Ojai’s history is one of its most important resources. What would Ojai be without its unique history, and the historic resources that keep that history alive? From the Mission-Revival buildings donated by Mr. Libbey in 1917, to the rock walls and craftsman houses in the East End, to the Oak Grove where Krishnamurti spoke to thousands, these historic spaces contribute to the intangible quality of the Ojai experience.
The City of Ojai has recently embarked on a program to define, identify, and preserve the city’s historic resources. The following link connects to three reports that will be used in future preservation efforts.
The Valley’s rising population in the 1930s and 40s increased the demand for water. That demand was also evident in Ventura and in 1944, an act of the legislature formed the Ventura County Flood Control District. They employed Donald R. Warren as consulting engineer to evaluate the local water situation and he recommended a $3 million bond issue to construct a dam in the Matilija Canyon and another on Coyote Creek.
Under Construction 1946-47
[Construction began in June, 1946.] The Matilija Dam project met with major problems. Unexpected delays, rising costs and heavy criticism plagued the job. Clay began oozing from under the dam foundation in Matilija Canyon, and the carpenters walked out. The dam was eventually deemed unsafe and a lawsuit against the engineering firm ensued. This proved to be a very costly decision.
Under Construction 1946-47
Finally, despite all of these adversities, the site was judged safe and the workers completed the Matilija Dam in June, 1948. But the beautiful new dam stood embarrassingly empty for three years, as a severe drought was in progress. There wasn’t enough rain during that time to make more than a mud hole of the huge reservoir and that is what water customers were getting–mud. Finally, during the winter of 1951, a storm produced enough rain to fill the reservoir to capacity and the first spill occurred the following January [1952]. Conduit pipe carried water to the spreading grounds near the mouth of Senior Canyon at a rate of 1,350 gallons per minute. This water percolated into the ground and helped replenish the wells below.
First Spillover 1952
By March, 1952, 44,960 acre-feet of water had been lost over the Matilija dam spillway to the ocean. It was evident that a larger facility was necessary, especially when considering the long-range water picture. In the meantime, geologists tested a dam site at Coyote Creek. A possible fault caused the project to be canceled, but after further investigation, this decision was reversed. Consultants for the flood control district recommended a 90,000 acre-foot reservoir on Coyote Creek to stop the Matilija overflow, and the project was approved.
Lake Matilija
The Federal Bureau of Reclamation completed Casitas Dam in 1959. …Casitas Municipal Water District presently operates Matilija Dam, which is owned by the Ventura County Flood Control District. No water is served to customers from this source. Lake Matilija is used primarily to store water during flood periods for later transfer to Lake Casitas.
The above is excerpted from Patty Fry’s book The Ojai Valley: An Illustrated History. The book was updated in 2017 by Elise DePuydt and Craig Walker. It is available in the museum’s store and through Amazon.com.
Arnaz was a Merchant, Doctor and Rancherby David Mason
“A resident of San Buenaventura, a man of Spanish blood, would advertise a realty subdivision here in the papers of New York? That was Jose de Arnaz; and the subdivision was advertised in Leslie’s Weekly and in the Scientific American in 1846 – almost before the Mexican war had ended.”
“History of Ventura County” Sol N. Sheridan, 1926
The present Rancho Arnaz, now known for its apple orchards and apple juice, surrounds the old adobe ranch home of Don Jose de Arnaz. It is but a small part of the original 21,522 acres of land once owned by Arnaz.
Rancho Arnaz
The Province of Santander, Spain was the birthplace of Arnaz, but by the time that he had reached his 16th birthday in 1837, he left his Spanish home and set out on an adventurous journey to see the world. His first stop was Havana, Cuba. In 1841, he arrived in California aboard one of the merchant ships that would come to furnish the inhabitants with clothing, jewels, sugar and brandy in exchange for hides and tallow.
Soon after coming to California, Arnaz opened a general merchandise store in the pueblo of Los Angeles. It was a year later that he first came to San Buenaventura on a visit and, having enjoyed himself in the new surroundings, he made plans to settle there.
Arnaz was highly educated and destined for leadership in his new home. Through his early years of education, he had received a medical degree before starting out to see the world. What he found in the new country was a great need for a physician. Prior to his arrival, the only administrators to the sick were the Franciscan missionaries. Over the years, he gave of his services to the sick and furnished medicines when he could, never taking a cent for his labors. Arnaz, as an aristocrat in manner and appearance, and then as a public benefactor, received an immediate high standing in the community.
With the many new opportunities to acquire property, he became a large landowner – his holdings not only being in San Buenaventura, but also in various other parts of the state. At one time, he even held title to an island in the San Francisco Bay known as Yerba Buena, over which the San Francisco-Oakland Bridge now passes. ?In the small town of San Buenaventura, Arnaz opened the first general merchandise store, even before the county was established. In 1845, he was the lease holder of the Mission of San Buenaventura, having leased the property from the Mexican government for the sum of $1,630 per year. The lease included 1,407 head of cattle, 19 yoke of oxen and 2,158 head of sheep. The orchard at the mission contained 582 fruit trees, one vineyard of 1,510 vines and another vineyard of 3,800 vines.
