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In 1910 the family moved to their new home at 1350 Garfield Avenue, San Marino, California. The mailing address was South Pasadena since San Marino did not then have a Post Office. Looking back, never was there such a wonderful place for children to grow up. Mother fell completely in love with the place and named it Broadoaks, a name which was copied by commercial enterprises later on.
Broadoaks was a two-acre rectangular parcel cut from the 14 acre Thadeous Lowe Sr. (1) Estate. Thadeous Lowe attained fame as a balloonist in the Civil War. He would ascend over the Confederate Lines, make notes and sketches of troop movements and send them back to the Union generals. When he moved to California, he built a lodge in the San Gabriel Mountains and, in cooperation with Henry Huntington, built a railroad to his Mt. Lowe Tavern. This was one of the great engineering feats of early California.
The Pacific Electric Red Car would leave Los Angeles, go through Pasadena, and climb to the foothills in Altadena. There passengers would transfer to the Incline Cable Car (patterned after Swiss cable cars) and be transported up a 45 degree mountain for about a half mile to the top of Echo Mountain. The twin cable car would be descending at the same time and would pass at the half-way point. The passengers would again transfer to a smallish Red Car and by way of a twisting, cliff hanging route, would end up at the Tavern almost a mile in the sky! You can well imagine what a wonderful tourist attraction this was to Mid-westerners who had never seen a mountain in their lives. A huge searchlight was installed on Echo Mountain and could be seen flashing at night all over Southern California.
When Thadeous Lowe, Sr. built the house at the turn of the century, (which Dad purchased) electric power was not yet available. However, he was foresighted enough to have the house wired. It was the old fashioned "knob and tube" installation and in each place where there was an outlet, there was also a gas outlet for gas lights. One of the seven wonders of the world to me is why the old homestead didn't burn down half a dozen times!
Broadoaks was set back about a hundred feet from the street in the middle of the lot, which was two hundred feet wide and 400 feet deep. It was bounded on the South by an orange grove, and on the north and east by the Lowe Estate, which was planted like a jungle with palms and other sub-tropical trees and shrubs. There were thirteen Live Oak trees ranging in age from about fifty years to the huge, two hundred and fifty year old monarch in the center of the back lawn. This tree was about fourteen feet in circumference at the base.
It was an old wood, lath-and-plaster, rambling homey home of twenty-two rooms that seemed to have "Welcome" written all over it. The city water supply in those days was something less than would be desired, especially in the summertime. This was offset by a 400-500 gallon water tank in the large attic above the third floor. No matter what the City did we were always assured of an adequate supply under a constant pressure.
The entire exterior of the house was covered with shingles. There was a large porch three steps above ground level at the front door and another above it on the second floor opposite Mom and Dad's room. The main source of heat was an oil burning furnace in the large basement but many times all that was necessary was the heat provided by seven open fire places. The most unheard of item for these times was the fact that we had seven baths (or half baths) and eight toilets.
One entered the house through the massive oak front door into a wide hall with an eleven foot ceiling (the three main downstairs rooms all had high ceilings) replete with hanging chandelier and an Oriental rug on the floor. The entry hall extended the length of the house to French doors which opened onto the courtyard, in the center of which was a stone fish pond.
To the right of the entry hall was the living room. This room was thirty-three feet long and at the south end was an alcove where the piano was situated. I can still see Mom playing her own accompaniment, with her head thrown back singing "Oh, the Days of the Kerry Dancers". Both Mom and Dad were accomplished pianists and Dad played the organ at church. (2)
To the left of the entry way was the billiard/library room which also served as Dad's office. Dad always burned coal in his fireplace and I remember the pleasant odor from it.
The rest of the downstairs was built in a semi-circle around the courtyard. On the north side there were two baths, the guest room, a spare bedroom and the nursery where I first saw the light of day. On the south side was the dining room, butler's pantry, a huge kitchen with walk-in pantry, and back porch. To the left of the kitchen was the cook's apartment with it's own bathroom and open fire place.
The Master bedroom with it's own fireplace and bath was front and center on the second floor. On the north side was the "screened porch" where my brothers and I slept. The other second floor rooms were spare bedrooms and a sewing room. The third floor was reserved for the maid and nurse.
The driveway was about thirty feet from the north boundary. It started with two large stone pillars at the parkway, continued due east past three orange trees and a huge pine and opened out to a turning area by the house. Skirting the left wing of the house it made a wide sweeping turn to a "y", one leg going to the back porch and the other curving around the play area to the garage. On the left-hand side of the driveway, a five-foot high aloe hedge enclosed the fruit trees and the vegetable garden. There was a persimmon tree, an apricot, peach, quince, prune, two orange trees and a purple guava, my favorite.
The garage area consisted of a three-car garage, a car port and an attached barn, with horse stalls and a hay loft. More fun to play in! The property broke away to a steep hill to the east property line with a small plateau where our gardener, Nishi, lived with his wife and small children. Dad had purchased an old horse-drawn street car with all the seats and a loud clanging bell. More fun!
The first car I remember riding in was our 1912 Cadillac. It had right hand steering, Prestolight headlights (which used carbide gas and had to be lighted by hand) and tires which would go flat at the drop of a hat. We always carried cylinders of compressed air to repair the tires on the road. It was an open touring car with Isinglass curtains which were put up in bad weather. Our other car, which was Alright's favorite, was a two cylinder Northern with a leather lined clutch and friction drive. No transmission. It would do fifteen miles an hour with a sack of grain and two passengers up Fairoaks Hill!
1 Thadeous Lowe was the grandfather of Florence Leontine Lowe (Pancho) Barnes, the aviator and stuntpilot. She purchased the home and property on Garfield Avenue after Alvin Scott and Grace divorced.
2 Scott set some poems by Robert L. Stevenson to music. He
had a soft-cover book published to commemorate this effort: A
Child's Day words from A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert L.
Stevenson, Music by Alvin Scott Ormsby.
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