“An Eden Has Been Brought Forth From the Wilds of a Mountain Shelf”: Some Early History of Sierra Madre Villa, 1875-1880, Part One

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

An post on this blog some eight years ago shared an 1890s-era photograph of the Sierra Madre Villa hotel, long a landmark in today’s northeast Pasadena with a promise of future posts on the enterprise. Here, at long last, is one that takes a look at some of the early history of the venture, launched in the late 1870s (that 2016 post erroneously stated that it was 1873) by William F. Cogswell and his son-in-law, William P. Rhoades.

For this entry we’ll feature a trio of stereoscopic photographs taken not long after its opening by Alexander C. Varela (1839-1915), who interrupted a long career in the federal civil service at Washington, D.C. for a few years to pursue a photographic enterprise, including for a short period in Los Angeles.

Varela, whose sister was married to famed bandleader/composer John Philip Sousa, was fairly prolific in his brief Angel City tenure and his distinctive captions mark his work, as well as its general quality—though San Francisco’s Isaiah W. Taber, who purchased Varela’s negatives, reprinted much of that corpus under his own name, a common practice of the period.

The images of Sierra Madre Villa are numbers 204-206, with the first, taken from the southeast, showing the house that Cogswell constructed initialtly, followed by the larger hostelry structure nearby, with a man and young girl (part of the family?) pictured in the orchard and garden; the second taken from the southwest along the drive leading to the establishment and some of the orchard, as well as portions of the Sierra Madre (San Gabriel) Mountains in the background; and the third taken from a further distance and more in a southerly direction from the second.

Situated on a mesa or table land at the base of the range, Sierra Madre Villa was owned by Cogswell for not quite fifteen years and does not appear to have survived much longer after he sold it in 1891, though the main structures remained for more than three decades before they were razed after purchase in 1923—this excepting a laundry building, which was reconfigured into a residence.

When constructed and for some time after its opening, Sierra Madre Villa was widely promoted for its excellent location, breathtaking views, superb climate and other attributes and its owner and proprietor were also praised for their initiative and enterprise, as we’ll note during this post. First, however, let’s provide a little background into Cogswell and Rhoades.

William F. Cogswell (1819-1903), according to his obituary, hailed from Sandusky, New York, southeast of Buffalo and it is said that he learned to paint as a teenager while working at a Buffalo color factory. He appears to have been working as an artist in Pittsburgh by 1840 as the city’s Post-Gazette of 19 March reported that he completed a portrait of the namesake of the William Wirt Institute.

Cogswell, who married Sarah Jane Sliddal in 1842, spent much of the next decade in New York City, pursuing his vocation, though he came to Gold Rush California in 1849 and produced sketches of San Francisco that he used for a panoramic painting of that burgeoning metropolis that was reproduced in newspapers. During the Fifties, he resided in the Big Apple, Philadelphia, and St. Louis and he achieved some renown as a portraitist.

Cogswell was in St. Louis when the Wisconsin State Journal of 30 June 1862 featured him for his paintings of the seven governors of that state, these to be displayed in the state capitol. Observers praised the works for being “very life-like” to the extent that “they ought to speak,” while the paper proclaimed “we have never seen better from the hand of any artist.” It added that,

There is no doubt but MR. COGSWELL stands very high as an artist. He has been engaged successfully in his profession at St. Louis for many years, and at examination of the paintings of our Governors, will award to him skill of no common order. Such talent will command respect and patronage, wherever it is known.

After noting that Cogswell painted portraits of Madison citizens, the Journal concluded, “we regret that he is soon to leave our city” because he would have found more patrons of his work if he were to have prolonged his stay, but he had to head to Chicago “to paint the portraits of several of the prominent citizens . . . and when he becomes known there, will no doubt be crowded with business.”

Perhaps because of his Windy City sojourn, Cogswell was invited in 1864 to Washington, D.C. and the White House to sketch President Abraham Lincoln, from which he painted some sixteen works, including a life-size one from 1869 that long hung in the Green Room of the executive mansion and is in the White House Collection.

That work was judged by President Ulysses S. Grant and Cogswell made three copies, with one sold to the State of California where it hangs behind the speaker’s podium in the Assembly chamber, while a second ended up in the Hawaii State House and the third remained in the artist’s possession. This last, which was found in a San Francisco mansion, was sold at an art house auction in 2020.

With respect to Grant, Cogswell, in 1868, rendered a portrait of the Civil War hero and future president that was owned by a brother of the notorious and powerful financier Jay Cooke and which the subject much admired when he saw it in Washington. After Grant’s death in 1885, the work was purchased by the Senate and it hangs in that legislative body’s chamber to this day. Once Grant became chief executive, Cogswell was hired to create a large-scale group portrait of the president and his family—this work is now in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution.