The next year, he purchased the mission property for $13,000. The land totaled 48,822 acres. However, ownership by Arnaz was not recognized during the time that the Mexicans and the Americans were struggling over the possession of California. Once Arnaz had secured the title from the Americans, he sold the old San Buenaventura Mission to Dr. M.R. de Poli.
It was while living in San Buenaventura that Arnaz had his dealings with Col. John C. Fremont. Â Fremont had come to be a thorn in the side of the Mexican authorities of California. He came with secret instructions from the Washington authorities of that day to make observations and institute preliminary steps for the seizure of the province by the Americans.
As Fremont marched southward from Monterey in the winter of 1846, he found that the Mexicans were waiting for him in ambush at the Gaviota Pass where, at the narrowest part of the pass, men were concealed on the tops of the cliffs ready to roll rocks down on Fremont and his men. Fremont decided to avoid the Gaviota Pass and, instead, traveled over the San Marcos Pass through the Santa Ynez Mountains. Arriving in Santa Barbara after the difficult passage, the American flag was once more raised over the Presidio.
Leaving a small group of soldiers in Santa Barbara, Fremont marched the main body of his soldiers southward along the Rincon toward San Buenaventura. News of his coming had preceded him, and there was a mass exodus to the hills.
Arnaz, who was responsible for the mission workers, remained at his post. The family residence was just a short distance away, with a pear orchard between the house and the street on which Fremont would be traveling. When Fremont arrived, Arnaz furnished him with fresh horses and pack animals. Fremont gave him unsecured notes for each of the animals, but Arnaz was never able to collect from the American government. The bill was never paid.
Arnaz was also a great success in the field of agriculture. He planted the first field of wheat and raised the first crop of lima beans in Ventura County. Arnaz was not only a merchant, doctor and rancher, but he was also an energetic influence in establishing the township, which was incorporated in 1864 as San Buenaventura. Arnaz was also a supervisor from Santa Barbara County, which, at that time, included San Buenaventura. He was also one of the owners of the Santa Ana Water Company.
It was about this time that Arnaz acquired his Santa Ana Rancho holdings, a small portion of which is now known as Rancho Arnaz. Besides the adobe Arnaz home, there are other spots of interest nearby. The Arnaz School was built on land donated by Arnaz, and directly across the San Antonio Creek is the spot where Thomas R. Bard lived.
Bard House
Bard came to California to start the oil developments, using oil rights which were owned by Thomas S. Scott, assistant secretary of war under Abraham Lincoln. The Bard house was also used by Scott and some of the officers of his firm and their families. The little house on the mountainside was very picturesque and a landmark of those times.
When Bard, who later became U.S. Senator from California, lived in the house, Arnaz was his nearest neighbor. As was the custom of the times, he bought milk and other food supplies from his neighbor, as well as borrowing various articles occasionally.
In a letter written to his sister on Jan. 3, 1866, Sen. Bard told of having to make a trip to Santa Barbara and wrote: “Old Don Jose de Arnaz and I have quarreled many times over the price of sheep or his monthly bill for milk, etc., still we are friends and I knew he would not hesitate to hire his carriage to me if I wanted it. So, though it was late, I called to see the old fellow, hired his coach for three days for the modest sum of $25.00. ‘Now that sounds a great deal of money, but you must know that at one time,’ Arnaz reminded me, ‘this was the carriage of the former Mexican governor of California, Alvarado, and used by him and his family long ago, before the conquest by Americans, under Fremont, of Alta California.'”
Many famous people became a part of the life of Don Jose de Arnaz. At the time that Joaquin Murietta was frightening people all over the country, he made a visit to the Rancho Arnaz adobe. It was very late at night and one of the Arnaz daughters heard the sound of water being drawn from the well that was just outside her window. She cautiously peeked out and, recognizing the noise makers as Murietta and his bandits, she warned her father, who with his sons, took up their positions with guns at various windows to guard their home.
Murietta and his men walked around the house, saw that it was too well-guarded and left without disturbing the family. However, the bandits took with them the Arnaz cattle, driving them toward the Ojai Valley. Arnaz and his sons organized a posse with their neighbors and started in pursuit. They overtook Murietta somewhere between the ranch and the Ojai Valley, recovering the stolen cattle while Murietta and his men escaped into the Sespe.
Today, the Rancho Arnaz adobe and cider barn are constant reminders of a bygone era. The buildings have been well-maintained by their owners and each remains a treasured Ventura County landmark.
In 1874, Andy Van Curen circulated a petition for another school that would be closer to the newly established village. As soon as school superintendent F.S.S. Buckman approved it, Abram Blumberg started making the bricks for the structure near where the main tennis courts are today in Libbey Park. A note in a July, 1874 issue of the Ventura Signal, states, “A brick kiln will be burned on the Ojai during the summer.”
