An Unhappy March for Charles Fletcher Lummis and The Southwest Museum

Posted on March 31, 2019 by Kim Cooper in The Esotouric Blog and tagged 1920s, 20th century, arroyo seco, autry museum of the american west, charles fletcher lummis, demolition by neglect, el alisal, highland park, historic preservation, lummis league, museum, museums, national register, native american, public policy, redevelopment, southwest museum.

March was a sacred month for Charles Fletcher Lummis, that remarkable character who gave so much to his adopted home of Los Angeles and to the greater Southwest. It was the month of his birth, and the time of the wildest of the revels hosted in his stone castle home along the Arroyo, honoring himself and his fellow “March Hares.”

How tone-deaf of the Autry Museum of the American West to choose March to announce that, having taken possession of the Southwest Museum’s priceless collections and endowment following the institutions’ 2003 merger, it would be seeking proposals from developers to take over the white elephant on the hill, the institution erected by Lummis as the culmination of a lifetime of collecting, interpreting and preserving the cultural history of the region.

The tale of the decline and erasure of the city’s first museum is long and depressing. It includes artifact theft by administrators, neglected infrastructure and collection care, and a failure by the City of Los Angeles to do its due diligence when the Autry family came calling with empty promises to make all the Southwest’s problems go away.

Since then, it has been a tale of bad faith from the Autry and hard, heartbreaking work by community groups seeking to protect Lummis’ great gift and hold those who control it accountable.

The future of the Southwest Museum will be debated soon, in the court of public opinion, in the press and at City Hall. Before Los Angeles considers what to do with this endangered National Treasure landmark, it’s beholden on anyone who cares to look to the source and understand what has been lost during these dark years of the Autry’s control of the Southwest Museum, and what potentially will be lost forever if the redevelopment plan is allowed to go forward.

We direct you to this 1910 pamphlet, published by the Southwest Society of the Archaeological Institute of America: Two great gifts: the Lummis library and collections and the Munk library.

In it, you will find the text of the last will and testament of Charles Fletcher Lummis, explaining his reasoning for gifting his valuable collections of art and artifacts and a library of 5000 items to the newly formed Southwest Museum, a promise made in the sacred month of March on the occasion of his 51st birthday.

The gift was an expression of Lummis’ faith in the potential of Los Angeles to become a great cultural center, and of his determination that the disparate materials that only he could have collected should remain forever intact and accessible in an institution dedicated to their study and interpretation.

If old man Lummis were to stumble today out of a time machine and discover what has become of his beloved Southwest Museum, we would hear oaths and epithets of a vehemence seldom expressed among cultured people. For the incredible gift that he so carefully prepared for the edification and delight of future generations has been squandered and cannibalized, again and again. Lummis would be well be within his rights to demand that his collections, no longer freely available for public use at the Southwest Museum, revert to the possession of his heirs.

Read his will. And if his words move you, as they do us, do not let the story of the Southwest Museum be a slow motion train wreck ending in its complete loss. Say NO to the commercialization of this historic institution. Demand that the Autry honor their commitment to preserve and reactivate our city’s first museum, or step aside and allow the collection and buildings to be cared for by an institution that will.

A Rare Tour of Dr. George Hodel’s Whimsically Weird Childhood House

Posted on January 26, 2019 by Kim Cooper in The Esotouric Blog and tagged 20th century, Alexander Zelenko, arroyo seco, black dahlia, folk architecture, george hodel, hermon, historic-cultural monument.

Some believe that the architecture of the home that a person grows up in has a profound influence on their developing mind. So while the open-plan modernist houses of mid-century suburbia provided ample space for computing pioneers to imagine new worlds, it’s not surprising that a kid who had to bed down in Lloyd Wright’s stark Mayan-inspired Sowden House might hatch some dark ideas about the father who paid the mortgage.

Sowden House is a Los Angeles landmark and a fascinating example of a traditional Spanish casa infused with material innovations and the theatrical needs of Hollywood’s social set. But as you’ll see in this explorable 3-D scan from our ongoing series, it’s pretty creepy.

Young George Hodel, whose tenancy has given Sowden House a lasting notoriety, briefly lived with his parents in a very different, but no less remarkable, dwelling. Just across the Los Angeles River and up the artsy Arroyo, on the edge of South Pasadena, stands The Hodel Residence and Tea House, a designated Los Angeles landmark (HCM #802) designed by genre-hopping Russian architect Alexander Zelenko in 1921.

Thanks to Esotouric pal Thessaly “The Ukulady” Lerner (she composed our podcast theme song!), who had the pleasure of renting the landmark, we’re pleased to share rare views of the Hodel Residence at 6412 Monterey Road. With its storybook details and theatrical spaces, Zelenko’s design makes a lasting impression.

We like to imagine the young George Hodel, a musical prodigy, entertaining his parents and their cultured friends from the balcony above the hearth. How different everything might have been, had he raised his own family in this fairy tale dwelling, and not across town in the shadowy house of mystery!

And yet, there was the strangest little reminder of Steve Hodel’s abiding belief that his father is The Black Dahlia’s murderer: Thessaly directed us to park, not on Monterey Road, but above the house… on SHORT WAY. Coincidence, or something more sinister?

We hope you enjoy your visit to one of the most eclectic residential landmarks in Los Angeles. Click the first photo to explore. And to hear a little more about George Hodel, join us on the Real Black Dahlia crime bus tour. The next date is on April 20.

Arriving via Short Way, we find…

…a most unusual house like nothing else in Los Angeles, and perhaps the whole country.

A patio serves as an outdoor living room…

… with impressive views out toward Glendale.

Stark geometric rhythms dace across the roofline.

When you step inside from the patio, the great room reveals itself, filled with charming character details.

The roof has something of an inverted ship quality, or a barn somewhere in snowy mountains.

The inside of the witch’s hat window course.

The landscape framed in shingles.

Balconies project to create semi-private spaces in the shared great room.

A very Russian detail in the balcony slats.

The fanciful mural features peacocks and a weeping willow tree.

Thessaly’s collections blend in around the inglenook, with its beaten metal hood and broken mosaic frame.

Hearth detail.

Through the looking glass.

A panorama of the central hearth and projecting balcony. Sit a spell and perhaps George will play us a tune.

In Search Of… 1914 Hobo Inscriptions in the LA River

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Kim Cooper in The Esotouric Blog and tagged 1910s, 20th century, a no. 1, army corps of engineers, arroyo seco, confluence, graffiti, hobo, leon ray livingston, los angeles river, susan phillips.

If you read our most recent newsletter, you know how excited we are to have learned that some 102-year-old hobo graffiti survives on the undersides of bridges in the L.A. River.

Today, we descended into the concrete channel with historian Susan Phillips to see some of her favorite pieces and seek out new discoveries of our own. (And yes–we actually found something–but you’ll just have to get on the next Eastside Babylon crime but tour to hear about it!)

Won’t you tag along on our journey into the strange, peaceful and historic riverbed?