Photo Essay: The Gold Coast Estate of Rancho Palos Verdes, Never Built

One of the oldest structures in the City of Rancho Palos Verdes is a gatehouse along the ocean side of Palos Verdes Drive South...

Screenshot via Google Streetview

...just past the Portuguese Bend active landslide area and above Abalone Cove and the Portuguese Bend Reserve.

It's known as the "Harden Gatehouse" at "Portuguese Point"—but neither of those designations are entirely accurate.



Yes, it's a gatehouse that was built in 1926—but it's not on the Point. A larger estate was meant to be built there but, in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, never was. (Thankfully, because the active landslide area would have dumped it into the Pacific Ocean. There's still a building moratorium there.)



And while Edward Harden did live there, his isn't the name that would go down in history in Palos Verdes history.



It was his wife, Ruth Vanderlip—sister of Frank Vanderlip, the Midwestern investment banker who, in 1913, bought the Palos Verdes Peninsula sight-unseen and is considered its founder (or father, I suppose).



The siblings were so close that when the Vanderlip estate was being developed, Frank tried to coax Ruth to come from the East Coast to join him, and she agreed on one condition—that she get the oceanfront property.



So, Ruth and her husband Edward commissioned the gatehouse to be built (a precursor to the many gated communities still present in PV today).



When they moved in, it was along with various servants, who resided in their own wing.



The servants' wing also functioned as a garage with plenty of room for multiple cars.



The Tuscan design of the gatehouse, courtesy of architect Gordon B. Kaufmann (known for his work on the Los Angeles Times building, Greystone Mansion, Santa Anita Racetrack, and Hoover Dam), was inspired by the Dovecote building in Ospitaletto, Italy. It was never meant to be the main attraction—but of course now that's exactly what it is.



Despite the credentials of its creators and original occupants, the Harden Gatehouse is practically never open to the public—though its been designated the Palos Verdes Heritage Castle Museum by its owners Dr. Allen Ginsburg, a retired eye surgeon, and his wife Charlotte, who purchased it in 2014.



Somehow, I managed to get a small, private, docent-led tour just by asking—and boy am I glad I did.



Because the gatehouse has only changed hands a couple of times throughout history—and always among private owners, never a commercial development—many of its features are original, including chandeliers and other lighting fixtures.



And what was lost from the period of Ruth's occupancy is slowly being returned to its rightful place.



When furnishings and other personal items were sold off in an estate sale—seemingly lost forever—there was a blessing that would come into play when the museum staff attempted to reassemble them in their rightful places.



Many of those who purchased the Vanderlip/Harden decor were Palos Verdes neighbors, or closely related—making them easy to track down and repurchase at a reasonable price.



Only a fraction of them have found their way back so far, with more on their way. But what's there now—while the museum isn't yet open to the public—is still impressive.



Reportedly, some of the Harden Estate furnishings were made by the same artisan responsible for the gothic furniture for Hearst Castle.



Ruth and Edward always wanted their estate to be the Palos Verdes version of Hearst Castle...

...but it wasn't meant to be.



And in in 1956, an ancient landslide was reactivated by roadwork—forever dooming the development of the surrounding land, leaving the gatehouse as the only remaining relic.



In fact, the beach below Portuguese Point was closed to the public in 2016 because pieces of the cliff started falling from above. Since 1956, the Portuguese Bend land has moved hundreds of feet towards the ocean.



As far as anyone knows, Kaufmann's design has held up—and soon, the public will be able to explore it when the Palos Verdes Heritage Castle Museum is open for tours.



There's still some work to be done—both inside and outside. The landscape design (pre-landslide) by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. has lost a lot of its original character, save for a couple of benches that look out upon the Pacific.

Part of the preservation plan is to return the landscape to its original splendor—with exception.

The crisscrossed palm trees that had been planted by the film crew for the It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World might make a return appearance.

Stay tuned for dispatches from the second half of the Vanderlip Estate, up the hill from the Harden Gatehouse—known as "Villa Narcissa."