One night a mountain lion sauntered through the drying area behind Blumberg’s Nordhoff Hotel and left a paw print in a brick. Blumberg gave this keepsake to his daughter, Inez.
While the bricks were being made, the townspeople immediately erected a temporary schoolhouse on Matilija Stree west of John Montgomery’s house. Soule and Pirie offspring reported in later years that after having lessons in this crude structure for a few months, the students considered the new brick schoolhouse a “palace.”
The oblong brick schoolhouse consisted of one classroom and two anterooms. It had a sixteen-foot ceiling and four windows on each side allowed sunlight in. A drum in the center of the classroom provided necessary heat. The students sat in pairs at double desks and there was a bench in front of the teacher’s desk for reciting. Mrs. Joseph Steepleton, who had previously conducted a private school in her home, accepted the teaching position for the newly established Nordhoff School District.
The original wooden schoolhouse was moved to the top of the grade and became known as the Ojai School District. In about 1883, upper valley residents built a larger schoolhouse two miles east, reportedly on the boundary of Hobart’s and Robinson’s properties. This school operated independently until 1965.
Jerome Caldwell and F.S.S. Buckman were among those who taught at the little brick schoolhouse. Anna Seward taught there during 1884. She introduced calisthenics and music to the children. Agnes Howe was the teacher between 1885 and into the 1890s. Howe once claimed that the single room schoolhouse had more bats than children and she spearheaded an incentive program to rid the place of the bats.
In 1882, when enrollment reached sixty students, a brown bungalow was added to the brick schoolhouse.
Teachers were responsible for school maintenance. They asked the older students to sweep the floors and build fires for heat. Students carried water from nearby streams or cottages and everyone drank from a pail using a community dipper. The children liked to play stick ball, pum pum pull away and marbles for keeps. There was also great interest in baseball, riding and hiking in those days, recalled Miss Howe.
Clara Smith, a well known figure in county education, taught at the village school and served as its first principal until tragedy struck in 1892. Her fiance, Scottish-born Robert Fisher, a blacksmith by trade, died suddenly of typhoid fever on the day they were to be wed.
Clara, the daughter of community leader, Daniel Smith, first taught school in Nebraska at the age of 15. She was so devoted to education that she once walked from Nordhoff to Ventura to take a teacher’s exam. Her career progressed from teaching at most local schools, as well as some outside the county, to serving as County Director of Rural Education and Assistant Superintendent of Schools. Clara Smith retired from the school system in 1935.
Teachers weren’t in abundance during the early years, as was illustrated by an incident occurring in 1895. When Agnes Howe fell from a bicycle and sprained her ankle, the school closed for a week while she healed.
In 1889, 14-year-old Charlie Wolfe, son of Judge and Mrs. Irvin W. Wolfe, died at the school when he fell from a tree he was climbing. His twin sister had died at birth.
In 1893, Miss Beal’s primary grades had six more students than seats. It was obvious that the community had outgrown its little brick schoolhouse.
When parents initiated plans to build a bigger and better school, others reminisced about how well the brick building had served the community. Not only had it been the fountain of education for their children for twenty years, but also a church, a meeting place and a social hall.
Every new religious group used it as a place of worship while building its church. It was the very heart and soul of the village. Within those brick walls the townsfolk held their entertainment, made new friends and cemented relationships. That is where community leaders made their decisions, some of which affect our lives today.
But progress is progress and the fact was that the town had outgrown their school and a new one was built to accommodate the education of the valley children.
After the community abandoned the old schoolhouse, the brown bungalow was moved to 570 North Montgomery Street and Ezra Taylor, who ran a machine shop in town, moved his family into the brick building. It was home to the A.E. Freeman family around 1910. Mr. Freeman, a local grocer, reportedly added the second story and began the transformation that camouflaged the original brick outer walls. G.L. Chrisman bought the Freeman home in June of 1916 and the Alton Drowns lived there during the 1920s and 30s.
In 1946, Major Richard Cannon bought the former schoolhouse and opened the Cannon School there. One year later, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Cataldo converted the school into the Ojai Manor Hotel and began renting seven rooms. Although these owners had altered the little brick schoolhouse beyond recognition, until the 1980s, a keen eye could detect Blumberg’s misshapen, aged bricks as foundation beneath the time-honored facade at 210 Matilija Street. The old bricks are still visible on the inside kitchen wall.
The Lavender Inn
In the 1980s, Mary Nelson removed the old Old Manor Hotel and opened it as a bed and breakfast. In 1999, the old schoolhouse, once again beautifully remodeled, has resumed as a bed and breakfast under the name, The Moon’s Nest Inn [now The Lavender Inn].
The above is excerpted from Patty Fry’s book The Ojai Valley: An Illustrated History. In 2017 the book was updated by Elise DePudyt and Craig Walker. It is available in the museum’s store and through Amazon.com.
