Treasure of the Arroyo Seco

With its Mission Revival architecture and dramatic tower, the Southwest Museum building on Mt. Washington is often mistaken for a monastery. “People always ask, ‘Was it meant to be a museum?’ ” says Kim Walters, library director for the museum. That question has taken on new urgency in L.A.’s historic preservation community since November, when the Southwest and Autry Museum of Western Heritage agreed to merge.

Not that anyone fears destruction for the Southwest building, which Los Angeles declared a Historical Cultural Monument in 1984 and which vies with the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History for the title of the city’s oldest museum building. But amid reports that Autry officials hope to relocate the Southwest to a projected new building at the Autry complex in Griffith Park, preservationists are anxious to retain pride of place for a treasure of L.A.’s historic Arroyo Seco district. (Ironically, construction continues on a transit station linking the Southwest on the MTA Gold Line that’s scheduled to launch in July.) “The [original] building is the largest piece in the [Southwest] collection,” says Nicole Possert, secretary and past president of the Highland Park Heritage Trust. “It’s one of the icons of Arroyo history and culture.”

That culture was in full bloom in 1907, when Charles Fletcher Lummis, former Los Angeles Times editor, renaissance man and indefatigable amateur ethnographer of Native American history, incorporated the Southwest Museum (this while serving as city librarian for Los Angeles). The canyons of Highland Park, the neighboring community of Garvanza and the area along the Arroyo Seco sheltered a vibrant enclave of artists and intellectuals, many associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. Other Arroyo residents included writer Mary Austin, painter Maynard Dixon and Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mt. Rushmore.

Lummis was bent on giving the Southwest a one-of-a-kind home in the rustic hills of the Arroyo area, which ranges from Pasadena to downtown Los Angeles. Architects Sumner P. Hunt and Silas R. Burns toiled for four years under constant haranguing from Lummis, who refused to change the visionary design for the museum’s tower. “He was not going to budge on that,” says Walters. The interior caracol (Spanish for snail) staircase at the tower’s center is a stunning 170-step spiral; in 1913 it was the first such architectural feat attempted in the United States.

Opened in Highland Park in 1914, the museum comprises about 48,000 square feet plus the separate Braun Research Library. The much-loved museum entrance is a Mayan-style facade connected to a 250-foot-long tunnel set with dioramas of historic Indian life in the Americas. The tunnel ends at an elevator rising 108 feet to the museum’s lower lobby. Its multileveled archive contains exhibition halls for pieces from the approximately 220,000 archeological and ethnographic items in the Southwest collection.

For now, the original Southwest remains open. But what the building’s fate will be in the Autry era is anyone’s guess. Given the Southwest’s financial instability for more than a decade before the proposed merger, the aging structure could be deemed unfit to house its priceless collection. “Deferred maintenance causes problems down the road, and we are ‘down the road,’ ” says Possert. “As a community resident, I’m looking for the building’s complete historic preservation.”

Autry officials will confirm only that architectural firm Levin & Associates has been retained to evaluate existing facilities at the Autry and the Southwest. But, says Autry Museum director John Gray, “The [original Southwest] building is fundamentally important to the history and character of Los Angeles. The intent is to do something wonderful with it.”

Friends of the building such as Ken Bernstein, director of preservation issues for the Los Angeles Conservancy, are practicing optimism. “We’re not in the position to dictate to the Autry, but we would hope this will remain a vital part of the operation.”

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Southwest Museum, 234 Museum Drive, Los Angeles; (323) 221-2164.