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The sprawling 127 acre Los Angeles State and County Arboretum in Arcadia contains a great deal more than trees, shrubs, gardens and flowers. Upon the grounds near the banks of the shady lake is a collection of structures of historical interest. Among them are three types of dwellings from different eras of the immediate vicinity. The latest, the Baldwin Cottage, an ornate Queen Anne house of the Victorian period, was constructed of wood by Elias J. "Lucky" Baldwin. Nearby, a replicated pair of a "wickiups", typical of the lodgings used by Gabrielino Indians who once lived by the lake, were made of staked and tied willow branches covered with "tules" (dry reeds of marshy grass). Then, there is a simple single-story adobe building which dates back to 1839, a time when Mexican rancheros were lords of vast land empires.
This low, flat roofed, rectangular adobe was built by a ranchero who was not of Spanish or Mexican origin, but a native of Scotland. His name was Hugo Reid. When Reid came to California he became a citizen of Mexico, thus being eligible to own Mexican land. He was granted Rancho Santa Anita, an area which now covers all or portions of the cities of Arcadia, Monrovia, Sierra Madre, Pasadena and San Marino. To comply with Mexican law, he built this plain adobe upon his rancho and lived here with his wife, Victoria. From here, Reid managed the affairs of his 13,000-acre rancho.
As Hugo Reid found the site suitable for his home, so did a group of native people who came to the area centuries before the Scotsman. The Gabrielinos, a Shoshonean speaking people, were decedents of the Great Plains Indians who migrated to the Southern California region between 1000 and 500 B.C. They formed villages near fresh water sources such as streams, rivers, lakes, and springs. The marshy lagoon at the Arboretum was created by a steady flow from an underground spring and the Gabrielinos were attracted to the fresh artesian water in an otherwise arid environment. The name, Aleupkingna, was given to the village of thatched wickiups which once existed near the lake. The exact site of this settlement is not known, but was presumed to have been located within the present grounds of the Arboretum. One plausible location of the ancient village may have been an oak-covered hill (Tallac Knoll) west of the Reid adobe. Here, a substantial amount of Indian artifacts were recovered. Another potential site may have been near the present green house located north of the main entrance. Outside the Arboretum, evidence of Gabrielino life was also found during excavation for the parking lot at Santa Anita Race Track.
In 1771, the original Mission San Gabriel Archangel was founded by Franciscan padres eight miles south of Aleupkingna and from then on, life at the rancheria (Gabrielino village) was never to be the same. Aleupkingna became under the control of the Spanish mission and the Indians learned a new language, culture and religion. The land surrounding the lake was used by the mission for agricultural purposes. Mission Indians planted wheat, corn, beans, citrus fruit and olives in the fertile soil. In 1806, this mission ranch was given a name by the padres - Santa Anita, which in Spanish means the diminutive form of Saint Ann. The reign of the Spanish established missions came to an end when the Mexican government ordered the secularization of the missions in 1833. Secularization made all mission property in California subject to private use or ownership. Rancho Santa Anita, no longer controlled by the church, was available for any Mexican citizen or ex-mission Indian willing to improve the land and build a home there. However, a scant number of Indians received grants of former mission lands, losing out to Mexicans and even foreigners. A group of Indians from San Gabriel were rejected when they applied for the vacant Rancho Santa Anita. Hugo Reid secured a provisional title to the rancho in 1841.
Hugo Reid was born in 1809 or 1810 in the town of Inverness, Scotland. His parents were Charles Reid and Essex Milchin of Cardross, Scotland. The young sandy-haired, blue-eyed Reid attended Cambridge University, but left before completing his studies due to a failed romance with a young woman named, Victoria. At age 18, a rejected Reid decided to see the world and departed from the port of Liverpool, England in search of his fortune. He found himself in Lima, Peru, where he formed a partnership in a mercantile business with an Englishman named Henry Dalton. After spending a few years in Lima, Reid moved to Hermosillo, Mexico, where he established a branch of Dalton's trading company.
