Rebuilding the Past
After a three-year, $5-million restoration, Will Rogers’ Pacific Palisades ranch house is being reopened to the public. The 31-room house, now the centerpiece of a state historic park, will display Native American and Western artifacts and memorabilia collected by the humorist, who died in 1935. (Al Seib / LAT)
Historian Randy Young, left, and Jennifer Rogers-Etcheverry, great-granddaughter of Will Rogers, stroll through the stables at Will Rogers State Historic Park. (Al Seib / LAT)
To freshen displays and preserve artifacts, curators plan to rotate displays of Rogers’ memorabilia. (Al Seib / LAT)
Rogers’ home sits on a gentle slope between the barn where the humorist kept his horses and the polo field where he played with Clark Gable and other celebrities. (Al Seib / LAT)
Advertisement
Jennifer Rogers-Etcheverry, left, great-granddaughter of Will Rogers, and Rochelle Nicholas-Booth, the state parks curator at the house, chose items from Rogers’ extensive collection of ropes, saddles, Native American rugs and blankets and Western art. (Al Seib / LAT)
