by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The founding of La Crescenta, originally named as Crescenta Canyada, in 1884 by Dr. Benjamin B. Briggs and his nephew Asahel took place on 2,500 acres of the Rancho La Cañada sold to them by Jacob L. Lanterman, who acquired the ranch with a partner nearly a decade before. Dr. Briggs’ brother, George, who was a successful horticulturist, including with raisins, in Davis, where the University of California established an agricultural branch, died the following year, leaving a substantial estate of around a half million dollars.
One of George Briggs’ heirs was daughter May, who was married to Eugene Gould. Gould’s family, as were the Briggs clan, were Gold Rush migrants and his father, Levi, after his first wife died of dysentery at San Francisco, moved to Santa Clara where he remarried, Eugene being one of three sons in this second family. Levi Gould was best known in the mission and college town adjacent to San Jose for being the first person to ship California fruit east on the newly completed transcontinental railroad line when it opened in 1869.
Eugene Gould and May Briggs were married in 1881, and several years after she came into her inheritance, the couple headed south to La Crescenta, where, in September 1890, Lanterman sold to May Gould a portion of land in the area. The Los Angeles Herald of 22 May 1891, in a La Crescenta column, reported that,
Mrs. Eugene Gould’s place is at present the scene of more activity than any other place in our valley. A beautiful and commodious house, worthy to crown this commanding height, is to be built at once, the grading for which is going on rapidly. The house will be of stone and concrete, using the beautiful granite of this place, and is planned with special reference to the climate and location. An immense reservoir over fifty feet square is being built, of solid concrete, which will be as strong as the everlasting hills and almost as enduring.
A half-year later, the same column, in the number of 18 November, 1891 also being the year when the name “La Crescenta” was commonly in use for the area, it was remarked that,
Mrs. Eugene Gould’s beautiful residence upon the mountain side is progressing finely toward completion, and they hope to occupy it before the winter is over. It is one of the attractions of this locality, and makes considerable business for the Glendale branch of the Terminal railroad [Los Angeles Terminal Railway], as all the material—except that found upon the place, is brought by that road to Verdugo park, and from thence by wagon. Over 100 barrels of cement alone are used in the construction, and other material in proportion.
It is, of course, notable that the structure was referred to as May’s, distinct from her husband, given that she seems to have used her inheritance for its building. It has also been suggested that, given her travels as part of the “grand tour” of Europe, she “was taken with Spanish castles.” In an interview sometime in the 1950s or 1960s, Herbert Bathey, whose family settled in the La Crescenta area in 1883, related his recollections of the building of The Castle, of which his father, Charles, was the foreman.
A man known only as Elliott handled the granite work, while Pierre Escale, who lived off what is now Briggs Avenue to the west and from whose property boulders were secured, laid the walls without the use of mortar. A half-dozen Chinese laborers hauled sand and gravel from the nearby Pickens Wash, named for early American settler Theodor Pickens who secured valuable water rights with the wash, and a cable car system was used for this purpose.
The edifice was completed by spring 1892 and Bathey added that there was a lead roof, which was not only weighty, but was stretched in hot weather, so tin was used as a replacement, though this quickly rusted. Because of a lack of ventilation below, despite the foreman’s recommendation, the floors easily rotted out. Historian Mike Lawler wrote that “despite its design flaws insisted on by May Gould, it really was a spectacular castle complete with a tower and an open courtyard filled with fountains and statues and interiors of colorful walls, beautiful rugs and cherry wood furniture.”
The Herald of 22 April reported that “Crescenta has again been favored by the presence of the sweet singer Miss Ellen Beach Yaw, who made her first appearance in California at this place.” Yaw, who was widely known as “Lark Ellen” because of her stellar operatic voice, later bought a large ranch near Covina, where Lark Ellen Avenue exists now, and a future post will focus on her. The paper continued that “she was the guest of Mrs. Dr. Briggs and of Mrs. Eugene Gould” and “at the beautiful home of the latter she delightfully entertained the host and hostess, and several invited guests, with a number of selections in her own inimitable style.”
The La Crescenta columns of the Herald of 9 December, in addition to recording that “Dr. Briggs is still quite feeble in health,” he died about two months later at age 65, that “Mr. Eugene Gould and family are expected home this week, to occupy, permanently, their beautiful home, The Castle.” It appears the Goulds kept their full-time residence in the north for a period before deciding to relocate to their new abode.
An early detailed description of The Castle appeared in the Los Angeles Times of 10 July 1893, in which it was remarked by a visitor discussing how local oranges were being shipped to India, as well as how La Crescenta was widely sought by health-seekers,
Eugene Gould . . . has erected at Crescenta one of the finest mansions in Southern California at an elevation of 2000 feet above the level of the sea. Mr. Gould’s residence is in reality a castle—none of your sham affairs of redwood and lath and plaster, but of real granite, taken right from the spot. A noble round tower shoots up from the southwest corner of this castle, and recalls the mediaeval strongholds of Europe, only nowhere in the Old World have I seen such magnificent views, such wide sweep of mountain, plain, far-receding hill and distant ocean as from this castello del granito of Mr. Gould. It is not often out of Andalusia that you find a patio (court-yard) of such dimensions of 64×80 feet, wherein, unshielded from glass, are growing the marvelous plants of California in company with exotics from a warmer clime. Of course, the living rooms of such a mansion are in just proportions, although Mrs. Gould has had the excellent taste to have (except in the round tower) no upper stories, to weary one. Mr. Gould has extensively set out olives, lemons and oranges—by far more of the first than of the last—in which he has shown good sense, for the orange can be over-planted—the olive and the lemon never.
