This new column will explore the ghosts of Southern California's residential landscape -- social, political or cultural landmarks that have since been destroyed or altered beyond recognition.
WHEN THE current mortgage crisis ends, someone is going to make big bucks. Probably developers. They'll buy up houses at bargain prices, tear them down, put in a subdivision and start hawking mortgages. The L.A. investor's rule: It's never about the house; it's about the land. Few knew this better than speculator Henry E. Huntington.
One of America's richest men, Huntington rolled into town around 1900. For a decade, his land company assembled vast tracts for development, operating secretly to keep prices low. L.A. myth says he bought a mansion in San Marino -- today the site of the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens -- for its panoramic view of the San Gabriel Valley. In fact, his interest was the land.
In 1903, Huntington and his partners picked up the house and its 500 acres for $225,000. At $450 an acre, the deal was a bargain, even then. Huntington never moved in. He lived above the Huntington offices in downtown L.A. and continued his buying spree. He acquired so many farms that he created the city of San Marino in 1913 to protect his investment. The master plan: Keep growing oranges, and when the market is right, subdivide.
Though nothing to Huntington, the San Marino house was one of Southern California's most famous. It began as a simple farm house built in 1877 for James de Barth Shorb of Maryland and his wife, California rancho heiress Sue Wilson. Far from the East, Shorb must have felt right at home. Clapboard houses like his were found across America. New York architect and landscape visionary Andrew Jackson Downing promoted such "villas" as models of American truth and simplicity.
Not much stayed simple (or honest) after the Civil War, when business boomed and bigger-is-better became the American way. With seven children and an empire that included vineyards, orchards and flowers for perfume, Shorb hired leading L.A. architecture firm Keysor & Morgan to dress up the family place.
As anyone who's added a garage or a master bath knows, renovations veer out of control, fast. Off came the roof, on went a third story, in went 13 bedrooms and three baths, fireplaces, hard-wood floors and that ultimate status symbol, a billiards room. When Shorb was finished in 1885, he had turned a country villa into a French-style mansion.
