside County. Back at Sunny Slope, it was telling that, despite the comment two years prior about expansion, the Times of 14 April reported that the L.J. Rose firm were “not setting out new vineyards just now to any extent,” though were replanting those areas devastated by Pierce’s Disease. It was asserted that “they have no intention of giving up the fight against the evil without a vigorous struggle to put it down.” The problem, though, was “there has been nothing effective discovered as a remedy.”
Given the financial distress Rose experienced in this era and under two months from the panic that brought the Depression of 1893, a major transaction of land was made with Colonel George G. Green, a Civil War veteran and heir to a medicinal “syrup” that proved to be laden with laudanum, which had a 10% solution of opium in alcohol (and which was subjected to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, ending the sale of product soon after.)
Green, best known for the street and hotel, of which a portion is now the Castle Green, spent $110,000 for over 80 acres of fig orchards and barley lands, along with more than three dozen building lots and shares of water stock in Altadena and, in Pasadena, the land opposite the hotel that became the Castle Green, along with almost 60 lots including seven houses and some significant commercial frontages.
In April 1894, the Los Angeles Express reported that “yesterday there was closed up a sale of several large blocks of lots and acreage at Altadena” from Rose and his wife Amanda to Green for not quite $65,000,” it appearing that the previous account only led to the Pasadena transaction for some unknown reason.
The paper noted that “the price is not as much as was paid for the property during the boom” of the Eighties,” though it added “it is much better that the figures that prevailed for several years after the collapse” and was considered fair given market conditions. A rumor that Green intended to buy Rosemead for $350,000 proved to be unfounded.
Whatever the financial turbulence was in Rose’s portfolio, though, the Herald of 25 May informed readers that the former state senator “has gone into copper mining on an extensive scale in the Santa Rita mountains,” southeast of Tucson, Arizona, which had a very notable connection to Los Angeles in those years, with many greater Los Angeles area people having ties to that town. It was said that mining area was particularly promising and Rose went to San Francisco the prior day “to procure machinery for the erection of a smelter on his property,” dubbed Rosemont, an investment his son later wrote cost $150,000.
The 8 December issue of the Express very briefly had an important announcement regarding Sunny Slope as it stated,
The English stockholders in the well-known L.J. Rose ranch, comprising 2,000 acres of magnificent land in the heart of the San Gabriel valley, are arranging to have it cut up into small ranches and placed on the market by a leading local real estate firm.
While it was previously thought that this would be the last part, we are going to return tomorrow with part eleven, so check back with us then.
It seems that for L. J. Rose, the sale of Sunny Slopes in 1887 marked a turning point in his career, initiating a downward trajectory despite bringing in a windfall equivalent to more than $40 million in today’s value. From reading the post about Rose’s activities in the years that followed, it is evident that he was no longer consistently high-spirited but often dejected. Despite remaining actively involved in vineyards, winemaking, and horse breeding, these ventures experienced more downs than ups.
According to the previous posts, the main factor contributing to Rose’s earlier success was often cited by newspapers as “luck,” while his friends attributed it to “pluck.” Rose himself considered it a combination of both. Unlike others, he believed that his strengths including persistence, determination, capability, and risk-taking would not have led to success without good luck. His final years confirmed this perspective.