Beauty of Star’s Bucolic Retreat Belies Its Bloodstained History

In the heart of a tiny canyon community that bears its name, along a narrow canyon road that snakes through olive groves and California live oaks, stands the 114-year-old, five-gabled, white-frame Helena Modjeska Historical House and Garden, an Orange County-owned national landmark.

Modjeska, a Shakespearean actress born in Poland, dubbed her ranch Arden because it reminded her of the love-enchanted forest in Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.” She intended it as a retreat, but it ended up with bloody fingerprints all over it.

First, her foreman died at the hands of an ex-employee, who in turn became the victim of the first -- and last -- lynching in Orange County. Then her architect was murdered by a jealous husband.

Modjeska was born in Krakow in 1840 to a family with 10 children. Her father, a high school teacher, had a passion for music and taught several of his children to play instruments.

When she was 7, her father died. As a tribute, she and several of her older siblings formed a neighborhood theatrical group and performed at parties. She soon learned that she loved the stage.

As a teenager, she found a mentor -- and lover -- in Gustave Sinnmayer Modrzejewski, a family friend who was married and twice her age, but who had theatrical connections. For propriety’s sake, she took his name, which she eventually shortened to Modjeska. They had two children, one of whom died in childhood.

By the early 1860s she had left him and begun managing her own career. During one performance, she was drawn to a wiry, mustachioed journalist in the audience. Karol (Charles) Bozenta Chlapowski, the son of a nobleman, would become her husband and manager for the next 43 years. She called him Charlie. Americans called him Count Bozenta; Chlapowski was too hard to pronounce.

By 1876, she had become Poland’s leading actress, which set jealous tongues to wagging. Even though she was by then a respectable married lady, stage rivals began to spread juicy gossip about her and her 15-year-old son, whose father was her former lover. The scandal pushed Modjeska, a devout Catholic, to the brink of a nervous breakdown and into retirement at age 36.

Seeking a gentle clime and a gentle vocation, she and her family joined a small group of artists and intellectuals who moved to Anaheim, hoping to become successful farmers. (Among them was Henry Sienkiewicz, a journalist who would later write the epic novel “Quo Vadis” and win the 1905 Nobel Prize for literature.)

Their new venture seemed founded on fiction, however. None of them could milk a cow or catch a turkey, and they knew more about books, paintings and fine clothing than farming tools.

Modjeska threw herself into her new role as housekeeper and cook, but the venture lasted only six months and wound up $15,000 in the red.

Most of the emigres returned to Poland, but Modjeska returned to the stage. She spent six months learning English in San Francisco. Then, in 1877, she made her debut in the title role of “Adrienne Lecouvreur.”

Over the next decade, she and her husband traveled the world as she shared the stage with such greats as Maurice Barrymore, Otis Skinner and Edwin Booth, the brother of assassin John Wilkes Booth.

She and Bozenta returned to Southern California for vacations, however, and in 1887 they purchased a Santiago Canyon property they had admired during their farming days. It would soon grow from a peaceful 400-acre retreat to a 1,300-acre working ranch with olive groves, barley and cattle.

This time, they didn’t try to run it themselves. They left it in professional hands and continued to travel, using the ranch as a haven from the road.

The scenery looming over their tiny cabin included Flores Peak, a perpetual reminder of drama from an earlier era. In January 1857, a mob cornered an outlaw, Juan Flores, there, at the top of its 200-foot precipice. To escape, he blindfolded his horse and they both jumped off the cliff. He survived; the horse wasn’t so lucky. About a month later, Flores was caught and hanged in Los Angeles on Valentine’s Day for his part in the murder of a San Juan Capistrano storekeeper and L.A. County Sheriff James Barton.

In 1888, Modjeska and Bozenta hired renowned Eastern architect Stanford White to transform their simple cabin into a grand country manor. Today, it is the only remaining White-designed residence in the West. Among his other creations were a host of mansions and clubs for the likes of the Vanderbilts, Pulitzers and J.P. Morgan; the Boston Public Library and the Washington Square Arch in Greenwich Village.

But White, quite the ladies’ man, was known less for his Gilded Age architecture than for his 1906 murder. Among his conquests was chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit, who was married to a millionaire playboy, Harry Thaw. The incensed husband killed the architect at Madison Square Garden -- which White also had designed.

That wasn’t the first bloodshed linked to the ranch. On the morning of July 30, 1892, while Modjeska was visiting friends at the beach, her husband learned that the county road overseer had been unable to collect the annual $2.50 road-improvement tax from a Mexican laborer, Francisco Torres, who had worked at the ranch less than a month. Bozenta told the foreman, William McKelvey, to deduct the tax from Torres’ $9 weekly salary.

Torres didn’t understand why his pay had been docked, and McKelvey couldn’t explain in Spanish. Torres became angry, demanded his money, threatened McKelvey and stormed out empty-handed.

The next morning, he returned and argued with McKelvey again. As McKelvey was feeding the chickens, Torres struck him twice on the head and stabbed him through the heart. A bloody pickax handle was found nearby.

No one witnessed the murder, but a ranch hand had heard their argument and the blows that followed.

McKelvey’s murder galvanized the community. The Board of Supervisors offered a $200 reward for Torres’ capture and Gov. Henry H. Markham offered another $300. Ten days later, Torres was found in San Diego County with McKelvey’s wallet, which contained $5.40.

Torres said he had acted in self-defense. He said McKelvey had attacked him first and had drawn a pistol.

The posse returned him to Orange County.

On Aug. 18, after a preliminary hearing, Torres’ lawyer promised to seek a change of venue to ensure a fair trial.

But onlookers had other ideas. Two days later, a mob of 14 to 30 masked men broke into Torres’ jail cell, dragged him outside and hanged him from a lamppost. Pinned to his chest was a note: “A change of venue.”

Newspapers across the state condemned the lynching, but it was generally accepted that Torres was guilty. A grand jury looked into the crime but failed to identify any member of the mob. Public sentiment was reflected when the local funeral home proudly displayed the noose used to hang Torres.

Despite the murders, Arden was one of the few places Modjeska could find peace. She and her husband vacationed there for several months every year. She would ride horses, walk in the rose garden, smoke cigarettes and sit under the oaks chatting with friends. Her summers were reserved for Poland, where she continued her career and her lifetime friendships.

But her visits came to an abrupt halt in 1895 after she made a speech in Chicago criticizing the Russians for oppressing the Polish people. Her native land banned her. First she was angry, then devastated.

By 1906, she and her husband could no longer afford the ranch. They’d given generously to worthy causes over the years, leaving themselves little for retirement. They sold Arden and moved to a tiny cottage in Newport Beach.

Two years later, although Modjeska’s health was precarious, she could not resist one last call to the stage. She performed Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene from “Macbeth” at a Los Angeles benefit for victims of an earthquake in Sicily.

“The voice of Lady Macbeth was also the voice of a dying Modjeska,” an unkind critic wrote.

She died a few months later, in 1909, from a kidney ailment known as Bright’s disease. She was 68.

Her funeral was fit for a queen. Thousands turned out to mourn her in Anaheim and the Pacific Electric railway sent a private car to carry her casket to St. Vibiana’s Cathedral in Los Angeles. Shops closed and schools let out early as thousands thronged downtown streets.

In death, Poland welcomed her. Her husband and son returned her body to Krakow, where Sienkiewicz gave her a glorious tribute.

Bozenta never returned to America. He died in 1914 and was buried alongside his wife.

Modjeska’s former home went through several owners and the land was sold off bit by bit. Finally, in 1986, Orange County bought the remaining 14.4-acre estate for $1 million.