Great earthquakes struck the California coast in 1812-1813. They began with the tragic destruction of the church at Mission San Juan Capistrano on December 8, 1812. About forty worshipers were in the church at the time, and the tower of the building fell back onto the nave, with much loss of life.
As things go with great earthquakes, a continuous series of substantial shakes followed the first great jolt. The fearsome prospect of buildings collapsing would have forced people into abandoning their customary housing (much of which was probably damaged).
The best housing for an earthquake at the time would have been the traditional structures of the Native American people all along the coast. There would be little likelihood of their collapse in an earthquake; and, even if they did collapse, there wasn’t much weight to them.
Ocean currents may well have been disturbed by the earthquakes; and there were reports of threatening tidal wave activity, which would have further added to the alarm of the people.
Another substantial shock came on December 21. This time, Mission La Purisima Concepcion, northwest of Santa Barbara, was destroyed. The primary quake lasted four minutes, and a second shock lasted five minutes. Mission Santa Ines also suffered damage.
A story handed down from generation to generation in Ventura County told how the population of Mission San Buenaventura withdrew from the immediate coast and moved inland to temporary housing. These houses, constructed in the traditional Chumash way, were called casitas in Spanish; and they were clustered near the Ventura River narrows at the southern entrance to the Ojai Valley.
The population of the Mission at the time was about one thousand persons. The displaced population, however, was probably not that large; since some of the people already lived regularly at rancherias in the countryside. The number of displaced persons at the narrows, conceivably, exceeded five hundred.
A large casitas was understood to house about ten persons, but the houses at the narrows were temporary, and so may not have been especially large. The number of houses that would have been required for the displaced population at the narrows may have numbered between fifty and one hundred. They would have made a memorable encampment.
Earthquakes continued into January 1813, and the displaced community may have been at their temporary location for several months. When Father Senan and the mission population returned to Mission San Buenaventura in March of that year, they discovered that the tower of the church and part of the facade were damaged to such an extent that they would have to be replaced.
The name casitas remained after the people left. It was applied to the Casitas Narrows and Casitas Springs. It was used to designate the area extending about a mile to the north of the narrows, which became known simply as The Casitas. It was applied to Casitas Dam and Lake Casitas. The pass to the west was named Casitas Pass, and the valley just over the east Casitas Pass has been known as the Little Casitas Valley.
Harris’ Design Sits Atop a Hill Overlooking the Ojai Valleyby David Mason
“Wood, swells, burns and rots. It is as variable, unpredictable and unreliable as the human creature it shelters or warms not so permanent as stone perhaps, yet permanent enough as human lives go.” Harwell Hamilton Harris, California Arts and Architecture, May 1939
The Clarence H Wylie home designed by Harwell Hamilton Harris, overlooked the Ojai Valley – 1948.
California at the dawning of the 20th century was a time of unhurried changes. The Victorian era had survived the close of the 19th century, and the sentimental tastes that had defined it continued to prevail for some time into the new century. In 1903, a baby was born in Riverside, Calif. who would grow up and do a great deal to change the nation’s thoughts from Victorian to modernism. Harwell Hamilton Harris’ mother was a schoolteacher, and his father was an architect. In talking about his father years later, Harris would say that, “He was a good architect, but he wasn’t an outstanding one in any way. He never thought of it as being something that you could be outstanding in. I don’t think that it was a subject that he was very strongly interested in.”
Graduating from San Bernardino High School, and then attending Pomona College, Harris enrolled in the Otis Art Institute. Sculpture would hold his interest for sometime. He had a desire to lose himself in his art. Harris had ruled out architecture as a life interest for it did not constitute a work of art, it was for practical purposes and too impure to be called art.
The Wylie House porte cochere reaching to the drive with its exposed roof overhead – 1948.
However, while at the Otis Art Institute, he was treated to a visit to Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Hollyhock” house and was spellbound. The house had low walls and wings that came toward you and away from you and were paralleled with bands of hollyhock ornamentation, which was repeated above the window line and ledges. Harris felt that the house was, indeed, a sculpture, but on a completely different scale.
With a new desire to now join the architectural world, Harris was introduced to the well-known architects Rudolph M. Schindler and Richard Neutra. Neutra was in need of some help in the office and persuaded Harris to join them; his first desk was a drawing board resting on an old trunk in the corner of their drafting room.
In 1928, Harris helped Neutra with one of his first modern buildings, the Lovell Health House. The experience gave him the true aspiration to become an architect and, clearly, Harris was taken by the modern style of architecture.
It was in 1932 that Harris received his first architectural commission – from an old friend and classmate at the Otis Art Institute. He hired Harris to design a house for him and his wife. The plan was L-shaped with a courtyard, steel-framed, with wall panels and a flat roof, much like the clear shapes and clean spaces of the Japanese houses – a quality that became characteristic of all later Harris’ designs.
