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Verdugo Views: Castle on the hill is steeped in Crescenta Valley history

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Even before it was finished, May Briggs Gould’s hilltop castle was the talk of the Crescenta Valley. And it still is.

Around the end of 1891, after months of construction, Gould and her husband, Eugene, moved in to their Spanish-inspired home; they called it “The Castle.”

“They never called it Gould Castle,” wrote author and historian Jo Anne Sadler in her recent book, “Frontier Days in Crescenta Valley.” Newspaper reporters and locals later gave it that name.

The family enjoyed a few years at what was then the top of Ocean View Avenue, no doubt surrounded by wildlife, with what must have been a phenomenal panoramic view.

“But their remote location may have played a part in what followed,” Sadler wrote.

“It is doubtful that Eugene Gould could have conducted his business activities from such a remote location, no telephone and such. He had an office in Los Angeles, and he would not have commuted back and forth every day,” she added.

Sadler, who recently emailed the story of the castle’s history, wrote that Eugene Gould was never in any of the pictures known to have been taken there.

May Gould, daughter of millionaire rancher George Briggs, used her inheritance to purchase the property from her uncle Benjamin Briggs and to build the castle.

But she seems to have left the rest of their business dealings to her husband, who invested in the St. Elmo gold mine in Randsburg in Kern County.

In addition, as a couple, they purchased other properties around the state, all with mortgages, according to Sadler.

Three were held by a woman named Emelie Cohen, widow of Alfred Cohen. He had left his large fortune, properties and assets to her.

She hired her sons to help run the Cohen enterprises and named son Edgar as trustee of the Gould mortgages, including the $70,500 loan to the couple in 1893 on their hilltop castle.

According to a family history written by a Benjamin Briggs descendant, Eugene Gould tried to corner the wheat market and that’s when he lost all their money — and eventually, the castle.

Two of the notes held by the Cohens came due in January 1896. When the Goulds could not pay, Edgar Cohen was supposed to foreclose, but was reluctant to do so.

His mother sued to remove him as trustee and continued with the action, according to the Los Angeles Herald, Dec. 18, 1897.

Two months before, in October, in what appears to be an act of desperation, May Gould declared her husband dead and petitioned the court to appoint her as guardian of their children, Winston, Theodore and Dorothy.

“He, of course, was not dead,” Sadler wrote. It was a ploy to get her husband’s life insurance money.

The Goulds were forced out of their home in December 1897, barely six years after they moved in.

Sadler speculates that their loss was a combination of several elements: a lavish lifestyle, too many mortgages and several speculative ventures.

“Eventually, everything came down like a house of cards,” Sadler wrote.

Emilie Cohen held the hilltop property for 30-plus years, but the castle was never again occupied on a full-time basis.

The grounds were, at times, well-maintained and used for daytime social events and sometimes as a location for horror movies, Sadler discovered.

It was a popular place to visit, picnic and take pictures — while ignoring the “No Trespassing/Shoot Everyone Entering” signs, Sadler wrote. But the often-vacant property became a habitat for vandalism and deterioration.

Various Gould family members visited their former home over the years. It went through a succession of owners who used it as a secondary property and gave it a succession of names: the Jerusalem Palace, Crescenta Palace and La Crescenta Castle.

By the time it was torn down in the 1950s, it had been stripped of its original furniture and fixtures.

In the 1900 census, May Gould (listed as divorced) and her three children were living in Santa Monica. Eugene Gould cannot be found in this census, Sadler wrote.

But in the 1910 census, the Goulds were listed as married and living in Burbank. He was a gold miner.

By 1920, they were in San Luis Obispo, where he was a storekeeper for an oil company.

Eugene Gould, who died in 1929, and May Gould, who died a year later, are buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.

To the Readers:

Gould Avenue in La Cañada Flintridge was not named for either May or Eugene Gould, according to Jo Anne Sadler. Instead, it was named for Will D. Gould, a prominent Los Angeles attorney who owned a large property at the top of the avenue.

KATHERINE YAMADA can be reached at katherineyamada@gmail.com. or by mail at Verdugo Views, c/o Glendale News-Press, 202 W. First St., Second Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Please include your name, address and phone number.

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