Photo Essay: Silver City, A Ghost Town Made of Pieces of Other Ghost Towns

When I first moved to California, some places just seemed so far away. It was impossible for me to wrap my head around making a day trip to Joshua Tree or Palm Springs—a three-hour drive each way. But over the past 14 years, my home state has continued to feel smaller and smaller, easier and easier to tackle. 

In April 2014, I made a detour from the Eastern Sierra to try to see Silver City Ghost Town in Bodfish, California, located in the Kern River Valley of the Southern Sierra. I'd gotten there too late in the day to catch it before it closed or to even photograph it in daylight. And it just seemed so out-of-the-way that it took me 11 years to try again. 

 

This time, I planned my trip a little better and got an earlier start, as I headed home from the early-morning Burro Run I'd attended in Indian Wells Canyon. 

Photo Essay: Heritage Square Museum Has Thrown the Abandoned Church Doors Open

For the entire time I've lived in the Los Angeles area (nearly 14 years now), there's been one building at Heritage Square Museum I haven't been able to get into. 

All the mansions and the former train depot have posed no problem—but the former Lincoln Avenue Methodist Church, on the other hand, was a longtime holdout. 

Photo Essay: Glimpses of Grace Cathedral's Art and Architectural Treasures

We had some time to kill while we were exploring San Francisco back in January. 

 

So, I asked my friend—who's not religious, but neither am I—if we could go to Grace Cathedral to take one of the tours they offered.

Photo Essay: The California Mission Ruins Hiding Inside a Humble Hay Barn

If you know where to look, you can find remnants of California's Mission Period throughout the state—whether it's old dams and aqueducts, or even a former winery for communion wine.

 

And sometimes, you find an actual mission in the most unexpected of places—like the former Santa Margarita de Cortona Asistencia (founded 1787-90), which is hiding in plain sight in the now-privately-owned Santa Margarita Ranch in California's Central Coast. 

Photo Essay: Immanuel Presbyterian, the French Gothic Cathedral in L.A.'s Koreatown

On a busy stretch of Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, right in the middle of the diverse community of Koreatown...

 

...stands a church whose design was inspired by 15th-century gothic cathedrals in France. 

Photo Essay: The Many Jesuses of Desert Christ Park, Restored and Resurrected

Sculptor Frank Antone Martin was a plaster pattern maker for the aircraft industry, based in Inglewood, California. He'd dreamed of placing a giant, steel-reinforced concrete statue of Jesus perched over the rim of the Grand Canyon—and even went so far as to make it. 

From a poem Martin wrote about the project (yes, he was a poet, too):

He fashioned an object of concrete and steel

To staunchly present his conviction and zeal;

The model he chose was the great Prince of Peace

Just standing there bidding all hatreds to cease.

Unfortunately, officials in charge of the Grand Canyon told him they didn't accept works from out-of-state artists.

Martin offered the statue to other venues, like Forest Lawn, which also turned him down. He started calling his monolithic Jesus figure "The Unwanted Christ."

Photo Essay: The 'Resurrection Church' of San Gabriel Mission, Reopened Three Years After the Fire

Mission San Gabriel Arcángel—known as the "Mother Church" of Los Angeles, founded by Spanish missionaries—just reopened to the public for the first time since an arson fire burned down the roof of its chapel nearly three years ago, in July 2020. 

 

I'd actually never been inside the church, the museum, or anywhere else on the grounds except the cemetery—so this seemed like a good occasion to finally take a tour with the Historical Society of Crescenta Valley. 

Photo Essay: Getting Baptized In Colored Light at St. Francis Episcopal Church, Palos Verdes Estates

Architect Walter Davis, of the venerated La Venta Inn in Southern California's Palos Verdes Estates, also designed the 1952 chapel at St. Francis Episcopal Church in PVE. That's the chapel that was advertised as part of Doors Open Peninsula a couple weekends ago. 

But when I got to the grounds, I was far more fascinated by a much more modern-looking, almost Googie-style chapel next door. 

Photo Essay: A Department Store Founder's Cliffside Summer Estate, Now The Neighborhood Church

One hundred years ago—on June 17, 1923—a real estate rally helped form what became known as the development of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, which is now comprised of four cities (Palos Verdes Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills, and Rolling Hills Estates). 

To celebrate, a bunch of cultural institutions, landmarks, historic sites, and other local attractions threw open their doors to visitors this past weekend, as part of "Doors Open Peninsula." 

 

My second stop of the day turned out to be one of the best: The Neighborhood Church, located in the former Haggarty House on Paseo del Mar in PVE. 

Photo Essay: A Spanish Castle for Catholic Priests and Classic Car Enthusiasts in Riverside, California

Images of turrets, drawbridges, and moats might evoke Europe for most people—but Southern California has its fair share of castles, too. 

   

And I'm discovering new ones all the time. 

Photo Essay: All Saints Episcopal Church, Beverly Hills

I've visited churches of many different faiths all over Southern California—and even in Las Vegas—but somehow in the 12 years that I've lived in Beverly Hills, I'd never stepped foot inside any of the three historic churches that line Santa Monica Boulevard right in the center of town. 

