Lummis Home ("El Alisal")

In 1895, Charles Fletcher Lummis purchased a 3-acre plot of land near the edge of the Arroyo Seco. By that time, Lummis was widely known as journalist, poet, historian, librarian, ethnographer, archaeologist, photographer, and Native American rights activist. The eclectic outdoorsman first became famous for documenting his 3,507 mile long walk from Cincinnati to Los Angeles through a popular series of autobiographical letters published in the Los Angeles Times in 1884.

Lummis began construction of a stone house on the 3-acre property in 1897. Over the course of the next 13 years, Lummis designed and built the structure almost entirely by himself. The final product, a unique 4,000-square-foot Rustic American Craftsman style home, was given the Spanish name "El Alisal" by Lummis- meaning "alder grove", a tribute to the nearby grove of alder and sycamore trees which Lummis was fond of. Given its location on the Arroyo Seco, Lummis- a lifelong preservationist- founded the Arroyo Seco Foundation in 1905 to protect and encourage healthy recreational uses of the environmental habitat.

Upon the house's completion in 1910, Lummis opened the house to an eclectic variety of guests. Prominent friends of Lummis such as Clarence Darrow, John Burroughs, John Muir, Madame Helena Modjeska, Will Rogers, Lorna Moon, and John Philip Sousa all stayed and spent time at El Alisal. Lummis loved throwing lively parties for his artist and socialite friends at the estate- much to the chagrin of his wife and young children. The exhibition hall's floor was purposefully made of concrete so that it could be easily cleaned after a night's festivities. Lummis even employed multiple live-in troubadours who supplied music for the after-dinner parties until every guest was either asleep or had left.

Lummis's freewheeling personality eventually led to trouble, however, as he began hiring attractive, young secretaries. After Lummis's wife, Eve, found confirmation of her husband's cheating in his coded journal in 1909, she left with two of their children. The bitter divorce proceedings lasted for five years, during which Lummis married his secretary Gertrude (whom he would later divorce in 1923). His alcoholism would later also cost him his job as Los Angeles city librarian, his connections, and eventually much of his fortune. In the final years of his life, Lummis began mending many of his close relationships with his family and friends. He died at El Alisal on November 24, 1928 at the age of 69. His body was cremated and placed in a vault in one of the walls of his beloved home.

After Lummis's death, El Alisal fell under the care of his children and the estate became dilapidated over time. In 1940, the house was almost demolished when the first freeway in the United States- the Arroyo Seco Parkway- was built between El Alisal and the flood control channel for the arroyo. Then, beginning in 1965, the Lummis Home became the site of the Historical Society of Southern California's headquarters. The Society restored the historic home and nominated it for a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument designation, which it received on September 2, 1970. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in the spring of the following year. After years of negotiations, the Historical Society left the house in 2014 and ownership was transferred to the City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department. Today, El Alisal is open to the public as a house museum and is open to the public for tours.

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