06.01.09
The Lummis House
While I’ve lived here in Los Angeles for most of my life, there’s still quite a lot that I haven’t seen here. For instance, on MOTA Day we visited, for the first time, the Southwest Museum. What a surprise it was to learn that it was actually the first museum here in Los Angeles, and I never knew. . . On the same day we also visited the Lummis House for the first time. I didn’t even know it existed until we visited Heritage Square back in March (which I still haven’t posted those pictures. . .) It was easy to know that Heritage Square existed because I would often see it from the freeway heading towards Pasadena. For a long time I had wanted to visit it and even heard of their candlelight tours during Halloween, but still took me “years” to finally visit.
Anyway, for this post I thought I’d share some of the pictures I took of the Lummis House. Oh, I guess it would help to know what the heck is the Lummis House? Well, evidently, the stone house was built and owned by Charles Fletcher Lummis back in the late 1800s. He apparently was well-connected and entertained many prominent people there. One such guest was Theodore Roosevelt who was actually one of his classmates while he attended Harvard. I found it difficult to get a good shot of the whole house, but think this is the best shot I got from the outside.
Another angle of the house can been viewed at Wikipedia. The Lummis House is also known as El Alisal.
Charles Lummis was an interesting guy. He was born in Massachusetts, somehow ended up in Ohio, then “walked” from Ohio to California where he intended to take a job with the Los Angeles Times. During that walk it is said that he learned to love the natural beauty and the cultural diversity of the Southwest. As I mentioned in my post regarding the Southwest Museum, it was Charles Lummis who founded that museum and also encouraged the restoration of the mission and adobe architecture in this area.
Charles Lummis became involved in quite a few things such as journalism, photography, and, poetry. He was not only involved with preserving the architectural landmarks in the Arroyo Seco area, but also was an Indian activist, author, and librarian. I just looked it up and found that my local library has one of his books called, Tramp Across the Continent. So I’ve got that one on hold, and hopefully I can finish reading my others books, too! I just checked out Heart of Darkness, and Fist Full of Diamonds, so we’ll see how far I get. . .
So back to the Lummis House. Inside one of the first things I liked was his piano.
Not sure if that’s a life-sized photo of him, but judging from the size of his “doors,” I am left with the impression that he wasn’t very big. I only got a chance to wander around one half of the house because the other side looked kinda crowded, and I was pressed for time. But I was impressed by his doors because they all looked different, but were all quite narrow, well, except this one.
Considering this entrance is a “double door” entrance, yeah, that is still pretty narrow.
But check out these other doors.
And this one.
And this one.
And this one. . . I asked Andrew to stand by this for a better size comparison. The other doors were comparable to this size.
Not sure why the doors were all so small and narrow, but I liked the way they were all different, and they looked like they were well-built. I liked Lummis’s style.
There was a tiny little fireplace which I would have taken had the table not been blocking a good shot of it. Plus there were lots of people milling about, so I had to take quick shots. But here’s another example of the cool stuff in the Lummis House.
Now that I’m writing this I’m thinking I should go back to see what was on the “other” side of the house!
We did take a walk around the garden. There were a lot of succulents there as well as a lot more people milling around outside. Behind there were more little sheds including a small water fountain. I can image what it was like there when he entertained, as there was quite a bit of space to walk around. Tucked away in the garden we found a nice lady working on some paper mache. She was preparing for a puppet play for the kids. We didn’t have time to stay and watch the play, but the gal was nice enough to show us some of her props and explain a little more about Charles Lummis. Here she is with one of her props of Theodore Roosevelt.
She was so friendly and pleasant that I wish we could have stayed and watched her play. She was explaining how the Lummis House actually has Charles Lummis’s ashes there. So the play was going to start out that way and tell about his life’s story. The other side of the picture of Teddy she’s holding is the shape of a “rock.” As she introduces each character, she would place the rock on a frame, so by the end of the play she would have constructed a little replica of the Lummis House. I thought that was such a clever idea.
Well that’s all for now. If I ever do go back to check out the other side of the house, I’ll try to post those pictures then. It’s kind of a funny thought to think of how many people’s houses are now open as museums. Who would have ever thought that one day hundreds of people would be traipsing through your house?
Marlakins
