Little Pieces of History
When Bob Gutzman and his wife Marcie Chan were looking for their first home back in 1996, who should call but their professor of architectural history--with whom they’d kept in touch since their days at Occidental College. “Hey,” he said, “there’s a neat little Arroyo Craftsman-era bungalow for sale around the corner.”
It was not only just what they were looking for, but this charmer had a huge walled garden that once belonged to legendry tile maker Ernest Batchelder. It even had a fountain made out of his remarkable tiles. Wow, what are the odds of finding that?
In the early 1900s, Batchelder made earthy, decorative tiles in his Los Angeles factory that were popular with builders and architects. His tiles adorned the lobbies of downtown L.A. establishments like the Fine Arts Building as well as modest homes in the growing suburbs. His artful tiles, with their muted colors and romantic scenes, cover many fireplaces built in the 1920s.
Robert Winter--the Gutzmans’ former professor and a scholar of Southern California architecture--literally wrote the book on Batchelder, “Batchelder Tilemaker” (Balcony Press, 1999). Winter lives in the tile maker’s former house and studio, which he found through a set of circumstances similar to the Gutzmans’ good fortune. “Pasadena is rather incestuous that way,” said Winter with a grin, warming to his tale.
He was preparing to lead an architectural tour in an older neighborhood that overlooked the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena when Winter learned that one little cottage was Batchelder’s own home. Winter introduced himself to the owner at that time, landscape architect Francis Dean of Eckbo, Dean, Austin and Williams fame. He asked if he could bring the tour group inside to see a huge fireplace covered with the coveted tiles.
A year later, in 1972, when Dean decided to sell the house, he wondered if Winter was interested, and of course he was. End of story? Not quite.
The house had a lovely backyard that looked out on a huge oak and several old tile wall fountains, but it turned out that the fountains were actually on another property, though no fence separated it from his. It seems that at some point Batchelder’s wife’s sister became the owner of a cottage around the corner that adjoined the Batchelder backyard. The story goes that when she wanted to build a rental unit behind her house years later, the city said no--she did not have enough property--so the Batchelders deeded her nearly half of their yard.
That’s why no fences separate the two to this day and why a path that begins at Winter’s house wanders into the Gutzmans’ garden. As charming as it is today, the Gutzmans’ house was a fixer-upper when they bought it. “That’s all we could afford then,” recalled Gutzman, 31, a commercial real estate appraiser. The cottage had been carefully cared for but needed lots of updating, and some backdating. All the Craftsman-era varnished wood trim and paneling, for instance, had been painted white, so the energetic young couple had to laboriously strip all the bungalow’s woodwork. It took them a number of years to finally get around to the garden.
Chan, 29, who worked with the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center before becoming a stay-at-home mom for 2 1/2-year-old Will, said that they could barely get into the walled garden because a tree had grown in front of the old gate.
But they could just squeeze through, and what they found on the other side “was like the Secret Garden,” she said, referring to the beloved British book. “It had that feeling of having been well-tended at one time, but now it was wild and overgrown.”
In the very center of the garden grew a huge old oak tree. A deep accumulation of oak leaf litter completely hid--like ash from Vesuvius--the old brick paths and a large patio. “As we cleared and dug down, we kept unearthing more brick paving and would yell to each other, ‘Hey, I found some more!’ ” Eventually they uncovered a long path with several sets of steps, artistically accented with clumps of river rock cemented to the bricks.
At the very back of the property, they uncovered a wide patio that was several steps higher than the rest of the yard. They think it might have been designed as an outdoor stage because Batchelder’s wife, Alice Coleman Batchelder, was a noted musician and founder of the Coleman Chamber Music Concerts in 1904. Now that the patio has been restored, it is again a setting for chamber music--both Gutzman and Winter play viola. In fact, they met while playing for the Occidental symphony.
The garden is enclosed on three sides by tall old brick walls, an unusual sight in Southern California since earthquakes tend to topple masonry walls. On the wall behind the patio, or stage, is the biggest of the tile fountains, carefully set to one side so it throws the whole patio composition out of balance. In his day, Batchelder was a respected theorist on design, and several of his books, such as “Design in Theory and Practice” and “The Principles of Design,” were bestsellers at the beginning of the last century. Winter says you can see all of his ideas at work in the design of his garden. “It reads like one of his books.”
The Gutzmans have carefully preserved every brick, stone and tile, while replanting a thoroughly modern garden that is undoubtedly more lush and varied than the original ever was since it was mostly lawn to begin with. It is also far thriftier with water.
The look of the garden is water-wise and low maintenance, “with a Japanese touch,” said Chan. “We spent a lot of time researching all the plants, to make sure we knew all there was about what we were putting it in.” They wanted to know each plant’s virtues and vices. “We didn’t want trees that grew too big or bamboo that runs wild.”
Along the back wall, beside the fountain, they put in a neat row of small, white-flowered crape myrtles because they knew the handsome, reddish bark would look stunning against the old brick. Against another wall is a lovely, billowy, loose hedge of ‘Alphonse Karr,’ a clumping, green-stiped bamboo.
Japanese maples (“two turn red in fall, one turns yellow,” said Chan), silvery elaeagnus, white callas and white ‘Nuccio’s Gem’ camellias, acanthus, mondo grass, ‘Silver Dragon’ liriope, Japanese autumn ferns and white abutilons all grow under the towering oak tree, though well away from its trunk.
A ring of river rock holds back the soil so the base of the oak cannot become covered, and the tree seldom gets watered. When the base of a live oaks gets buried, or gets too much water, it is more susceptible to oak root fungus, which can kill a tree.
Chan designed most of the garden and she and Gutzman did as much of the work as they could, with help from contractor Joe Gagnier of Sierra Madre. “Doing it yourself, you save a lot of money, but we think it’s also more fun,” she said. Now that it’s done, they continue to do all the maintenance, including mowing a lawn in the frontyard with an old reel push mower they found in the garage. Will helps keep up with the never-ending rain of oak leaves, using his child-sized leaf rake.
“We’ve learned so much,” said Chan, “and it’s wonderful to get a feel for the seasons by working in the garden. We really get excited now when the first few leaves open on the maples in spring, or they turn red in autumn.”
And wait until young Will discovers how exciting oak trees are to climb.