Harris had seen many houses in California constructed with board-and-batten exterior walls, and to him they did not appear cheap, but rather an inexpensive form of construction. Left unpainted, they appeared even more Japanese.
In 1933, Harris noticed beautiful houses around the Pasadena area that were low, one-stories constructed of redwood boards and battens. On inquiring as to who the designer was, he was informed that they were done by brothers named Greene. Harris had not heard of the brothers, but certainly admired their work.
Jean Murray Bangs would become Mrs. Harwell Hamilton Harris in 1937. With her interest in architecture, she had quit her job and became Harris’ full-time assistant. The Greene brothers would hold a fascination for her as well, and she set out to view as many of the Greene brothers’ buildings as possible – and she was interested in learning if the architects were even still alive.
Jean Harris studied every publication that she found on the Greene brothers and uncovered all the information she could. She searched for any trace of the brothers, looking through all the telephone books and directories for any listing, but she found no help. Even the American Institute of Architects could not give her any information on the brothers; apparently, they had given up their membership in 1915.
Not giving up, Jean Harris was finally able to locate Henry Greene’s daughter, and she drove to her house. There, she also found the architect. She inquired as to the whereabouts of the many drawings that he and his brother had done over their years in business and was told that they had left them all, perhaps as many as 400, in the garage of the last house in which they had lived.
Inquiring with the owner of the house, she found that he had no objections to her searching the garage for the drawings. And, so it was that in a run-down cabinet in a rat-infested area of the garage, she found the many drawings.
Jean Harris then had their friend Henry Eggers (the architect of the Ojai home of historian and author David Lavender) photograph all of the Greene and Greene houses and organized a traveling exhibition. She documented the lives of these forgotten men and, subsequently, the information is available to everyone. Through her efforts, the American Institute of Architects bestowed a special award upon the now-famous Greene and Greene brothers.
In 1946, Harwell Harris received a commission for a hilltop home in Ojai Valley for Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Wyle. In the Wyle house, Harris found that it would be more interesting to reveal the structure of the house and, for this reason, the gable roof became a favorite new element. “I like not having the boxed-in eaves that I usually had with the hipped roof,” Harris said. By using rafters that were 2 inches deeper in the open sections, he assured himself that they would never appear as if part of the roof had been “blown off in a storm.” The 2 inches would make the extension appear bold and intentional. The extended rafters were dramatically exploited in the Ojai house, which was being constructed in a mountainous region.
Harris presented a plan with four wings going out from the center of the house into the graceful landscaping to afford each room a spectacular view of the Ojai Valley. The plan also allowed for the major rooms to have glass walls on three sides.
The living room was inviting with its built-in sofa, a modern inglenook, and a warming fireplace. The built-in bookcases would add to the informality of the great room, and the master bedroom with its brick fireplace helped to recreate intimate spaces within the house.
One gabled wing, a porte cochere reaching to the drive, had an exposed roof construction overhead and a rock wall with built-in bench below. It was a clear homage to the Greene brothers.
After World War II, the Harrises decided to make a change in their lives. Harris accepted a position as director of the newly formed School of Architecture at the University of Texas. He had taught at a number of schools, but the thought of teaching on a permanent basis had never entered his mind. Now, he was not only an architect, he was to be the director of the entire school.
Jean Harris became involved with the magazine House Beautiful. She wrote many articles for the publication and, for a time, was even listed as food editor. Many of her pieces were about architecture and the modern home.
The last years of Harwell Hamilton Harris’ life were spent educating young architects, and his art continues to draw the respect that it so deserves.
“With its form the building satisfies the user’s wants – conscious and unconscious. It anticipates, it invites, it implements those wants. So whatever the indweller now does he does effortlessly, harmoniously – doing what great art does in music, in literature, in mathematics, in painting, in sculpture: creating a great unity. Doing this is what makes architecture worthwhile.” – Harwell Hamilton Harris, 1977.
In Ojai, Issues and Causes Didn’t Changeby David Mason
‘The Ojai’ is for sale. When I came to the Ojai I had but $68. In four years I have accumulated more property than most men can show for a lifetime of labor; I can still show more than $1,000 a year profit from the paper. It will therefore be seen that ‘The Ojai’ is perhaps as well-paying a business as any in this town, and that it will be a good investment for whomsoever shall purchase it.
Editor and Proprietor Randolph R. Freeman The Ojai, 1900
1900’s horse and buggy stage making its daily stop at the livery stable, now the Ojai Village Pharmacy, corner of Ojai Avenue and Signal Street.