Cogswell maintained a New York City studio during this peak period of his renown, which spread to the kingdom of Hawaii. His portrait of King Kalakaua hangs in the Kahili Room of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, while a life-size portrait of Kalakaua’s sister, successor and last reigning monarch of the kingdom, Liliuokalani, was recently displayed at the National Gallery in Washington and resided permanently in the Hawaii State Archives.

After over two decades, Cogswell returned to San Francisco to visit in 1871 and relocated there two years later. After repeating what he did in Wisconsin and painting portraits of a half-dozen California governors, the artist, as reported in the 3 March 1874 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, requested $680, frame included, for each from the legislature, with plans to finish works of the five other chief executives. Five years later, that body finally acted on his offer and, in 1931, it was codified that each governor should have an official portrait, these part of the Capitol Museum.

Another change was in the offing by the start of 1875 as the Los Angeles Herald of 6 January recorded that “Mr. Cogswell [sic], the eminent portrait painter of San Francisco, arrived in this city yesterday, on a visit to his daughter [Jennie], the wife of Mr. Rhodes [sic.]” On the 19th, the paper’s “Real Estate Transactions” section noted that William S. Chapman, brother of prominent attorney Alfred B. Chapman, transferred “interest of grantors in certain lands in Rancho Santa Anita” for $100. This was followed in early March by a recording of Cogswell’s purchase of 473 acres of Rancho Santa Anita for $7,100.

Very shortly afterward, Elias J. “Lucky” Baldwin acquired the lion’s share of Santa Anita from Los Angeles merchant Harris Newmark, as the regional boom, which began in the late Sixties, hit its peak. By the end of summer, however, a bust came with the collapse of silver mine speculation at Virginia City, Nevada that brought down the Bank of California in San Francisco, with the panic reaching Los Angeles and leading, eventually, to the failure of the Temple and Workman bank.

Despite this economic downturn, which became part of America’s “Long Depression” lasting through the rest of the Seventies, Cogswell and Rhoades embarked on an intensive and expensive program of rendering the foothill lands they’d purchased into a working orchard as well as building that first residence. Under the heading of “A Pleasing Episode,” the Herald of 14 May 1876, just three days before William Workman’s suicide following the end of his bank, a reporter visited Sierra Madre Villa and wrote,

At any season, a ramble around our suburbs is a treat, but seldom have we enjoyed so pleasing an episode as a ride . . . to the residence of our fellow-citizen Mr. Cogswell. Mr. Cogswell has recently come amongst us with his capital to aid in the developement [sic] of our material prosperity, and to contribute by the refinement of his tastes to the elevation of the tone of our community. His residence is the reality of home. We were most agreeably entertained during a brief stay at this pleasant abode with a musical treat from the son and daughter-in-law of our host, Mr. and Mrs. W[illiam]G. Cogswell.

The younger Cogswell spent some time in Italy studying singing but his wife, Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie” Hutchinson, a soprano, was particularly talented and, after her time in Milan in pursuit of her vocal education, was said to have been enthusiastically received throughout Europe. In fact, they gave several concerts in Los Angeles during the latter part of the 1870s and were lionized for their exceptional talents.

A week later, the Herald returned with a much more detailed description of what it called “Anita Villa” as it observed that those who thought these foothill tracts were “only fit for sheep pasture and rabbit warrens” were mistaken, given what Cogswell achieved in his two years at his portion of Rancho Santa Anita. Especially highlighted was the stunning views as the paper remarked on the fact that “truly a magnificent panorama unfolds itself to the person standing in front of Mr. Cogswell’s house.”

Just a year prior, it continued, “this now highly cultivated plat of ground was covered with a thick growth of grease-wood, and was considered of no value,” but about 100 acres was cleared, the soil worked and the proprietor “set out fifteen hundred orange trees, six hundred lemon ad eight hundred lime trees,” with much evidence of excellent yields to come. Water was conveyed from nearby Eaton Canyon by pipes placed below the surface of the tract and irrigation was done with hoses connected to hydrants.

As for the residence, the Herald remarked that,

The dwelling is a neat two-story cottage, and the music room, or study, some forty feet from the house, is a model of taste and a combination of comforts.

Aside from the aforementioned irrigation system, which included “self-irrigating earthen pipes beneath his lawn” and “cold spring water from the mountains” carried to all of the structures on the property, Cogswell introduced 200 hives of Italian bees with the apiary to double—this was a popular niche in local animal husbandry during the period.

The paper ended by recording,

Taken altogether the home of Mr. Cogswell is most complete, and the wonder is that so great a change could be effected in so short a time. This model home is but thirteen miles from the city, and we commend a visit to it by those who would examine the result of taste and industry, and see what can be accomplished on mesa lands.

Within a year, however, an even more significant change came to the property with the building of the Sierra Madre Villa hotel building near the Cogswell residence and of which Rhoades took over the management. We’ll return with the second part of this post, taking us to 1877 and the establishment of the institution documented by these wonderful stereoscopic photographs by Alexander C. Varela, so be sure to join us then.