In 1832, he sailed north to California aboard the Ayachucho, a ship in the employ of Dalton's firm. Reid arrived in San Pedro, then a primitive landing serving the pueblo of Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Mission. While visiting Los Angeles, he met Don Abel Stearns, a prominent Yankee merchant from Massachusetts. Stearns liked Reid and in recognizing his talent for trade, he tried to convince Reid into staying in Southern California. For a sharp young man like Reid, there was a plentitude of business opportunities available in Los Angeles.
Reid returned to Mexico where he closed his trading establishment and persuaded a companion, Doctor William Keith, to accompany him to California. In August 1834, the two men reached San Diego. The following month in Los Angeles the pair went into business with a third partner, Jacob P. Leese, a recent arrival from Ohio via New Mexico. They opened a tienda, or a general store, facing the main plaza of the pueblo. One day, while tending the store, Reid met another Victoria that had profound affect on his life.
Victoria Bartolomea was a young beautiful Indian woman that exuded the grace and mannerisms of a Castillian blue blood. She was the daughter of a Gabrielino chief and originally came from the village of Comicrangna that had once been on the outskirts of the pueblo of Los Angeles. She spent her youth at the San Gabriel Mission and became the protege of Dona Eulalia Perez, the "llavera" or housemother of the mission. Dona Eulalia handled all the bookkeeping of the mission and was in charge of the dormitory of young Indian girls there. She took Victoria under her wing, training her and refining her in the tradition of a fine Spanish lady. Dona Eulalia went to Reid's store to purchase goods for the mission and she brought Victoria with her. Reid was immediately attracted to the elegant Victoria and it may have been a case of love at first sight, but she was forbidden to him, as she was the wife of another man. She was married to an Indian named Pablo Maria and she had three children by him.
In April 1836, Reid returned to Hermosillo, the Sonoran capitol. Rumors circulated that Reid's departure was due to the heartache he endured as he longed for a woman he could not have. Another Victoria had broken his heart and prompted him to flee. Back in Hermosillo, Reid took a job as a school teacher. While there, he received correspondence from California that Victoria's husband died from smallpox and recently gave birth to her fourth child.
Reid returned to Los Angeles in August 1837. Immediately upon his return, he was baptized a Catholic in order to marry the young widow, who was raised Catholic. Usually baptismal names were taken from saints, but Reid chose the name Perfecto (Perfect). He preferred to be called "Don Perfecto" and from then on was known as such. In early September 1837, Hugo Reid and Victoria Bartolomea were married at the San Gabriel Mission church. The groom claimed to be twenty-seven years old at the time of the marriage and the bride was twenty-nine years old according to church records. Reid adopted Victoria's four children from her previous marriage. There is no record of the couple every having a child together. Although the wedding celebration was well attended, their marriage was met with some castigation. Many of Reid's peers disapproved of the mixed marriage at first, but they were soon won over by Victoria's class and charm. She was always the most gracious hostess at their adobe home in San Gabriel, which was called, "Uva Spina" .
The adobe had been in the possession of Victoria and was on mission property. In 1838, Victoria Reid received Rancho Huerta de Cuati; a 128 acre land grant located 2 miles northeast of the current San Gabriel Mission church. Today, Lacy Park in San Marino is the site of this small rancho. It was one of the few Mexican grants given to an Indian. However, she received the rancho for her past service to the mission and with the assistance of the influential Dona Eulalia. Hugo Reid was not listed on the title because he was not yet a Mexican citizen. He was naturalized in 1839.
Since becoming a citizen of Mexico, he had the right to claim vacant public land in California. In 1839, he filed an application for Rancho Santa Anita and began construction of an adobe ranch house. With the help of Indian labor, he built his three room house upon a bluff overlooking the valley. The natural spring fed lake was close by at the north base of the bluff. The hand made adobe bricks came from earth gathered at the homesite. Nearby trees were cut down and formed into beams. It had a flat roof made of cane like wooden poles and pitch was used seal the gaps. Water and pulverized lime from the San Gabriel Mission's lime kilns was used to make the white-wash for the adobe walls. He built a corredor (porch) along the west side of the house facing the courtyard. After completion of the adobe, Reid continued to live at the larger casa, Uva Spina on his wife's property. Hugo and Victoria's oldest son, Felipe, lived at the adobe and served as ranch manager.
