Photo Essay: Lloyd Wright's Legacy Lives On at the Henry O. Bollman House

The construction of the Henry O. Bollman house in Los Angeles' Sunset Square Historic District is very much a story of sons. 

Henry's father was a prominent Hollywood man, Otto Bollman, president of the Dial Film Company (perhaps best known for the 1920 film The Tiger's Coat). 

Henry forged his own path as a builder/developer—and when he was planning for his own home to be built on North Ogden Drive in the early 1920s, he commissioned it from the son of one of the most notorious architects of the time. 

Photo Essay: A Wizard of Oz Christmas at Hotel del Coronado

One of the first places I visited when I started coming out to Southern California to visit was the Hotel del Coronado, on Coronado Island in San Diego. 

Hotel Del Coronado postcard (between 1907 and 1914), Baja California and the West Postcard Collection. MSS 235. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. [Public Domain]

I fell in love with San Diego right away and tried very hard to get a job there, but fate led me to Los Angeles instead. Still, I've found ways of returning to the city to the south and its grand dame of a Victorian hotel, known simply as "The Del."

   

I've eaten at the restaurant, gotten a hot shell massage in the spa, and taken the historical tour (on a gloomy day during lots of construction, so my photos aren't publishable) and the haunted Halloween tour—but the one thing I was really yearning to do was see the Christmas lights. 

Photo Essay: Christmastime at the Arboretum's Queen Anne Cottage

Of all the world-class botanic gardens in the Los Angeles area, I've probably been to the LA Arboretum the least. 

I don't really know why—be it the distance or simply the absence of a miniature train and a corpse flower. 

But one thing the Arboretum shares with its counterparts, like Descanso Gardens and The Huntington, is that it's located on the grounds of a historic estate. 

This was once the land of pioneer E.J. "Lucky" Baldwin, who came to Northern California in search of gold in 1853. He settled in Southern California in 1875, purchasing the Rancho Santa Anita and later subdividing it to create Arcadia, where the arboretum is now located.

 

Despite his wealth, Baldwin lived quite humbly in a small adobe home. But in 1885, he built a magnificent Queen Anne cottage for the entertaining of guests—and to show off how well he'd done for himself. 

Photo Essay: Holiday Bells and Whistles at the Bellagio Conservatory

This was my fourth time spending Thanksgiving in Las Vegas on a solo trip—and after taking myself out to dinner, I decided to head to the Bellagio for the Christmas display in its Conservatory & Botanical Garden.

I'd never seen the Conservatory displays at night—and I thought it might be a little less crowded, since Vegas itself is pretty quiet on Thanksgiving. 

Photo Essay: Toluca Lake's Magical Holiday Parade, on Christmas Eve

Last year, in search of festive plans for Christmas Eve, I volunteered as a caroler for the Toluca Lake Magical Holiday Parade—formerly known as the "Christmas Caroling Truck" or the "Christmas Truck Parade." 

This year, to the sacrifice of invites for dinners at friends' homes, I decided to experience this long-standing neighborhood tradition from the ground as a spectator. 

Photo Essay: Some Choo-Choo Cheer for the Holidays at South Coast Railroad Museum

I hadn't been to the Central Coast town of Goleta in years, probably over a decade—mostly because when I'm heading north past Santa Barbara, I take the inland rather than the coastal route. 

But when I finally got back there earlier this month, I knew there was once place I had to go: the South Coast Railroad Museum. 

 

Photo Essay: A Night of 4.5 Million Lights at the Mission Inn

It's been hanging over my head for 10 years now that I hadn't really done the Mission Inn's Festival of Lights "right" yet.

 

Photo Essay: Christmas Spirit Has Taken Over the Bellagio Conservatory in Vegas

I was feeling pretty grumpy this past week and doing my best to embrace Thanksgiving. I wasn't ready for Christmas yet. 

 

And then I arrived in Vegas, legs stiff from a four-hour drive, already weary from the holiday festivities that had not yet come, and swung by the Bellagio to see what they'd done at the Conservatory this season. 

Photo Essay: A Trek Around the Naples Island Christmas Decorations, Along Rivo Alto Canal

"But Sandi, you've done everything in LA!" my friends tell me. Not true, I say. I still have so much more to do. 

