L.A. Then and Now / Cecilia Rasmussen : Colorful Tycoon Lived Up to His Nickname

Lucky’s lechery well may vex

Those who only think of sex;

You whose vigor isn’t spent,

Hear of Baldwin and repent.

--Judge Donald William Hamblin

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When the city of Arcadia’s iconoclastic tycoon founder, Elias Jackson “Lucky” Baldwin, swept into town more than a century ago, he bought half the San Gabriel Valley, established the area’s horse racing tradition and married a succession of young wives.

He left a deep imprint on his contemporaries, and on the city’s history.

But two monuments associated with Baldwin will soon be swallowed by development--one to make way for 31 homes and the other to accommodate remodeling of Santa Anita Park.

One of the threatened sites is a 1913 Italian Renaissance-style, 50-room mansion--Anoakia--built by Baldwin’s daughter, Anita. There, fairies and elves still frolic alongside medieval kings and court jesters in a Maynard Dixon mural covering all four basement walls.

The other structure is Baldwin’s brick winery, nestled on a grassy knoll hidden from view at the north end of the Santa Anita track’s backstretch. There, he produced award-winning wines from his 1,200-acre local vineyard.

Lucky Baldwin’s name graced a town, community, dam, school and avenue. He survived four marriages (with rumors of a secret fifth), and left behind a reputation for romantic indiscretion, including an affinity for underage women that made him a courtroom fixture throughout most of his life.

During the 19th century, stories of Baldwin’s sexual escapades were a staple of California newspapers. But none was quite as entertaining or as, well, Los Angeles-like, as the Louise Perkins affair.

In 1883, two years after the death of Baldwin’s third and most beloved wife, Jennie Dexter, his cousin, Verona Baldwin, arrived on his doorstep from England. She was tall and slender and pretty and he took her in. She later claimed in court that he ruined her body and mind, and committed her to an insane asylum after she shot him in the left bicep when he refused her money he had promised. Although Baldwin found her virtue negotiable, as did others, including a physician guest at his Santa Anita ranch, he finally sent her away with an undisclosed sum. She later became one of Denver’s bawdiest madams.

Three months after Verona Baldwin left, the licentious 55-year-old millionaire persuaded 16-year-old Louise Perkins to accompany him on a trip, which spawned a $500,000 lawsuit for breach of promise.

(It wasn’t until the 1930s that laws were passed to prevent jilted lovers from using the civil courts to seek damages as a “heart balm” for the pain of a broken engagement or breached promises.)

After she was seduced and abandoned by the wealthy rake, Perkins brought a lawsuit that mesmerized the local press and became a citywide obsession. Naturally, this being Los Angeles, much of the courtroom drama was provided by the plaintiff’s high-profile attorney, the future Sen. Stephen Mallory White.

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Baldwin’s lawyers sought a change of venue, which the judge rejected, saying: “If [Baldwin’s] reputation is so bad that he can’t find a man out of a town of 60,000 to do him justice, then he better throw up the sponge and settle the case.”

For their part, the defendant’s attorneys claimed that Perkins was a swindler, a party girl and a harlot, not the unsophisticated innocent she claimed to be.

Hunkered down on the witness stand, Baldwin played it like a high-stakes poker game. Laying all his cards on the table, he admitted improper relations with Perkins, but then denied seduction or promise of marriage.

But it was White who brought tears to the eyes of the jurors as he concluded: “Women, cruel to their own sex, will not look upon her with an eye to charity. What shall she do? She might be put in a position of competency but she can do nothing. No merchant can employ her because some fine lady customer will not come to the store if he did. She must make a living--she must exist. . . . You can at least say to this community that she was dishonored by the wiles of this man.”

Red-eyed jurors promptly returned a verdict assessing $75,000 damages against Baldwin, and everyone in the courtroom broke into applause.

Baldwin won an appeal, however, when another judge ruled that the judgment was excessive and that White’s appeal to the emotions of the jurors went beyond permissible limits. A new trial date was set.

On July 25, 1887, in Judge Henry O’Melveny’s courtroom, all parties were present except Perkins.

Without advising White (now a state senator), Perkins released Baldwin of all claims for a $15,000 private settlement and eloped with a well-to-do son of a rich mother.

As Baldwin and his smug lawyers smirked, White stared dumbfounded. For him it had been two long and ultimately fruitless years of work for no fee. Pushing reporters aside, he stomped out of the courtroom and, according to contemporary accounts, got drunk.

Almost a decade later, Baldwin, age 65 and still an incorrigible womanizer, found himself in trouble with yet another woman.

Lillian A. Ashley, 25, claimed that Baldwin seduced her in his San Francisco hotel room on March 3, 1893, and exactly nine months later, her daughter Beatrice Anita was born. Ashley sued, demanding $75,000 in compensation.

“The woman is old and homely. Anyone who has seen her would not credit her charge against me,” Baldwin told the press, notwithstanding the fact that she was 40 years his junior.

What happened in the courtroom would captivate the nation.

As Ashley sat weeping on the witness stand, her sister, Emma Ashley, a religious fanatic, quietly rose from her seat to stand directly behind Baldwin. Drawing a pistol from the pocket of her skirt, she aimed it at his head. When she fired, a wisp of white hair flew from Baldwin’s head as the slug grazed his scalp before burying itself high in the courtroom wall, literally missing him by a hair.

He won the lawsuit.

Baldwin’s famous luck would hold until 1909, when he died at age 81.