When the rancho became more developed, the family spent more time at Santa Anita. The original mission cultivation of the rancho flourished under Reid's care and he planted his own crops as well. He grew wheat, planted fruit trees, and had over 10,000 vines of grapes. He raised herds of cattle and kept a stable of mares.
Others also tried to stake their claim to Santa Anita but could not justify their entitlement to the rancho. Don Perfecto put forth a great deal of effort to improve the land. Reid also indicated in his application that his wife's family did much in the past to improve the area. The process was slow, so Reid sought the help of his friend, William P. Hartnell, a fellow native of Great Britain. Hartnell, also a naturalized Mexican citizen, was a merchant in Monterey and had political influence with Mexican officials in the provincial capitol. He interceded on Reid's behalf and brought the application for Santa Anita to the attention of Governor Juan B. Alvarado. Hartnell could not expedite matters any, but after two years of filing petitions and writing letters Reid received a provisional grant to Rancho Santa Anita on April 16, 1841. Four years later, in 1845, Reid was granted a formal title to the rancho by Governor Pio Pico.
To give the modern day reader and idea of its size and location covered, the boundary lines of the 13,319 acre Rancho Santa Anita are described as follows:
Starting from East Live Oak Avenue and 6th Avenue in Arcadia, a straight line went northwest to La Presa Avenue and Sunnyslope Boulevard (site of Sunnyslope Farm) in an unincorporated area. From here, a southwesterly lined continued jaggedly through the north part of San Marino High School and roughly curved around the Huntington Library grounds. Once pass Orlando Road, the boundary took a straight form in a northeast direction, cutting through Pasadena, and continued through Altadena until it reached the north end of Eaton Canyon Park. The boundary took a forty-five degree turn heading in a southeast direction to Eaton Canyon Reservoir, where it branched west paralleling Fairpoint Street to Hasting's Ranch Road and Ranch Top Road. Here, the line headed southwest through Sierra Madre to Auburn Avenue and Grand View Avenue and continued along Grand View past Vista Avenue and on to the eastern city limit of Arcadia. From here, the line followed along the east bank of Santa Anita Wash to Oak Haven Road and Whispering Pines Drive. Here, the line turned east and followed the course of Hillcrest Boulevard, beyond Myrtle Avenue to the terminus of Crestview Place in Monrovia. From this point, a southeasterly line went to the north end of Oakcliff Road, where it changed course at a forty-five degree angle heading southwesterly along the route of Norumbega Drive. The line maintained this direction all the way through Monrovia and eastern Arcadia back to the beginning point.
Shortly after Reid received a provisional title to his cattle ranch, he became restless and felt the yearning to travel again. In 1842, he left his wife at home to sail to China on the Esmerelda. Reid returned from the long trip in 1844, bringing his wife gifts of diamonds, embroidered shawls, fine silks and strings of pearls. He also brought Chinese trunks and cloth wall hangings. Upon Reid's return from his adventures in the Far East, he expressed to his friend, Abel Stearns, a desire to sell Rancho Santa Anita, even though it was thriving and producing. By June 1844 his vineyard doubled to 22,730 vines, including dark grapes, white grapes, and maroon grapes. He had over 430 fruit trees, including peaches, lemons, pomegranates, oranges, pears, figs, blood oranges, plums, olives, apples and walnuts. At this time he was appointed Juez de Paz (Justice of the Peace) in San Gabriel.
The year 1846 brought war between the United States and Mexico. Governor Pio Pico sold many of the missions, in order to finance a defense for California against an impending American invasion. On June 8, 1846, Pico granted the buildings and surrounding grounds of the San Gabriel Mission to Hugo Reid and William Workman. Workman was the co-owner of nearby Rancho La Puente. In exchange for a monetary payment for the property, the two rancheros had to assume the mission's $7,000 debt and continue to support the padres there.
On May 29 1847, Hugo Reid sold Rancho Santa Anita to his old partner and friend, Henry Dalton, who arrived in California in 1843. Dalton paid Reid twenty cents an acre for a total of $2,700. Dalton eventually acquired a great portion of the San Gabriel Valley including over 45,000 acres. Dalton did not live on Santa Anita, but rather, he chose to live on his 4,431 acre Rancho Azusa de Dalton, now the city of Azusa. Hugo Reid went north and purchased a town lot in San Francisco in what is now situated between the communities of Chinatown and North Beach.
