by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As we continue to commemorate the centennial of La Casa Nueva, the remarkable Spanish Colonial Revival adobe residence of the Temple family that took five long years to build (though the family lived in the fully finished only about half that period), we’re again collaborating with the California Preservation Foundation and its Doors Open California program by offering special tours of the house the weekend of 26-27 September.
These tours, specially curated for this event, will offer visitors an unusual behind-the-scenes perspective to the building with blueprints, letters, photographs, receipts and other artifacts from the Museum’s collection supplementing in an-depth look at how La Casa Nueva as constructed. A look at those who worked on the project, including architects, adobe makers, craftspeople and others will be a major feature of the program. The offering is managed through the Foundation and a flat fee of $20 enables attendees to visit any number of sites in the region throughout the month of September. Visit the California Preservation Foundation Doors Open page for details and to sign up.
The featured photograph from the Homestead’s holdings for this latest “No Place Like Home” post is from 16 August 1924 and shows La Casa Nueva’s rear courtyard during construction. The structure’s walls look to have recently been coated with rough plaster and scored for the application of finish plaster. The basic wood elements of the balcony were in place and the flat sheets of plywood applied to the roof prior to setting Spanish tile with temporary wooden “steps” next to the Library chimney stack allowing workers to get to the roof’s peak.
Of particular note with the roof was that a row of solar panels were in place (this, of course, being the southern side) and the simple system was set up so that the heat of the sun’s rays on the panels would, in turn, warm up water stored in redwood tanks in the attic and used in the second floor bathrooms. A prior post here featured the Day & Night Solar Heater Company of nearby Monrovia, which almost certainly installed this system.
As for the adobe construction that was utilized for most of the structure (looking through the Library door and the second-floor window in what became Edgar Temple’s bedroom, you can see some interior wall wood framing), the doorways at the left (west) west wing for the Guest Bedroom and Bathroom, as well as an exposed portion of the chimney stack show some of this material.
Then there are stacks of round adobe bricks at the center of the yard, these to be used for columns for the portico, of which the concrete forms, as well the walkway edges, are in place with rebar also set for the erecting of the columns. While most of the adobe bricks used for La Casa Nueva were of traditional rectangular form, there were these rounded ones for columns in the Mission Walkway surrounding the structure, as two photos included here show, and for planters that were placed around the building.
Drain holes are in the portico edging for drainage, as well as the second floor wings, planned for open sun decks, with a drain spout at the right for the eastern deck (the one for the western side is out of the viewfinder’s range.) It is also notable to see, among the many doorways, the one for the basement, this being second from the left at the main block’s ground level, while the large opening for a triptych stained glass window, the decorative centerpiece for the dwelling, is at the center of the second level.
What this and the other photos shown here depict is that the shell of La Casa Nueva was coming together by late summer 1924 and the other crucial element of this time was the work done under the supervision of Beverly Hills architect Roy Seldon Price, who was somewhat recently hired to take on the project. The initial design of the building was undertaken by Walter and his late wife Laura González, with input from Whittier contractor Sylvester Cook and drawings from the prominent Los Angeles architectural firm of Albert R. Walker and Percy Eisen, who undertook work for many of Walter’s commercial building projects.
As we’ve noted in a couple of prior posts here on Price, one more biographical about the architect and the other discussing a letter he wrote in November 1924 to Walter’s eldest child, Thomas, his hiring transformed La Casa Nueva into a building that had far more visual interest, better utilized space and elevated it on multiple levels, making it a truly distinctive and unique residence, though that came at a price (as the family joked when it came to his surname) and the expense of time.
Unfortunately, the economic conditions of the Temple family evolved such that La Casa Nueva was part of an increasingly problematic financial environment. When the project was launched in 1922, there was plenty of money coming in from the astounding windfall of their Montebello-area lease with Standard Oil Company of California (now Chevron) as a string of abundantly flowing wells yielded a fortune from the one-eighth royalty. Yet, production was already on the decrease in the relatively shallow field and, of course, revenue dipped sharply by summer 1924.
Moreover, Walter’s increasing investment in his independent oil prospecting business, while occasionally leading to producers and income, was not nearly as lucrative as that Montebello lease and every dry well meant a significant economic loss, as he drilled in such places as Alaska, Oklahoma, Texas, México, Huntington Beach and Whittier by 1924 (and would later explore at Signal Hills/Long Beach and Ventura).
Then, there was his move into real estate development, starting at Alhambra, where the family resided for a half-dozen years, and expanding into El Monte and San Gabriel, as well as downtown Los Angeles, with his biggest project being the Town of Temple (renamed Temple City in 1928). His Temple Estate Company and Temple Townsite Company absorbed much of that wealth amassed from Montebello, but, by early 1926, bonds were taken out to finance ongoing and future projects.
La Casa Nueva, with the ambitious additions and embellishments pushed by Price and expanding cost and extending the completion date all the way to late 1927, along with many other improvements on the 92-acre Homestead, was another addition to the increasingly complicated economic environment that marked, on a broad scale, much of the dicey financial situation for Roaring Twenties America.
Yet, in 1924, the complexities that became much clearer later were perhaps only beginning to develop. A look at Walter’s activities during that year show that, for example, as the Los Angeles Times of 15 June noted in an article “Temple Progresses,” and, by that, the paper meant his namesake town. Byron Marsh, who, with Douglas D. Coughran, was the main sales agent for the project, declared, obviously painting a rosy a picture as a realtor could:
Activity in the town of Temple is incredible. Six months ago, the place where Temple stands was a quiet though beautiful stretch of California countryside. Today it is an accomplished fact. A busy town where modern stores and beautiful bungalows carry all the earmarks of prosperity.