The changing of the dates from the 1800s to the 1900s was hardly celebrated by the people of the small western town of Nordhoff, now Ojai. The editor of the local newspaper, The Ojai, chose this time to make a decision to leave this “wild west” town. Not quite being “run out of town,” but close, the editor said, “Within four years, assaults with intent to kill me have been three in number, all unprovoked, and I have had some lovely fist-fights. I have never said anything in the paper concerning them – because my adversaries have themselves had no paper of their own, and it would hardly be fair; and perhaps but few of my readers know even by hearsay of these little affairs. However, the blow which I received on the head this week has shattered my nerves to the extent of incapacitating me for work. Nor have I yet recovered the strength which I lost by my recent siege of typhoid fever; I fear it shall be a long time before I am returned to my wanted health on account of this combination of causes. Therefore, I must quit the newspaper business for a time at least.”
The beginning of the year 1900 would bring the all-important farm report to the front page of the local paper. “The farmer of the past century has been of the pioneer order. His work in the main was to clear new lands, get new homes in shape and begin the work of farming scientifically.” Predictions for the coming years included: “The ideal American farmer of 1900 will have an entirely different mission to fill. It will be necessary for him to be more energetic than the old times for he will have much stronger competition to meet. His stock will be pure-bred and of high quality, and it will be fed systematically, with a mind well-cultivated and everything carried on in a business way, he will move along subjugating nature, and by invention, machinery and fertilizers will double the products of his land and thus be ready to reap a full share of benefits arising from the advance of American civilization and American commerce.”
From the music industry and the Choir Musical Journal for 1900, the main subject was the insane craze for
Nordhoff Post Office at the turn of the century in downtown Nordhoff, now Ojai
“ragtime” music. “The counters of the music stores are loaded with this virulent poison which, in the form of a malicious epidemic, is finding its way into the homes and brains of the youth to such an extent as to arouse one’s suspicions of their sanity. The pools of slush through which the composers of some of these songs have dragged their questionable rimes are rank enough to stifle the nostrils of decency, and yet young men and ladies of the best standing daily roll around their tongues in gluttonous delight of the most nauseating twaddle about ‘hot town’ and ‘warm babies’ – some of them set to double-jointed, jumping-jack air that fairly twists the ears of an educated musician from their anchorage. Some of these songs are so maudlin in sentiment and rhythm as to make the themes they express fairly stagger in the drunkenness of their exaggerations. They are a plague to both music and musicians, and a stench to refinement.” With the new year dawning, the sports world would also make the news, the Ojai Tennis Tournament Committee began work on building the new tennis courts in the back of the Ojai Inn, now Libbey Park. “The ground has been plowed and leveled. One-third of the backstop posts have also been erected. The work of sifting the surface earth will begin next week.” The tournament for 1900 was held on Friday and Saturday, April 6 and 7.
The game of golf was also popular in 1900. Statistics for the year found that there were 200,000 golf players in the United States, using 3,200,000 clubs, the cost of which, including breakages and repairs, bring the total spent up to $8,000,000. It would have taken 1,000 freight cars loaded to capacity to have carried them. The balls used added up to 2,400,000-dozen per year, a mere trifling expenditure of $8,400,000 annually. Dues paid on the various golf clubs amounted to $6,000,000. With so much spent on the game, The Ojai newspaper felt that it should really be considered “the national game.”
The “homeless” were also a big news item. The Ojai Valley was working to deal with the problem of tramps. “The whole country is still confronted with the tramp problem. It costs California scores of thousands of dollars each year to pay officers’ costs for arresting, jailing and feeding for a few days these roving men.” The paper reported that had the governor signed the “Tramp Bill,” these men would have been at work, either on the highways or the county farm. The people felt that the whole problem would have been solved, the state would have saved an immense expense, the roads would have been greatly improved and the people would not have to put up with the annoyance of the tramps begging for money.
The Ojai editor wrote: “The tramp is a human being; he is our brother no matter how ragged, degraded or demoralized he may be. He may lack energy; he may have bad habits; he may be badly balanced; he may himself be to blame for his destitute condition, but he is human and must be so treated. Don’t curse the poor tramp. Some men are born financiers, others are not. When a man’s last dollar is gone and he has no bed in which to sleep; no money with which to buy food, and his toes are out of his shoes; his clothes are ragged and dirty, he loses his confidence, he easily becomes demoralized and discouraged, and life is shorn of its charms. Let the state take hold of this problem, and solve it; it can be done. Safety to the community requires it. Religions demands it.” In the entertainment news, the local paper reported that: “A band of Italian gypsies in wagons and rags passed through Nordhoff on Thursday. The head man of the outfit had a trick bear which danced and wrestled $2.60 worth, to the great delight of the population, while his Indian wife with a papoose led a little monkey around by a string and caused it to dance and do tricks whenever 10 cents was proffered. The whole gang begged food and clothes to the tune of several barley-sacks full and went on their way rejoicing.” The editor couldn’t help but add some advice to travelers with, “If the gang were but half so dirty they could easily dispense with one-half the horses now required to haul them about.”
