by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Putting together the three-part post on some of the early history of the Sierra Madre Villa estate and hotel, owned by William Cogswell and managed by his son-in-law William P. Rhoades, covering the period 1875-1880 was so much fun and, hopefully, interesting and instructive for readers, that it feels like a good decision to press on with some further history of the property and hostelry, especially because the Homestead’s collection includes more photographs and a leaflet that can serve as illustrations for new posts.
We’re taking up the story at the dawn of the 1880s, a decade which began with the region and nation still largely in the doldrums of the “Long Depression,” which began in the most of the country in 1873 and California, seemingly immune because of its involvement in booming silver mining activity in northern Nevada and within the Golden State, experiencing its downturn two years later. Remarkably, Cogswell and Rhoades, who embarked on the building up of the estate in 1875 at the end of our first local boom, kept on with the development of the hotel, which opened in 1877 and which, it appears, did well enough despite the economic challenges of the era.
Early in 1881, the Herald of 19 January commented on the visit to the Villa of Springer Harbaugh, an early director of the Union Pacific Railroad, which constructed the eastern section of the transcontinental railroad. Long a resident of Pittsburgh, Harbaugh relocated to Minnesota, but, understandably, came to our area for the winter and told the paper “he is delighted with Los Angeles county and with the San Gabriel valley, in particular.” It should be noted, incidentally, that while “The Valley” today means the San Fernando, in the 19th century it was the San Gabriel were the action was.
In early March, the Herald observed that Leland Stanford, one of the “Big Four” (with Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins and Collis P. Huntington) who controlled the Central Pacific Railroad, builder of the western part of the transcontinental and owners of its subsidiary, the Southern Pacific, which dominated California railroading, was going to spend some time at the Villa as part of a trip which the former Golden State governor took for health and pleasure. Shortly afterward, Alban N. Towne, superintendent of both lines and whose wife and daughters were already at the hotel, joined them.
About the same time, meanwhile, Cogswell, who’d been residing in San Francisco (where Stanford and Towne made their homes) as well as frequently traveling as part of his vocation as a popular and well-regarded portrait painter, arrived at the Villa, with the Los Angeles Express of 7 March reporting that he “will probably remain long enough to paint several pictures.” The Herald of four days later, added that Cogswell “is painting a number of portraits in this neighborhood” and then “proposed to reside in Mexico a couple of years” before returning to Sierra Madre Villa “and settle down permanently under his own vine and fig tree.”
The 16 April edition of the Herald identified a few of Cogswell’s local subjects and offered “we are glad to know that this highly meritorious portrait painter has been doing much work here of late” because “it is all of a very high degree of excellence” and “valuable as works of art as well as interesting from their life-like fidelity.” The article concluded that “between his studio in the Ponet Block,” located on Main Street near 1st in downtown Los Angeles,” and his charming Sierra Madre Villa, Mr. Cogswell finds his present visit to Los Angeles both pleasant and profitable.”
Meanwhile, the Express of Valentine’s Day featured an article praising San Gabriel Valley orchardists like General George Stoneman, Nathaniel C. Carter, E.J.C. Kewen, and Benjamin D. Wilson and his son-in-law James deBarth Shorb, as well as the Villa, of which it was observed:
When the virgin soil on this tract was broken, six years ago this Summer, and planted with citrus trees, there were many who thought Mr. Cogswell was entering upon a hazardous experiment. Now Sierra Madre Villa is famous. The whole valley yields it the palm for producing the largest and best-favored fruits and the greatest abundance per tree.
The most recent harvest included Rhaodes shipping 100,000 pieces to San Francisco, not to mention “a prodigious quantity of limes . . . having the market practically to himself” as other growers of that fruit, lower in elevation, were adversely affected by frost “during the past two or three years.” It was also asserted that Sierra Madre Villa was free from red scale and black scurf, a fungus, distinguishing these mesa lands from virtually anywhere else in the region.
At the end of February, the Herald of the 27th lavished praise on the agricultural development of the western San Gabriel Valley, in the early stages of this as it was, and it also commented that “inspired by the example of the projector of the Sierra Madre Villa, two splendid residences, which would do honor to any city of the United States, have been erected . . . and their owners,” one of these being Abbot Kinney’s Kinneloa estate, “are now busy improving their grounds as elaborately as the Messrs. Cogswell and Rhoades have, as pioneers, done those of the Sierra Madre Villa.” Gazing into its crystal ball, the paper prognosticated,
The tourist who, five years from today, passes through the ample range of the San Gabriel valley, will gaze upon the most minute, diversified and remunerative spread of horticultural and vinicultural country on the globe. Let any one who is dubious of the future of this section take a four hours ride in the direction of our foothills and, forever thereafter, surrender his doubts.
Another notable comment on the Villa came in the 21 May edition of the Express, in which it was stated that it “is perhaps one of the most beautiful” locations of its kind, while the transformation of the bench property was such that the property was “laid off in exquisite taste, with elegant buildings splendidly furnished.” It was added, though, that accommodations were limited to some 22 guests and that “so attractive a place is always taxed to its utmost capacity.”