There is no record of Reid participating in the Mexican War in California. After the war in 1848, Reid acted as an envoy of Pio Pico when the ex-governor returned to California to reclaim his position as civilian governor. Reid met with American military officials in Los Angeles to explain Pico's intentions. Pico was denied, but was allowed to remain in California as a private citizen. The following year, Reid was admitted as a member of the California Constitutional Convention at Colton Hall in Monterey. He was among forty-eight delegates and one of five foreign born delegates. The convention lasted from September 5, 1849 to November 13, 1849 and produced the first constitution for the new state.
During his stay in Northern California in 1849, Reid witnessed the economical effects that the miners of the gold rush created there. Beef prices were high in San Francisco and San Jose. Tallow was expensive and scarce. There were no candles available for purchase in Monterey. Reid recognized that Southern California rancheros would make tremendous profits by selling their cattle in northern cities close to the mining action. He wrote to Abel Stearns to explain these conditions and suggested that he slaughter his massive herds of cattle and transport the product by ship. Instead Reid's letter spurred major cattle drives northward creating a boom in the industry. The cattle boom declined by 1856 as gold mining in the placers dwindled. Reid visited the mines, but did not engage in prospecting.
Reid was an intelligent and principled man. He took a stance on behalf of the local Native Americans, working to improve their rights and conditions. He showed great interest in the Indians focusing his attention on the ancestors of his wife, the Gabrielinos. In his day, it was unusual for a man of Reid's stature to be concerned with Indian affairs. In 1852, he wrote a series of letters published in the "Los Angeles Star", a local newspaper, about the Gabrielino culture, history and religion and customs. The twenty-two letters written by Reid became a valuable resource to later historians and was often quoted in later publications.
By this time Reid was in declining health. For several years he suffered with tuberculosis and his condition worsened during his period in Northern California. On December 12, 1852, "Don Perfecto" Hugo Reid died in Los Angeles. His funeral was held at the old plaza church (Our Lady Queen of Angels) on Main Street, and was buried in the adjacent cemetery. Later, his body was moved to the El Campo Santo cemetery on North Broadway (now the site of Cathedral High School). His body was transferred again and placed in the New Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles.
Victoria Reid sold Rancho Huerta de Cuati in 1854 to Benjamin Davis Wilson. He renamed the ranch "Lake Vineyard". It was at this ranch that General George S. Patton was born in 1885. The four star general was the grandson of Wilson. In 1855, the thick adobe walls of Victoria's Una Spina came crashing down in a violent earthquake. She was left impoverished and lived the remainder of her life at the San Gabriel Mission. She died there on December 23, 1868 as a result of smallpox and was buried in the mission cemetery.
During the Dalton ownership, Rancho Santa Anita and the Reid adobe fell into disrepair. He did not live on the rancho and neglected it. In 1854, he sold the rancho to Joseph A. Rowe for $33,000. Rowe spent an additional $6,000 to repair the decayed Reid adobe. He spent the money replacing the flat tar covered roof and added an adobe wing with five rooms along the north side. Rowe was the owner and featured act of Rowe's Olympic Circus. He lacked ranching experience and poorly managed his money. He found himself in financial trouble and a national recession made matters worse. In 1857 he borrowed $12,500 at twenty-four percent annual interest to bail him out of his pecuniary woes.
In 1858, the grant of Rancho Santa Anita was officially recognized by the United States Land Commission. In March of that year, Joseph Rowe sold the rancho at a loss to William H. Corbitt and Albert Dibblee for $16,645. Rowe left for Australia after the sale. Dibblee was a San Francisco vigilante coordinator and Corbitt was a real estate promoter in Los Angeles. The two men purchased Santa Anita without even looking at it. Dibblee remained in San Francisco while he sent his younger brother, Thomas Dibblee, to manage the ranch. They raised cattle and introduced sheep for wool production. The drought years of the early 1860s devastated the cattle industry in Los Angeles County. Rancho Santa Anita cattle died by the thousands. Sheep, although faring better than cattle, died as well. Many water sources dried up and the lake near the Reid adobe was reduced to a mere shallow swamp. In 1861, subdivision of the rancho began with the sale of 2,000 acres in the western section to Leonard J. Rose, a German born merchant. Rose paid $2.00 an acre for the unimproved part of the ranch. Here, he created his famous "Sunnyslope Farm" and raised award winning show horses. He built his home in 1862, which still stands at 7020 La Presa Avenue (at Huntington Drive) in an unincorporated area north of San Gabriel. L.J. Rose was the founder of Lamanda Park, which later became the city of Rosemead.