The turn of the century brought about major water issues, too. The Santa Barbara News said: “What’s the matter with having a few watering troughs in the city? The water company have disconnected the ones on Canon Perdido and Haley streets. What’s the matter with the city reconnecting them?” The Los Angeles Express, commented by using the town of Nordhoff as an example: “Whatever difficulty exists between the water company and the city of Santa Barbara is non-essential to the point in hand. The plan of providing watering troughs is one which should be immediately put into execution, and these should be placed at frequent intervals along the highways. If Santa Barbara officials are in doubt to the good effects of this scheme, let them drive over the mountains to the little village of Nordhoff, in the Ojai Valley. There on the principal street, and heavily shaded by one of those grand old live oak trees which have made the Ojai famous, is a big, generous trough brimful of the most delicious mountain water. Such public improvements are an index to a town’s character, and will be jotted down by the visitor seeking for a place to locate.”
For a segment on travel and leisure, the trees in the valley were being written about in the Honolulu-Bulletin. In regards to the trees growing in their streets, the editor wrote: “If a precedent for the tree’s occupancy of part of the thoroughfare is required, allow me to refer to the village of Nordhoff, in Ventura County, California. Nordhoff has a very warm summer climate, which has naturally caused the people to prize their fine oak shade trees. The village is built under the trees, which are allowed to stand wherever they chanced to grow. If they are in the street, the people drive around them, saying the trees were there first and shall not be molested. How grateful the shade of those trees is to man and beast can be understood when the love of the people for the trees is known. In California the protects the trees in the roads or streets; and, in Ventura County in particular, woe to the man who lays his ax to any tree upon a public road. There the trees as well as the people are protected, and if an overhanging limb gets too familiar with passersby, an order from the supervisor of the district must be obtained before the offending part of the tree can be removed.”
The new year’s news, from the local Presbyterian Church was very exciting; a special offering was taken on Sunday amounting to $58.30, which was more than double any previous basket collection. In the building category, “A number of enterprising citizens are engaged today in a fence-building bee. They are enclosing the Presbyterian Church lot. Cows shall hereafter keep off the grass, the posies and the plants.” “The trustees and patrons of the George Thacher Memorial Library (now Ojai Library) extended the ladies and gentlemen of the Ojai Valley their sincere thanks for the praiseworthy efforts in the dramatic line which brought into the treasury of the library, eighty dollars to be expended for books.” A very successful library fund-raising event for the beginning of the 1900s. A lot of changes took place in the Ojai Valley during the last 100 years, but did we really change that much? A very happy and successful new year to each and everyone of you.
“Now get up a little rally
And come to the Ojai Valley,
You dear friends back there,
With snow and ice in your hair,
Come enjoy winters fair.
Orchards loaded with golden fruit,
Which is sure to suit,
And it’s plain to be seen,
That nothing grows lean,
With hills and dells all green.
Our schools are the best
To be found in the west;
Teachers and scholars all
Both great and small,
Can answer the call.
Our several preachers
Are all good teachers;
They tell us that we must,
In God put our trust,
Then the devil we can bust.
In this valley so fair
Is the home of many a millionaire,
But now please remind,
That they are the generous kind,
Which you seldom find.
Now hurry with your rally,
On high, to this beautiful valley,
For it’s sure some treat,
And it can’t be beat.”
Norman F. Marsh Designed Nordhoff High School in 1910by Craig Walker
When Nordhoff High School first opened in 1909, classes were held upstairs in the old two-story grammar school, located where the OUSD offices are today. The driving force behind the school was Sherman Day Thacher, founder of Ojai’s Thacher School. Mr. Thacher was also responsible for hiring the high school’s first principal, Walter Bristol. In 1909 Nordhoff High School had twenty-four students and two faculty members, including Mr. Bristol.
In the school’s second year, Mr. Bristol and the trustees initiated plans to create a new campus for the high school facing Ojai Avenue at Country Club Drive. They selected Los Angeles architect Norman Foote Marsh to design the school in the California Bungalow style, popular in the Ojai Valley in the early 1900s. The Boyd Club, Thacher School, the Pierpont Cottages, and several expensive homes along Foothill Road were all done in the California Bungalow style. This style is easily recognized with its sloping roofs, gables, exposed rafters, expansive porches, shingled siding, and integration with the earth using river rock or planting. Nordhoff High School would be one of the first public high schools built in the California Bungalow style.
Norman Marsh’s Parkhurst Building in Santa Monica.
Norman Marsh was a well-known Southern California architect who was proficient in several architectural styles. He designed Santa Monica’s Parkhurst Building in Spanish-Colonial style, the University of Redlands in neo-Classical style, and Abbot Kinney’s Venice Beach development as a replica of the famous Italian Renaissance city. Marsh’s firm designed many schools, libraries, and churches, throughout Southern California.
Mr. Marsh designed the new Nordhoff High School so that, in his words, “every window will extend to the floor and will swing open their entire length. The pupils will in ordinary weather practically work out of doors.” This was a revolutionary concept in school architecture at the time, but it has since been used extensively in schools throughout America.