Just four days later, however, the paper reported that the hotel “is soon to be enlarged by the building of a capacious wing” and “the dining room will be amplified [not meaning better acoustics!] so that fifty more guests may be seated.” Moreover, it was remarked that Rhoades had long been accustomed to turning away plenty of paying customers as “his establishment was inadequate to accommodate” the demand.
An account of a tour from representatives of the Sacramento Union-Record in late June was quoted in the Express of the first of July with an interesting comparison in which it was claimed that a Scandinavian visitor to the Villa would be right at home, though perhaps the journalist meant someone from the southern part of Europe? In any case, the description mentioned that many locals thought that Cogswell was foolishly embarked on “the wildest speculation,” but he was lionized for the remarkable transformation wrought at his estate, as was Kinney.
By the end of 1881, another influence of the Villa was cited with respect to Tucson, Arizona mining figure, John S. Vosburg, who was a gunsmith by vocation but financed the wildly successful Tombstone mines of Schieffelin brothers and Richard Gird (he was also the son-in-law of Jonathan S. Slauson, a major Los Angeles figure including at Azusa east of Sierra Madre Villa). Vosburg purchased, for $15,000, 120 acres of the ranch of Job C. Davis (inventor of cigarette and cigarette holder manufacturing machine, whose Davis Canyon is now where the Pasadena Glen community is situated and, the Herald of 17 December recorded that there were up to 60 Chinese engaged in the back-breaking work of preparing the land for grapes, lemons and oranges.
1882 was a relatively quiet year with respect to media accounts about Sierra Madre Villa. Some prominent guests mentioned included William E. Dodge, who, with his father-in-law, founded the powerful mining concern, Phelps Dodge, which existed for over 170 years until 2007, and a party traveling by, naturally, a special train car; Silas H.H. Clark, the general manager of the Union Pacific; and an early group of “Boston excursionists.”
In future years, large contingents of the latter, including those sent out by Walter Raymond, whose later South Pasadena hotel almost certainly drew visitors from Sierra Madre Villa, became fixtures in greater Los Angeles as its tourist boom exploded after a direct transcontinental railroad connection was established to the region (more on that later.)
The 7 May issue of the Herald included a feature under the heading of “A Delightful Excursion” featuring accompaniment of the Massachusetts tourists and it waxed poetically that:
The day was clear and beautiful, and the superb panorama spread out before these Easterners, comprising the pretty and minutely cultivated San Gabriel valley, with its glorious mountain background . . . was one which rightfully evoked the Bostonese enthusiasm. On all hands there were exclamations of delight; and we overheard at least a dozen of the excursionists telling the genial proprietor of the villa, Mr. W.P. Rhoads [sic], that they were simply enchanted, and proposed to spend their winters on the foothills of the San Gabriel, or, more properly, Sierra Madre, range hereafter.
Another new element of press references to the Villa were regular listings, along with Los Angeles hotels, of registered guests and it is interesting to note the locations outside greater Los Angeles and California from which visitors came.
With the onset of 1883, the peripatetic Cogswell was once again away, spending time at Topeka, Kansas, where his portraiture skills were well regarded, while a new addition to the Villa was the introduction of telephone service through a line built to San Gabriel. A novel use of the new apparatus came in June when the Times of 7 June briefly observed that the household of Dr. Walter Lindley on Fort Street (renamed Broadway in 1890) in Los Angeles, “received a serenade . . . from some musical folks,” perhaps from Cogswell’s son, William G., who’d been living in the east coast while pursuing a career as an opera singer, though it was added that “the fifteen miles . . . made an appreciable difference in the effect of the music.”
On the last day of February, the Herald reported that Cogswell, then in Chicago, “has had a survey made of his valuable unimproved property and will soon place it on the market for sale” with the paper opining that “the tract will comprise a number of delightful residences. After years of financial malaise, the situation had been improving slowly in greater Los Angeles, which may have led to the decision to subdivide and sell a portion of the ranch and a subsequent ad asserted “this ground is said to be nearer heaven than any place on earth for its beautiful location.”
In mid-April, a 100 acres of this land was sold for $40 an acre to Cogswell’s son-in-law, Samuel D. Hovey, a Civil War veteran of the Union Army who was married to Louise Cogswell and who immediately advertised “small vineyards for cheap” on 20-acre lots on “the beautiful, sunny, sloping lands of the Sierra Madre Villa Hotel property.” The Herald of the 5th reported that a quarter million vines were planted on the tract, along with 200,000 on the adjacent ranch owned by Charles C. Hastings and 100,000 at Carterhia, Nathaniel C. Carter’s property which soon became part of the town of Sierra Madre.