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: A Day at the Rancho, A Step Back in Time
Photo Essay: The Mysteries of Brand Park in Historic Glendale
Photo Essay: The Estate and Gardens of the First Lady of Beverly Hills
Photo Essay: San Pedro's Sunken City

Memorializing Disasters in Space Flight

For anyone born around 1975, the Challenger disaster was a big deal. We remember it—being shown the footage in school—the way that my mother must remember watching the JFK assassination on TV.

It seemed incomprehensible.

It was a time when young schoolgirls idolized the first [Ed: American] woman in Space, Sally Ride.

Three years later, Christa McAuliffe was to follow in her space boots. But on January 28, 1986—midway through my fifth-grade year—the Challenger exploded and broke apart into two pieces just 73 seconds after launch. All seven crew members died.

That was 32 years ago. I was 10.

But there's another space shuttle disaster that, in terms of human death toll, was just as bad, just 15 years ago: the Columbia, which disintegrated upon reentry after its mission  STS-107 on February 1, 2003.

It also killed all seven of its crew members.

The image of the Challenger becoming obliterated into two puffs of smoke is an image I wish I could forget, like the cloud coming out of the side of one of the World Trade Center towers. But in 2003, I was long out of school. I was knee-deep in my life working in the music industry in New York City. To be honest, I don't really remember the Columbia disaster happening.



Fortunately, both orbitors are memorialized at the Columbia Memorial Space Center, built upon the former site of the NASA Industrial Plant in Downey, CA.



Marked at the entrance by Apollo Boiler Plate 12’s command module...
...


...the Columbia Memorial Space Center is a hands-on space museum with interactive displays like robotic arms, a gravity well, a shuttle simulator, robotics lab, rocket launcher, and of course an astronaut suit photo opp.



There's also the Challenger Learning Center, where you can simulate a return to the moon...



...or a voyage to Mars.



It seems fitting that this living tribute to the crew of the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disaster be located on the site where the space shuttles were actually built...



...at the former Vultee Aircraft Plant (circa mid-1930s), later known as Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation (Convair) and, in response to President Kennedy's proclamation that launched the "space race," the Resident Apollo Spacecraft Office (RASPO).



Unfortunately, much of that original manufacturing and assembly complex responsible for the space shuttles that ended in disaster—known as North American Aviation—has been razed, paved over, and converted into a strip mall.



In fact, in one of the only remaining buildings, there's a T-Mobile store, though the inside has been gutted.



That's just around the bend from—and technically part of the same structure as—the Vultee Aircraft Company rotunda entrance at 12214 Lakewood Boulevard, designed by architect Gordon B. Kaufmann.



It's currently unoccupied, though presumably it's been spared the bulldozer.



This campus once housed over 300 astronauts, government contractors, and support personnel during the peak of the Apollo program...



...but at the peak of the plant (circa the mid-1960s), it actually was home to 35,000 workers.



From 1972 to 1985, a total of six vessels for "space transportation" (a.k.a. reusable spacecraft, which was a new thing) came out of the Downey plant: the Enterprise, the Columbia, the Challenger, the Discovery, the Atlantis, and the Endeavor.



But even before the Columbia disaster—widely attributed to a problem with a piece of foam that came flying off, a problem that NASA had known about for quite some time—the aerospace and defense business at the Downey plant was purchased by Boeing in 1996.



It subsequently continued on a smaller scale, until NASA relocated the remaining activities relocated to other sites and the NASA site was closed in 1999.



By then, the Columbia had been successfully accomplishing a variety of space missions for nearly two decades—including the very first flight of the space shuttle program in 1981.

But upon the near-completion of its 28th mission, when it disastrously killed all seven of its crew members in 2003, NASA suspended space shuttle flights while it investigated the accident over the course of two years.

It had been the Space Shuttle program's 113th flight.