A little over three months later, a first anniversary party was through for the Town of Temple, with the 25 September edition of the Pasadena Star-News observing,
A page from the past of California will be revived [on the 28th]. Walter P. Temple, its founder will throw open the gate of the community town and pose as host to the old-time element of the state. Four fat steers will be barbecued [by Joe Romero, the “Barbeque King”], and caballeros and senoritas, mounted upon the best horse flesh in the state, will put on a program of racing worthy of the days of the Spanish Dons.
Advertising was sure to mention that no sales of business or residence lots were to be transacted that day, to give the impression that the event was not about commercialism, though, of course, it was certainly hoped that the next day, the day after that and those to come would see a boon in investment in the nascent burg.
With respect to Walter’s oil business, the Whittier News of 7 February remarked upon the fact that “activities in the Rideout Heights section” northwest of uptown “have increased since the first reports of a price increase in crude oil were received.” The paper continued that,
The Mohawk Oil company has also been active in development work and are planning to build a rig to drill a deep well. The land taken over by the Mohawk Oil company is adjoining the Johnson-Manjo lease and is known as the Walter Temple lease. A well will be started at once.
It does not appear that this work by the San Francisco-based Mohawk, later acquired by Texaco, yielded any substantial crude. There was, however, a nice surprise at what referred to as the “old Montebello field” which was reported to have “staged something of a come back” in late December when well number 15 on the Temple lease came in as a 700-barrel per day producer. It would be almost a year, though, before the 16th well was undertaken there.
Walter was mentioned on several occasions during 1924 with respect to San Gabriel where he had substantial investments in the acquisition and development of several business lots across from the Mission. He recently built three structures here, including the single-level Arcade Building of shops, the two-story Temple Building in which he kept an office and the corner post office.
He also donated the easternmost section of this tract to the city for a city hall and, on 12 February (the birthday of Abraham Lincoln), the edifice was dedicated. John Steven McGroarty, writer of the very popular Mission Play, staged nearby was the principal orator and musicians and dancers from the theatrical piece provided entertainment. On Independence Day, noted the Star-News,
A portrait of Walter P. Temple has been hung in the city clerk’s offices as a further recognition of the fine things he has done for the city. The dedication of the portrait and a bronze tablet to Mr. Temple took place Monday [30 June] in co-ordination with the opening of the merchants’ carnival.
The Times of 13 July ran a feature by Helen Starr on the rapid growth of East Pasadena, Monterey Park (where Temple had some investments before divesting of them to conduct more work in Alhambra) and San Gabriel and, among her remarks about the mission town, commented that “Walter B. [sic] Temple, a San Gabriel man who is interested in Mexican oil field, built the new Temple Building last year,” though her remark that this included six stores and the post office was a confusion regarding the aforementioned other structures in that row of buildings. While Starr called the city hall one of the best in southern California, nothing was said of his donation of the land for it.
One other San Gabriel detail concerned a recently formed athletic club and negotiations it had with Temple “relative to securing a suitable place to erect their clubhouse” as it was mentioned by the Star-News of 19 June that “in all probability the lot to be purchased will be secured by Mr. Temple,” this being behind the city hall with the hope that groundbreaking would take place within several weeks. The project, however, did not come through and it looks like the club had a short existence.
An interesting reference appeared in the Times of 13 April, which recounted the extraordinary run of luck experienced by the two daughters of Elias J. “Lucky” Baldwin, whose foreclosure of an 1870s loan to the Temple and Workman bank, operated by Walter’s father, F.P.F., and grandfather, Homestead founder William Workman, led to his acquisition of many thousands of acres of valuable lands in the San Gabriel Valley and in the Baldwin Hills near Culver City.
The piece, in recounting how Anita Baldwin and Clara Baldwin Stocker were the beneficiaries of an estate that tripled in value, largely because of the oil found at Montebello and the Baldwin Hills, since their father’s 1909 death and couldn’t spend the money fast enough, observed that, after discussing Baldwin’s Rancho Santa Anita in Arcadia,
In the south a plume of black oil smoke rises from where Merced Rancho basked under an eternal sun. Walter Temple, a son of the ruined banker of 1875, bought back sixty-seven acres there after Baldwin’s death [the purchase was for 60 acres in 1912 from Baldwin’s estate executor]. He leased it to the Standard Oil Company and in six years received an asserted $16,000 [?!] in royalties.
Actually, in the flush days of several gushers on the Temple lease, royalty payments were tens of thousands of dollars per month, so there may be two zeros missing from that cited amount in the article! In any case, in the annals of greater Los Angeles oil history, among many remarkable anecdotes, few, if any, could top the sheer stunning circumstance of what happened to the Temples who went from middling financial conditions to amazing levels of wealth in short order.
Small wonder, then, that, in the Master Bedroom of La Casa Nueva, in a double set of French doors with impressive stained and painted glass renderings of Temple family history, there are prominent depictions of the Montebello oil lease—the Homestead might well be the only place in existence where you can see oil derricks and tanks in such a manner! The fact that the house was lost so soon after its completion does not detract from the fact that La Casa Nueva is a fascinating representation of a family’s history, as well as its ambitions and aims.
You can learn more about the house at the Foundation’s Doors Open program tour the last weekend of September, so we hope to see you then!