An Elegant Piece of Hollywood’s Past Is Given Monument Status : History: The designation helps preserve the 1905 Wattles Mansion. It is the last vestige of the resort community that flourished before the movies came to town.
The Wattles Mansion, the last vestige of the turn-of-the-century resort community that once dotted the Hollywood Hills, was designated a historic cultural monument by the city Wednesday.
The designation helps protect the 1905 Mission Revival estate from alteration or demolition.
When preservationists began restoring the mansion in 1983, they had to remove several feet of mud from the garden pathways and the house, and clear out transients living in the basement and drug dealers holding court in the rose garden. Today, the beige-stucco and red-tile house is freshly painted and its wood paneling restored to something near its original glory.
Owned by the city, Wattles Mansion is managed by Hollywood Heritage, a preservation organization. Its continuing upkeep is paid for by fees from film shoots and weddings held in its picture-perfect garden.
The mansion was built in the days when affluent vacationers from New York and Chicago built winter homes in Pasadena or in Hollywood, before it became a film colony. Most of the other Hollywood estates of the period have been torn down or subdivided. Today, the bulk of the 49-acre Wattles estate is a public park lush with palm trees and other vegetation growing rather wild. There are, however, three acres of formal gardens, extending up the hill behind the house in six terraces. The gardens are open only by appointment.
Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey, two of the premier architects of early 20th-Century Southern California, built the house to match the romantic notions of California life expressed by Gurdon Wattles, an Omaha banker. The red tiles and the beams protruding from exterior walls evoked the Spanish missions that migrating Midwesterners made part of their mythology of an unspoiled, sunny Southwest. The two architects also designed the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Pasadena Playhouse and the Huntington estate in San Marino.
Inside the Wattles house, dark open-beam ceilings once complemented a collection of Mission Oak furniture. Today, no trace of the collection remains, although some massive wrought-iron andirons give a sense of the rustic yet opulent lifestyle that Wattles created.
A serious garden enthusiast, Wattles regularly changed the plantings, according to Stephen Sylvester, managing director of the mansion. Some old pictures show an Italian garden with stately cypresses marching up the terraces, while others show a florid tropical design. Today, the garden is typically Southern Californian, with queen palms, orange trees, birds of paradise and jasmine inhabiting its geometric beds.
From the floor-to-ceiling windows of an upstairs bedroom, the view extends over the sprawl of Los Angeles, past a lawn and a patch of community victory gardens first established on the estate during World War II. On a clear day, it is possible to see all the way to San Pedro for a glimpse of the Vincent Thomas Bridge.
The mansion and gardens at 1824 N. Curson Ave. are open to the public for viewing by appointment from noon to 5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Call (213) 874-4005.
A New Designation Wattles Mansion has been designated a historic monument by the city. The estate and its three acres of formal gardens can be viewed by appointment. Forty-six other acres are a public park.