In 1865, the remaining 11,319-acres were purchased by William Wolfskill for $20,000. Wolfskill was a pioneer orange grower who hailed from Kentucky. He began a career as a trapper and a trader, spending several years in New Mexico. There, he became a Mexican citizen in 1830. That same year he led a trapping expedition to California being one of the first to travel along the Old Spanish Trail from St. Louis, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and on to Los Angeles. He arrived in California in 1831 where he hunted sea otter along the coast. In 1836 he settled in Los Angeles and opened a carpenter business and purchased a town lot. He began planting vineyards and by 1838 was a major grape producer. He made wine and accumulated over 60,000 gallons in is cellars. He married Magdalena Lugo, a daughter of Jose Ignacio Lugo who owned Rancho San Antonio. They had four daughters and two sons.
In 1841, Wolfskill planted oranges on two acres of land what is now east of Alameda Street between 4th and 6th streets in Los Angeles. This was the first attempt of commercial production of oranges in the state. His grove expanded to over 2,500 trees upon 100 acres. By 1862, he owned over two thirds of all orange trees in California having the largest grove in the United States. He is also credited for planting the first persimmon trees in Los Angeles.
When Wolfskill bought Rancho Santa Anita he lived at the former adobe home of Hugo Reid. He planted eucalyptus seeds at the ranch, which were imported from Australia. The eucalyptus trees, which still stand at the Arboretum near the lagoon, were the first of their kind in California. Wolfskill died in 1866 at age sixty-eight. His son, Louis Wolfskill took over the operation of the rancho.
Louis Wolfskill began further subdivision of the rancho. In 1869, he sold 1,740 acres in the western section to Alfred and Katherine Chapman for $19,500. This property, which became known as Chapman Woods, was adjacent to L.J. Rose's Sunnyslope Farm. Louis Wolfskill also was the owner nearby Rancho San Francisquito, formerly owned by his father-in-law, Henry Dalton.
In 1872 the Santa Anita rancho was reduced to 8,000 acres when it was purchased by Harris Newmark for $85,000. Newmark was a Los Angeles merchant and land owner who was born in Germany. He came to California in 1853. His autobiographical work, Sixty Years in Southern California is a vivid, first hand account of life in the early years of Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. Newmark kept the ranch for only three years, selling it on March 19, 1875 to Elias J. "Lucky" Baldwin, the Comstock millionaire from San Francisco. Baldwin paid $200,000 for the land at $25 an acre, a considerable contrast from the twenty cents an acre that Hugo Reid sold it for twenty-eight years earlier.
Elias Jackson Baldwin was born on April 3, 1828 in Hamilton County, Ohio. He was raised on a farm near South Bend, Indiana. He eloped with his neighbor, Sara Ann Unruh. They had their daughter Clara in 1847. A wagon train brought the Baldwins to California in 1853. In San Francisco, Baldwin purchased a hotel, established businesses, and invested in real estate. In 1862, Baldwin divorced his wife, moved to Virginia City, and became interested in mining. In the 1860s, he began investing in a number of Comstock silver mines in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. In 1869, he returned to San Francisco with his new bride, Mary Cochrane Baldwin. However, this marriage was also doomed for divorce. By 1874, he made over $5,000,000 when he cashed out earnings in his Ophir Mine. Baldwin gained the sobriquet "Lucky" because everything he seemed to touch turned to gold.