    

Take the Naples Canals in Long Beach, for instance. Although I'd ridden a gondola and even kayaked through them, I'd always wanted to check out the Christmas lights there or even attend the annual holiday boat parade—but until this year, I hadn't actually made it there yet.

Photo Essay: The Magical Holiday Parade, Upon the Centennial of Toluca Lake

Christmas Eve has always been more important to me than Christmas. I guess I've always just liked the anticipation better than the reality of things. 

So, in years that I'm not able to go back East for the holidays, the challenge is finding something to do when 'tis the night before Christmas and so many places are closed (or, sadly, extra-expensive). 

Historically, that's meant going over to a friend's house, attending church services, or even just hitting the neighborhood bars a little harder than usual.

But this year, I made a plan two months in advance: to volunteer as a caroler for the Toluca Lake Magical Holiday Parade in the village of Toluca Lake, California (technically part of the City of Los Angeles). 

Photo Essay: SoCal's Other Christmas Tree Lane, In Oxnard (ft. the F Street Railroad)

I'd already been to Christmas Tree Lane in Altadena, just northeast of the city of Los Angeles—but it's not the only Christmas Tree Lane around in Southern California. 

 

There's another one in the city of Oxnard in Ventura County, north of Los Angeles in the other direction—and this year I finally got to go (once again for a shoot for work).

Photo Essay: The Retlaw1 Disneyland Railroad Rules the Rails at Santa Margarita Ranch (Updated)

[Last updated 7/7/24 9:35 PM PT—I clarified some historical facts about the asistencia and the hay barn that was built around it, which have been misreported in various reputable and reliable sources. Now that I've written a blog post solely dedicated to that former mission site, I'm pretty confident I've got the facts straight now, so corrections are below.]

I knew that there were original RETLAW1 Disneyland train cars running on a railroad on the privately-owned Santa Margarita Ranch in the town of Santa Margarita, California. But I just hadn't been able to get to them yet. 

 

Photo Essay: Pasadena's Christmas Neighborhood, Lighting Up For 71 Years and Counting [Updated for 2025]

[Last updated 12/30/25 10:07 PM PT—At least 80 homes in Pasadena's Upper Hastings Ranch were lost or damaged in the January 2025 Eaton fire as of 1/20/25, according to Upper Hastings Ranch Association, mostly on Riviera Drive above Alegria Avenue (the street that abuts the Eaton Canyon Golf Course and the Sierra Madre Villa Debris Basin to the west) and the surrounding streets, particularly to the north. The light-up returned for the holiday season in December 2025.]

I don't remember how long ago it was that I drove through the Upper Hastings Ranch neighborhood of Pasadena, California looking for Christmas lights—and finding none.

 

But it's been years and years—and I've kept thinking I need to go back to figure out where they are.

 

Turns out, I think I was just too early in the season—because at least this year, the official start of the neighborhood Light Up is on Saturday, December 9. 

 

Although fortunately for me (and my plans to produce a video of it for work), a few houses were ready early this year—

Photo Essay: Nightflying the Skies In the D-Day Doll, a WWII-Era DC-3 Warbird

I typically prefer cars and trains to boats and planes—but I can't resist a good historic excursion on any of 'em.

So I was excited when my friend Charity texted me asking if I'd heard of or done the nighttime DC-3 flights over the city of Riverside, California offered during the Christmas season. My answer? No and no!

Photo Essay: Jingling On the Waves at Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade

One holiday tradition that Southern California has that I don't recall ever happening in New York City is the Christmas boat parade. 

I'd watched one from Ports O' Call in San Pedro back in 2013—but I couldn't see much. Though I was relatively unimpressed, I was undeterred in my quest to find a better experience. 

I knew there were other Christmas boat parades in Dana Point, Huntington Beach, Ventura Harbor, and Newport Beach. I just didn't want to go alone. Or do all the planning myself. 

 

Fortunately, this was the year that my partner-in-crime decided she wanted to take up the gauntlet and figure out the best way to see the Newport Beach one—which, for us, turned out to be a spectator cruise offered by Davey's Locker on the Balboa Peninsula. 

Photo Essay: The Twice-Relocated Shipbuilder's House of San Pedro Bay

In 1901, German immigrant shipbuilder Wilhelm (William) Muller bought a Colonial Revival-style house at 129 Front Street in the Nob Hill section of San Pedro at the Los Angeles Harbor and moved in with his wife Elsie and their children. 

