A Vintage Christmas Old Phineas Would Love

When Wilmington founder Phineas Banning and his family lived at his estate there, they were fond of entertaining. Sometimes the guests stayed for days, and Christmas was a special time.

But it is doubtful that they ever had 1,500 guests for a celebration, as the Banning residence is expecting by the time its Victorian Christmas ends on Sunday afternoon.

Started three years ago as a way of re-creating the Banning Christmas--as well as calling attention to the Victorian-era museum housed in the sumptuous white home--the celebration has gotten big.

A Community Event

“People come from Orange County and West Los Angeles, as well as the Peninsula and South Bay cities,” said museum director Zoe Bergquist. “We do it as a community event, but we also hope it will attract people who might not otherwise be interested in the museum.”

Last year, 1,500 people attended the event, and Bergquist said perhaps even more will attend this year, partaking of cookies and candies, touring the home, watching Santa Claus in Victorian garb arrive in a vintage carriage, and learning how to make old-fashioned holiday wreaths and gingerbread houses. There also will be 19th-Century carols sung by the choral group from West High School in Torrance.

The first celebration--on the East M Street side of Banning Park--occurred last weekend, and the final one is scheduled Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Admission is $4 for adults, and children under 12 may attend free.

The two-story, 23-room home--with a cupola providing a view all the way to Los Angeles Harbor--was built in 1864 by Banning, who helped the small Pueblo of Los Angeles boom through agriculture, land development, oil production, railroad operations and creation of what became the Port of Los Angeles. He sought to transfer his East Coast heritage to the West by building the home in Greek Revival style and naming his new town of Wilmington after his home city in Delaware.

While visitors will not see exactly how the Bannings observed Christmas, they will be treated to a pretty fair re-creation, according to Shelley Mills, the museum’s curator. They will also get an insight into how wealthy Southern California families lived 100 years ago in a household of chandeliers; heavy, dark, ornately carved furniture; richly upholstered sofas and chairs; fine English china, and gilt mirrors.

Garlands of pine, holly, berries and red ribbons adorn doorways and mantelpieces upstairs and down. The dining room, where Banning held balls, banquets, dinners and receptions, is set for a formal Christmas dinner. Among the place cards are those of Rebecca Banning, his first wife; B. D. Wilson, a business associate who lent his name to Mount Wilson, and Manuel Dominguez, the owner of Rancho San Pedro, who sold Banning the 2,400 acres he used to create Wilmington and its wharves and warehouses.

There are Christmas trees, with gifts beneath them, in two parlors. In the wide hallway, a painted plaster bust of George Washington is surrounded by poinsettias. At the top of the stairs is a collection of antique toys that appear to be waiting for a Banning child to find them on Christmas morning.

Banning and his two wives lost several of their children in infancy, but three boys and two girls survived, and their rooms look as if someone was getting ready for Christmas.

“The girls’ room shows what were women’s preoccupations of the time--stuffing stockings, sewing and making household objects,” curator Mills explained. Clothes they might have worn to a Christmas party are laid out on a bed. In the boys’ room, there are strings of cranberries and popcorn and a paper chain. And in the small nursery, dolls are placed around a tiny table set for Christmas tea.

Mills said that at Christmas, the Banning children played a game in which they followed the path of strings of several colors. At the end of each was a present. That game is not part of current celebration. Another tradition is being observed, however--the lighting of a tall candle the family burned every Christmas. It drips with the wax of decades.