 

This past Presidents' Day, I decided to maximize my day off and not only visit all three of those churches—but do so by attending the annual Presidents' Day Organ Festival, hosted by Los Angeles Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and the Los Angeles Theatre Organ Society (which I'd been wanting to do for several years but could never muster the energy nor the time to make it there).

Photo Essay: A Peek Into the Millard Sheets-Designed Bank That's Becoming Chabad of Beverly Hills

A couple of weeks ago, I joined Hollywood Heritage on a bus tour of some of the Millard Sheets-designed bank buildings in the Los Angeles area. 

I'd already been inside several of them (including the closed Santa Monica location and the to-be-landmarked Sunset and Vine location)—but I was interested in what our guide, Adam Arenson (who literally wrote the book on Millard Sheets and his banks), would have to say. 

Since our tour took place on Memorial Day—a bank holiday—I assumed we'd only be able to admire these structures from the outside and peer through the windows. 

 

But then we got to the former bank on Wilshire Boulevard and Oakhurst in Beverly Hills—which I'd driven by many times.

Photo Essay: Santa Barbara's 'Queen of the Missions,' Never Abandoned

After visiting all of the other Southern California Spanish missions—including some of the sub-missions (or asistencias)—over the course of my 11 years living out here, I finally got to Mission Santa Barbara (in the Central Coast city of the same name). 

Founded in 1786 by the "forgotten friar" Friar Fermín de Lasuén—successor to Junípero Serra—as the 10th of 21 Franciscan missions, it's the only continuously operating mission in the California system. Even after secularization in 1833, the Franciscan friars were allowed to stay—helping this mission avoid the neglect and vandalism that plagued the others that were abandoned. 

It became known as the "Queen of the Missions"—a title it has retained, having never fallen into ruins.  

Photo Essay: The Grub, Grottos, and Gunfire of the Los Angeles Police Academy, Elysian Park

[Last updated 2/25/23 11:21 PM PT—Video embed added to bottom of post]

The Los Angeles Police Academy is one of the most recognizable landmarks of LA's Elysian Park...

 

...starting with its "Academy Arches," which have appeared in many TV and movie productions, including American Beauty and episodes of Dragnet and T.J. Hooker.

Photo Essay: Temple Isaiah, Where A Modernist Chapel Is Hidden Underneath a Giant, Brutalist Boat

Temple Isaiah in Palm Springs, California isn't just one temple—but two. 

And it's not just a synagogue—but also a Jewish Community Center, performing arts center, concert hall, and screening room for the Palm Springs Jewish Film Festival. 

Photo Essay: The Happy Trails Highway Hideaway Where Roy Rogers & Dale Evans Retired From Hollywood

Roy Rogers was such a big deal in the High Desert communities of California that there used to be a museum devoted to him there—first in Apple Valley (opened 1967), then in Victorville from 1976 to 2003, when it moved to Branson, Missouri. 

It closed for good in 2009 and its items were either sold at auction or donated (like to the Autry Museum in LA).

 

A statue of his golden palomino stallion Trigger once stood outside of the California version of the museum—now relocated to the entrance of the Spirit River Center in Apple Valley. 

   

Nowadays, the only place open to the public where you can really dive into the history of Roy Rogers and his partner (in work and life) Dale Evans is the Apple Valley Inn, the hotel they leased after moving to Apple Valley in 1965. 

Photo Essay: The First California Mission Named After a Female Saint (And the Only One on a University Campus)

At some point, I'll get to visit all of the California missions. But for now, I'm slowly ticking them off my list as the opportunities present themselves. 

 

My August trip to San Jose brought me to Mission Santa Clara de Asis—the eighth out of the 21 total, but the first mission to honor a woman. 

Photo Essay: Good Fortune Helped This California 'Mission By the Sea' Survive Seismic Surges and Secularization

Incorporated in 1866, Ventura is a 152-year-old coastal city along California’s Mission Trail.

 

In fact, the Old Mission San Buenaventura—in the city's historic downtown, just a little more than a half-mile inland from the nearest beach, as the seagull flies—really put Ventura, California on the map. 

Photo Essay: A Mountaintop Religious Enclave Founded By Hindu-Born Christian Yogi, Prince Mozumdar

I'd been wanting to visit the Pillars of God (below) and Mozumdar Temple for years now—but I'd been wary of just driving up there, as I'd heard that it's fiercely guarded by its private owner and that I'd need a 4WD to get to it. 

 

Photo Essay: Roycroft, the Utopian Colony of Philosophy and Decorative Arts

After I moved to LA and began exploring Southern California, I learned about the Arts and Crafts Movement by visiting The Gamble House, the Judson family's historic stained glass studio, and Ernest Batchelder's Pasadena home, adjacent to Bungalow Heaven. 

It never occurred to me that there'd be any Arts and Crafts activity anywhere in New York State, where I grew up. (I guess I forgot about Stickley.) 

But as I was traveling in and out of Buffalo on my way to make a hometown visit to Syracuse a couple of months ago, I arranged a visit to what I discovered is a federally recognized center of the American Arts and Crafts Movement. 

It's the national historic landmark (designated 1986) known as "The Roycroft Shops" (1895-1938)—located in the Buffalo suburb of East Aurora, in Western New York.