And ultimately, the spacecraft that kicked off the Space Shuttle program essentially ended it, directly leading to the retirement of the entire fleet in 2011.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena
Spotting the Shuttle Endeavour on the Streets of LA
Photo Essay: Where Airplanes Go To Rest

Will the Relocated LA Times Have to Report On the Demolition Of Its Own Headquarters?

The first time I wrote about the Los Angeles Times, I focused on the process of getting a story from pitch to print.



I didn't focus much on the building itself—maybe because the tour I took was at night and I didn't much notice the exquisite 1935 design by Gordon B. Kaufmann. Or maybe I thought the building would be there forever and I'd have plenty of time to get to it eventually.



I never thought the LA Times building would be used for anything but housing the offices of The Times. The name is carved right into the side of the building, lit at night by neon tubes.

circa 2017

But then the impossible happened: The Times was sold, and its staff packed up to move to its new offices in El Segundo.



Now, the fate of that landmark building at the corner of Spring and First hangs in the balance.



It's not landmarked—yet (though preservationists are trying). And as of this month, it's no longer accessible to the public.



But there was a time when anyone could walk into the front door and admire the Art Deco "Globe Lobby," even outside of a guided tour and even without an appointment upstairs.



The globe itself no longer turns on its bronze pedestal, but it used to—all five and a half feet of it across, spinning aluminum above bronze bas-reliefs and bronze lettering that quotes Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, referring specifically to Antony: "His legs bestrid the ocean. His reared arm crested the world. His voice was propertied as all the tuned spheres."



The globe is still in its lobby, for now. The plan is to move it either into storage or to the new El Segundo office, but it feels like it belongs there, below those 10-foot murals of LA and newspaper history painted by Hugo Ballin in 1934 as part of the WPA. Below the murals, more bronze text reads, in part, “The newspaper is a greater treasure to the people than uncounted millions of gold," quoted from 19th century clergyman Henry Ward Beecher's “Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit.”



As inscribed in the marble doorway out front, the LA Times building is "dedicated to the cause of true industrial freedom and liberty under the law" and "...stands as a symbol of faith in California." Some have interpreted that to mean the freedom for workers to strike—but it also seems to address freedom of the press, free speech, and not only the pursuit of truth but the sharing of said truth once it's discovered.



And that has held true whether the Times was typeset on a linotype machine (starting in 1893, it was the first newspaper on the West Coast to use such a contraption) or, as of 1974, on a computer.



The antique linotype machine once on display in the Globe Lobby has been moved to storage, as have the busts of the Chandler family that founded and ran the LA Times for generations: General Harrison Gray Otis (1886-1917)...



...his son-in-law Harry (1917-1944) and Harry's son Norman (above, 1944-1960)...



...and Norman's son Otis Chandler (above, 1960-1980).



Into storage has also gone the "Times eagle" by Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum, which was originally installed on the roof of the newspaper's second location in 1891 to symbolize the motto “Stand fast, stand firm, stand sure, stand true.” And so it did—because it was basically all that survived the 1910 bombing.

It was removed from the roof of this building in 1956 and relocated to the Art Deco elevator lobby, just past the security gate.

Maybe the eagle should go wherever the newspaper goes—and not be tied to any one building. Maybe it should move from the fourth headquarters in Downtown LA to the fifth in El Segundo.

But what does that mean for this building, which was designed and occupied entirely as a daily newspaper publishing operation, the largest of its kind in the West? (Not to mention the other structures that were added on later, all of which are included in the proposed landmark designation.)

There's a lot of space that's up for grabs right now, subject to the whim of the developer that purchased it, Onni Group. The Canadian company doesn't have a great preservation track record so far—in its "redevelopment" of the Art Deco headquarters of the Seattle Times from 1931, it demolished most of it and incorporated only the facade into its new residential towers.

And that newspaper HQ had been declared a city landmark for two decades.

Related Post:
Photo Essay: Inside the Los Angeles Times, From Written to Printed (Updated for 2017)