At the same time, Cogswell and Rhoades announced plans for another expansion of the hotel because “so pressing were the demands for accommodations,” observed the Times of 29 April, “that the proprietors contemplate enlarging the building very materially” and spending $12,000 in so doing. Not quite four months later, the paper updated readers that “quite a number of additions and improvements” were afoot “and the accommodations offered will soon be much more extensive than heretofore,” while the landscaping was “also being beautified and extended.”
The first of July issue of the Times contained a piece of correspondence by a traveler who commented that “in front of the Villa is one of the largest lawns in California,” this being a relatively new landscaping element in the region, “covered with a thick growth of the Kentucky blue-grass.” The incomparable view was, as was so often the case, mentioned, as well as the fact that “the orange grows to perfection on these slopes,” which, with lemons and limes, were shipped in large quantities to San Francisco.
We’ve provided examples of a number of distinguished visitors to the Villa in its half-dozen years of operation, but probably no one was quite as celebrated as that in September of General William Tecumseh Sherman, whose relentless march to the sea through the Confederate South was crucial to the Union’s victory in the Civil War. Sherman was a second lieutenant in the Army during the invasion of Mexican California in 1846-1847 and visited with his friend, John E. Hollenbeck of Boyle Heights; Ozro W. Childs, the well-known horticulturist and soon builder of an opera house; and Dr. John S. Griffin, with whom Sherman served during the Mexican-American War.
A banquet was held at the Pico House hotel in the honor of “Old Tecumseh” (it was reported by the Herald that a watermelon served there weighed a whopping 104 pounds) and it was said that the general was “as gay as a boy” including his anticipation of retiring from Army service. The paper added,
He took occasion, during the repast, to express the emphatic opinion that the Sierra Madre Villa was the most attractive spot for having a quiet, good time on the American continent, and intimated that Mrs. Sherman and other ladies of his family would probably be occasional guests there.
A new ad released on 28 October provided an image of the hotel, original residence, and a fountain in the garden and referred to the Villa as “the favorite of all Winter and Summer resorts in California.” It also quoted Sherman from the above and noted that the enlarging of the hostelry was completed. A Wheeling, West Virginia journalist, in the 25 November edition of the Times proclaimed that “one of the most charming hotels on the Pacific coast was “a noted winter resort for invalid people of wealth from the East, who come here to sun themselves upon the spacious porticoes and inhale the perfumed zephyrs of the tropical fruits and flowers of the valley.”
Four days later, on 29 November, a grand opening for invited guests was held to “inspect its new and excellent appointments.” The Herald remarked that “the completed edifice consists of two beautiful buildings about 200 feet apart, connected by a fine building two stories in height, with a delightful sheltered promenade in front from one to the other.” The connecting structure contained the “large new dining room, ornamented in most exquisite taste and furnished with all that could be desired for the convenience of guests.” A billiard hall, poker table were provided so that “ladies and gentlemen can pursue these amusements at their pleasure.”
The second level were “the most sunny and delightful sleeping rooms that can be imagined or desired,” while the new westernmost edifice contained the office along with “an elegant drawing room . . . washroom and toilet rooms” were present with “all the modern improvements.” Also of note was that atop this was “an observatory which commands a matchless view of mountain, valley, plain and ocean,” while there were also parlors and private spaces “are models of artistic adornment and convenience.” The table, supplied largely by homegrown produce, was also praised and “all that human taste can desire is there to be found.”
The piece concluded that “all the appointments of the hotel have been chosen by the taste of Mr. Cogswell, who stands at the head of artists on the Pacific Coast.” With capacity doubled to 100 persons, it was remarked that “if there were ever fit time and place for a Day of Thanksgiving, that time was yesterday and the place the Sierra Madre Villa” and it was averred that “no tourists or travelers can find a better home than the beautiful SIERRA MADRE VILLA.”
A new advertisement was issued for the reopening proclaiming that “There Is No Place Like Sierra Madre Villa” and that “the Fame of the Villa . . . is world-wide” amid “the most genial climate under the sun.” At the same time, announcements were made that there would soon be railroad service to the hotel, a major change from the four miles drive previously required from San Gabriel, where the Southern Pacific stopped.
We’ll return with the next post and, among the elements discussed will be the announced coming of the railroad, so look for that and other details of the unfolding history of Sierra Madre Villa.
Very enjoyable series. Thank you.
As reported by the press and praised by many visitors throughout the serial posts, Sierra Madre Villa was regarded as one of the most beautiful resorts on the West Coast, or even on the entire continent as commended by some people. However, this 19th-century paradise, with its renowned hostelry and picturesque surroundings, seems to have vanished – or at least become unrecognizable, even to local residents of the San Gabriel Valley. Why? I believe decades of urbanization have replaced the once green mountains, green rivers, and green green grass of home.
As noted in the posts, Sierra Madre Villa, during its heyday, attracted tourists from the well-developed East who were captivated by the unspoiled land, studded with orchards and vineyards, and enveloped by clear skies, clear streams, and clear air. Today, we share the same longing for a Shangri-La like the vanished villa but remain unsure of where to find such a place.