At the time, he was working as a master shipwright at the Banning Company's Mormon Island Shipyard in nearby Wilmington, designing steamships that took tourists to Catalina Island—like the Hermosa II and the Cabrillo—and even some of the glass-bottom boats at Catalina. That's when William Banning of Wilmington still owned Catalina Island—before he sold to William Wrigley in 1919. 

 

 

The house had been built in 1899 by San Pedro pioneer Edward J. Mahar for his parents at First and Front Street—but they never moved in, making the Mullers the only family to have ever resided there.

Photo Essay: Hark! The Blow-Mold Choir Sings at Lilley Hall (Or, "The White Christmas House")

In 1954, Joseph J. Lilley saw the release of the classic holiday film, White Christmas, for which he served as musical director and vocal arranger. 

 

That same year, he bought a two-story Tudor Revival home built in 1927 in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Toluca Lake, just on the other side of the Hollywood Hills in the San Fernando Valley.

Bob Baker Marionette Theater Brings Enchantment Back In Its Grand Re-Re-Opening (After A 16-Month Closure)

The year 2020 was a rollercoaster for everybody, but I can only imagine the panic felt by the fine folks at Bob Baker Marionette Theater...

 circa 2019

...who'd just managed to reopen in a new space (the former York Theatre in Highland Park, Los Angeles) in December 2019 after getting pushed out of their home for 55 years. 

Photo Essay: O Me of Little Faith, at a California Central Coast Wine Country Church in the Santa Ynez Valley

About 20 miles north up the 154 from the San Marcos Pass is the quaint town of Los Olivos, a little gem of the Santa Ynez Valley wine country. 

It seems pretty obvious, then, why a congregation in that area would name themselves St. Mark's-In-the-Valley. 

But the Episcopalian worshippers of St. Mark’s-in-the-Valley actually didn't originate in Los Olivos—but a little farther south in the valley, in the nearby Danish town of Solvang.

A member of the Diocese of Los Angeles since 1943, it became clear in the 1970s that it was outgrowing its home and needed to move. 

    

Photo Essay: A Festive Visit to Fosselman's, LA's Oldest Ice Cream Parlor

 I thought I'd been to Fosselman's once before, in 2016. 

 

But when I supposedly returned this December, just over four years later, I had the strong feeling I had not been there before. 
 

 

So which historic ice cream parlor had I visited back then? Farrell's?

 

Well, no sense in splitting hairs now—even though I missed Fosselman's 100th anniversary in 2019. At least I got there. 
 

 

I'm not the biggest ice cream fan around, certainly not in the winter—though I find old school soda fountains and such parlors appealing for their historical value. 

Fosselman's—the town of Alhambra's self-proclaimed "Emperors of Ice Cream"—was founded in Iowa in 1919 by Christian Anthony Fosselman, the youngest child of a German immigrant brewmaster. He relocated to Pasadena in 1924 and arrived in Alhambra in 1941.

Although at one time there were several retail and restaurant locations, the Alhambra outpost (a circa 1905 building, also the location of the Fosselman Creamery Company's production facility) is the last to survive.* 

Third-generation Fosselman brothers Chris and John currently run the business and have evolved their menu of flavors over time to accommodate the local community—particularly as the population of the San Gabriel Valley has shifted to include more Asian immigrants and their Asian-American descendants. 

 

The selection can be quite overwhelming—though you can be sure that you'll find the finest Tahitian vanilla, Dutch chocolate, and Real California Milk from a Chino Valley dairy that's also family-run. 

      

  

Fortunately, I was there to make my spirits bright with one of Fosselman's holiday-themed specialty flavors. Since I couldn't choose between "The Grinch" (green mint with chunks of cake) and "Peppermint Bark," I got a sundae with both of them in it.

And it was glorious. 

So maybe I'll go back for their summertime flavor specials, like sweet corn or watermelon sorbet.

Or their pumpkin-flavored ice cream in October. 

After all, Southern California can boast year-round ice cream weather (mostly).

*In 2019, brother Mike Fosselman opened The Ice Cream Shop in Glendora.

Related Posts:

Photo Essay: Do the Peppermint Twist

Photo Essay: The Tiny Trains of Christmas Tree Lane, Upon the 100th Anniversary of Its First Lighting