In 1875, Baldwin retired from mining and began buying real estate in Southern California. By 1880, he owned over 35,000 acres of Southern California ranches. His property holdings included; Rancho Santa Anita (8,000 acres), Rancho San Francisquito (3,695 acres), Rancho La Cienega O' Paso de La Tijera (3,317 acres), Rancho La Merced (2,363 acres), Rancho Potrero Grande (4,431 acres), Rancho Potrero Chico (83 acres), Rancho Potrero Felipe Lugo (2,042 acres), Rancho Potrero Mission Vieja de San Gabriel (19 acres), and half of Rancho La Puente (17,964 acres). He also owned eighty acres in southeast Los Angeles, Temple Block and several other lots in downtown Los Angeles. Combined with his properties in San Francisco, Lucky Baldwin was possibly the wealthiest land owner in the state.
In 1879, Baldwin married his third wife, Jenny Dexter, a beautiful twenty-one year old woman. They had a daughter, Anita, who was named after Baldwin's beloved Rancho Santa Anita. Tragically, Jenny Baldwin died in 1881. Baldwin remarried in 1884 to a sixteen year old girl named Lillie Bennet. Lucky Baldwin was fifty-six years old at the time of this marriage.
When he first acquired Rancho Santa Anita he spent sparse amount of time there. He hired Dick Kelly as a ranch manager and invested a large sum of money into the property. He had 300 laborers working on the ranch, each earning about $1 a day. Lucky Baldwin eventually chose Santa Anita as his Southern California home. Moving into the old Reid house, Baldwin expanding it to eight rooms in 1879 by adding a wood framed wing to the west side of the adobe. Also, he built a Victorian style coach barn to store his horse driven vehicles. At his home ranch he raised thoroughbred race horses, thereby beginning a racing tradition at Santa Anita. He brought deer and peacocks to roam the ranch. A good number of the colorful fowl remain today.
Santa Anita reached its peak during the Baldwin ownership. There were 33,000 sheep and 3,000 head of cattle, 500 horses and large numbers of hogs and dairy cows. Baldwin's vineyards yielded 384,000 gallons of wine and 55,000 gallons of brandy at his own winery. Agriculture was a significant enterprise on the ranch. There were numerous varieties of fruit and nut trees, including 500 acres of orange groves and 3,000 English walnut trees. Baldwin kept one million fledgling trees in a nursery and he also experimented in cultivation. He planted crops foreign to California. Some examples included bananas, cotton, potatoes and tobacco.
In 1881, he built the Queen Ann Cottage next to the lagoon north of his adobe. This ornate Victorian mansion was built solely as a guest house. However, Baldwin preferred living in his quaint little adobe rather than the modern spacious cottage. It was restored in 1954 and still stands on the Arboretum grounds and his recognized by a plaque as State Registered Landmark 367.
In the 1880s, a real estate boom took place in Southern California. Baldwin began subdividing his multiple ranchos through his Los Angeles Investment Company. Many towns and cities were developed on all of Baldwin's ranchos. On Rancho Santa Anita, L. J. Rose's town of Rosemead sprung up in the south. Baldwin sold the eastern section of the ranch to Newton Monroe who established the town of Monrovia. Baldwin himself developed the Santa Anita Tract, which in 1903 incorporated into the city of Arcadia. He made himself the city's first mayor. Baldwin was instrumental in the establishment of the Santa Anita Race Track, a horse racing venue near his ranch house that opened in 1907.
Baldwin died on March 1, 1909 at his adobe in the bedroom formerly occupied by Hugo and Victoria Reid. His estate listed Rancho La Tijera as his most valuable possession. Baldwin's daughters, Clara Baldwin Stocker and Anita Baldwin, were the primary heirs to the Baldwin fortune. The Baldwin estate included 33,500 acres of farm land, 1,691 individual tracts of real estate valued at $10,612,025 and personal property valued at $318,776. Baldwin's daughters initially shared the 3,500 acre family home at Santa Anita, but eventually Anita Baldwin leased her sister's share and there established a livestock ranch which she called the Anoakia Stock and Breeding Farm.
In 1913, Anita Baldwin commenced with the construction of her own home at the corner of Baldwin Avenue and Foothill Boulevard in Arcadia. It was completed in 1915 at a price exceeding $225,000. This massive three story, fifty room, concrete palace remains today, but has been converted to a private school. In 1915, she uprooted the vineyards and orange groves to make way for additional pasture land. She also had some of her father's old supporting ranch structures torn down and replaced with more updated buildings. Later, she donated all the ranch's horses to the Army. On July 1, 1936, Anita Baldwin sold what was left of Santa Anita (1300 acres), including the Baldwin homesite, to Harry Chandler, the publisher of the Los Angeles Times. Anita Baldwin died in 1939.