Ominously, however, Benjamin Briggs, just four days before his death, transferred nearly 500 acres and 150 lots at La Crescenta, all of which subject to mortgages of almost $20,000, to George C. Crane. With the post-Boom of the 1880s period followed by several years of drought in the Nineties and a national depression that burst forth in 1893, financial trouble soon came to the Goulds (as it did to John H. Temple, owner of the 75-acre Workman Homestead where the Homestead Museum is now).
At the end of April 1893, the Goulds borrowed more than $70,000 from Emilie Gibbons Cohen of Alameda, with three notes provided and a deed of trust to various properties, including The Castle, as well as properties at Alameda, Fresno, Oakland and San Francisco, arranged. Two of the notes came due in January 1896 and were previously assigned by Cohen to a San Francisco bank, which ordered the sale of the real estate through the trust deed, of which her son, Edgar, was trustee. In April, May sued the county sheriff for seizing unspecified property, while, in October, a sheriff’s sale was held for property owned by her.
For some time, Bathey’s parents were leasing The Castle, but, early in 1897 May Gould sued them for rent due and recovery of the premises, which she secured. Several months later, the Batheys filed a suit against her seeking more than $1,400 for a variety of services rendered and funds advances while they managed the house and property.
In October 1897, May tried to seek appointment as guardian of her children claiming that Eugene was dead—the problem was that he was very much alive, but the effort was “for the proper care of the children’s interest in a policy of life insurance” taken out by their father. It appears this was calculated to obtain badly needed funds.
The 25 February 1898 edition of the Herald ran a short article under the title of “Where Are The Goulds? Their Castle At La Crescenta Strangely Deserted,” with a Pasadena correspondent statin that the residence, which cost $65,000 to construct, “has been abandoned with the handsome furniture, silverware, etc., in it.” Neighbors were watching the edifice, “known as the Jerusalem palace from its style of architecture,” but the piece erred in stating that May inherited the fortune of her uncle, Benjamin (who died after the house was completed), while it was remarked that,
Miss Briggs married a young clerk who had some romantic ideas, as a result of which the castle was built. [Eugene] Gould is said to have squandered most or all of the fortune in Randsburg mines. Some talk of foul play has yet been heard, but as yet the disappearance of Mr. and Mrs. Gould is a mystery.
As noted above, it seems clear that it was May who controlled the building of the house, though one account averred that The Castle was Eugene’s. In any case, the statement about his investment in mining in the Kern County town south of Ridgecrest and along today’s U.S 395 is notable.
The Times of 27 February countered its competitor with an article subtitled “Mythical Story of the Abandoned Castle at La Crescenta,” and which reported that Eugene Gould (obviously in the land of the living despite the above!) told the paper that he had a renter who’d moved out, so what he stated happened was the house was broken into while unoccupied, though nothing of value lost because any such items were taken to the Los Angeles house the Goulds were renting.
He invited anyone believing the myth to see him at his office in the Bryson Block in Los Angeles and it was concluded that “it is true he has mining interests at Randsburg, and, judging from the present showing of the St. Elmo mine, he will have in a few years the mythical fortune referred to [in the Herald article] transmuted into tangible reality.”
The following day’s Herald acknowledged “The Gould Canard” as mistaken assumptions by neighbors, repeating that the Goulds moved two months prior and found the renter, who vacated the residence earlier than expected. A man named Verdugo was asked to watch over the place and while he was wood-cutting one day, the break-in took place and yielded only minor losses. It also recounted that Eugene Gould was working for the St. Elmo Mining Company in Los Angeles and saw the La Crescenta house the same day, only hearing of the so-called abandonment in the press.
Yet, problems continued to mount. In fall 1898, the Batheys filed another suit to recover the wages and expended funds they claimed were owed them when they managed The Castle. The 26 February 1899 number of the Times briefly recorded that the Girls’ Collegiate School in Los Angeles took a trip to La Cañada and were entertained by the family of a pupil, after which “a visit to the interesting Gould Castle, now in ruins, followed.”
The 23 July edition of the paper informed readers that,
Several camping parties have recently visited Gould’s Castle in La Cañada [sic] and pitched their tents on the shelf above the interesting ruin. With the moonlight glinting through the great granite arches and porticos, illuminating the battlemented tower and casting weird shadows among the palms and shrubbery in the large patio, the scene at the castle is as romantic as may be found in this country, where $40,000 granite castles on mountain sides are rather scarce . . . A Pasadena capitalist would like to buy the ruin and make a mountain home of it. Now the windows are all broken, the doors swing in the wind, vandals have stripped the tiles, the moldings and even the fireplace brick from the walls, the floors are sinking [see the Bathey interview above], and the palatially designed castle is as desolate as a rock pile in the desert. There is said to be a $72,000 mortgage on the Gould properties, and no prospect that the castle builder will ever come to his own.
With regard to this last point, a new suit was filed in April by Emilie Cohen for more than $63,000 on those trio of notes issued a half-dozen years earlier at 8% interest, while May Gould was separately sued on another set of three notes from the same time and totaling north of $78,000 and which, purportedly, were only for between $200 and $500 at the time.
The Times of 17 September reported that Cohen’s son, Jacob, said to be “the mortgagee who holds the title to the famous $50,000 Gould castle,” traveled south from San Francisco to see the place.” It was added that Cohen “is astonished at what vandals have done in assisting the elements to wreck this valuable property” and that he would hire caretakers to watch the house “which has been left to bats, birds and picknickers, all the doors and windows open, for several years.”
We’ll stop as the 19th century comes to a close and conclude with part three taking us into the 20th century, so be sure to check back in for that!