Chandler formed the Rancho Santa Anita Corporation to manage the property. The corporation routinely rented the area near the spring fed lake and the Reid adobe to motion picture companies. Many movies were filmed on location here during the 1930s and 1940s. The shady lagoon and lush tropical vegetation along the shore often doubled for far off exotic lands. With the advent of television, the area was used as setting for numerous television movies and series. Chandler's corporation subdivided the remaining acres of Santa Anita and progress prevailed. In January 1947, Chandler sold 111 acres of Santa Anita to the State of California and the County of Los Angeles for $320,000. The purchase included the lake and the Baldwin-Reid homes. With the combined efforts of the state and county, the property was transformed to the magnificent Arboretum that is currently enjoyed by hundreds of visitors daily.
Restoration of the Hugo Reid Adobe began in 1958. The state wanted to restore the adobe to its original appearance of 1839, when Hugo Reid resided there. This was a difficult task because the adobe was altered so many times over the years; the original building was untraceable. Restorers found three different types of adobe brick and three methods of construction. The wood framed wing was torn down because extensive termite damage made it irreparable. A red tile roof, which was added by one of the previous owners, was removed and a flat wooden one replaced it. Most of the work was done in the traditional way and authentic building materials were used as much as possible. Over 15,000 adobe bricks, which were used to replace those missing or damaged within the house walls or courtyard walls, were all made from earth immediately surrounding the homesite. This arduous task was completed on May 5, 1961. The state declared it California Registered Landmark #386 and placed a plaque upon the front exterior wall of the adobe.
The variety of trees, plants, shrubs, gardens and flowers of the 127 acre Los Angeles State and County Arboretum attracts horticulturists as well as those who just admire its tranquil beauty. The natural and serenity of locality makes one feel that they are miles and miles away from the fast paced city life. The Hugo Reid adobe, the Baldwin structures, and the lagoon are located in the historical section of the Arboretum just south of the front entrance. They stand in an ideal place, lost in time, away from the sights and sounds of modern day life. Here, it is easy to imagine the days when Don Perfecto Reid graced his simple adobe home and his princely Rancho Santa Anita.
The front courtyard is a bare dirt covered space enclosed by an adobe wall. A stone well is located in the center beneath a brush covered shelter. The immediate surroundings of the adobe are scarcely landscaped with vegetation. Long ago, remote ranchos were vulnerable to bandits, cattle thieves, and bands of hostile Indians. As a security measure, plantings were kept to a minimum and at low levels in order to not obstruct the occupant's view of the countryside. William Wolfskill's eucalyptus trees can be seen near the edge of the lagoon.
This adobe is a superior example of a typical adobe ranch house in the early 1800s. Restorers did an excellent job bringing out the ambiance of the halcyon era of the rancheros. Only three rooms remain today. The level roof extends over the corredor upon hand hewn beams. The adobe brick texture of the brightly painted white walls is noticeable, unlike most restored adobe buildings, which have concrete or plaster covering the bricks. The house is simplistic, yet very attractive, as it blends with its natural setting.
Visitors can not go into the adobe, but the interior may be viewed through the windows. The rooms are furnished in the era of Hugo and Victoria Reid. A combination of styles is represented. Primitive log frame beds lashed with raw hide, hand cut wooden chairs with woven seats, and unpretentious tables are mixed with hand crafted furnishings from New England. Also evident are the items Reid brought with him from the Orient. The wood floors are not reflective of the era, as most flooring in adobes were merely dirt.
It is an all day affair to take in all the beauty of the entire Arboretum. You may want to bring a lunch because there are many pleasant picnic sites available. It is a perfect day trip to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city.
Hugo Reid Adobe
Los Angeles State and County Arboretum Website
301 N. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia, CA 91007
Map
626 821-3222
Open the the public
Daily 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Closed Christmas Day.
Historic Adobes of Los Angeles County © 1997 John R. Kielbasa
Photos © 2001-2004 LAokay.com