The new Nordhoff High School campus opened in the fall of 1911 with 40 students. In 1916 wealthy oil tycoon Charles Pratt, who owned a large Greene & Greene Bungalow home on Foothill Road, donated the funds to add a manual arts building and a domestic science building to the campus. Walter Bristol hired Norman Marsh to design these buildings also. The great Ojai fire of 1917 destroyed one of them, but Mr. Pratt donated the funds to have it quickly rebuilt.
In 1917, the name of the town was changed from Nordhoff to Ojai. Over the years there have been several attempts to change the name of the school from Nordhoff High School to Ojai High School, but all have failed. Perhaps the traditional name is too deeply ingrained, or perhaps the phrase “Ojai High” is just a bit too quirky!
In 1929 Santa Paula architect Roy Wilson designed the school’s Mission-Revival buildings along El Paseo Road, with the school auditorium added in 1936. Yet, the aging Bungalow-style building pictured at the top of the page continued to be used as classrooms until 1966 when the high school and junior high school swapped campuses. At that time it was torn down and replaced by the nondescript classroom buildings that face Ojai Avenue today.
“[The Ojai Valley School] So far it has proven very successful, combining as it does the most intelligent educational methods of the best city schools and the beautiful and healthful environment of the Ojai.” –Country Life Magazine, September 1924
During 1909, Walter W. Bristol organized the Nordhoff Union High School in the town of Nordhoff, now Ojai, and became the school’s first principal.
He held that position until 1919, when he resigned to assist his wife in the running of a small country school that she was operating, known as the Bristol School.
Mrs. Bristol’s school had started in the fall of 1912, with two students. Classes were held in her home on the northwest corner of Ojai Avenue and Bristol Road. The house had been built in 1911, and it was typical wooden construction with a screened-in sleeping porch that ran across one end.
By 1913, the sleeping porch had been divided into classrooms and desks were installed, so as to accommodate more pupils.
The need for a progressive private school was very much in evidence in the small western town.
Before long, a separate school building was erected farther north on their property. The Bristols felt that their new building would probably accommodate up to 15 pupils, but before long that total had reached 25 pupils. It was indeed a crowded little school.
The great forest fire of 1917, which had burned the Foothills Hotel and 60 other building in the Ojai Valley, also destroyed the charming little Bristol School. The fire, however, did not burn the cottages that were on the same property, so classes continued. The Bristols had been asked to board students at the their school, but there had not been enough room. Now that the building was to be rebuilt, they made plans to include rooms for boarding students and three classrooms. It was a very successful school. The outdoor life in a superb winter climate and amidst charming scenery made the school life both wholesome and attractive.
Another person who had a profound interest in the local children’s education was Edward Yeomans. Arriving in the valley for the winter of 1912, Yeomans was not happy about coming to California from his home in the east. He was working for the family business, Yeomans Brothers Co., a water pump manufacturing company, and his feelings about California were that it was merely a vacation spot for rich bankers with whom he had absolutely nothing in common. However, the beauty of the Ojai Valley and the simplicity of life here convinced him that he could find no better place in which to spend the winter.
Yeomans wrote to his friends in the east: “I felt this valley to be the most beautiful spot in the world. Fruit orchards and their blossoms, and the entire 15 miles from Ventura to Ojai, not a house visible! They valley itself was fully planted in orange groves, or left as God made it; acres of live oak trees and acres of wild wheat growing under the live oaks awaiting harvesting. Olive and fig trees line all roads and mark the divisions of property.”
Deciding to stay in the Ojai Valley, Yeomans resigned his position at the family-owned company. His desire to start a school of a progressive nature took full charge of his thinking. He had found the perfect spot for his new school, the Ojai Valley, a place he had grown to love. A valley “completely unspoiled by man — nature so generously holding her beauty and rich gifts for man’s careful husbanding on so vast a scale that man was rarely visible.”
Yeomans heard that the Bristols would be interested in selling their school and property, but Yeomans was not interested in the Bristol property or the buildings, so the Bristols agreed to sell him only the goodwill in the school.
A meeting of the prominent local residents was called to discuss the plans of Yeomans’ new school. A name was decided upon, the Ojai Valley School, and it would need to have beautiful buildings in order to be a credit to the community.
Mary Bard, the wife of Senator Thomas Bard, attended the school meetings, and she was the most enthusiastic person there. Mary Bard had married the senator in 1878, and they had seven children. It was not surprising that she was interested in education.
When asked what type of school Yeomans was interested in starting, he responded, “A school whose main subjects are music, nature study and shop work. No languages for little children and no English grammar taught to them. No arithmetic at first, except what we need for work in construction. No desks fastened to floors, just desks that could easily be moved for acting of ballads or poetry. No examinations, no discipline for its own sake, but inner control, and consideration for all working in the school, and so, good citizenship.”
Mary Bard was much stirred and inspired by Yeomans’ talk and said she wanted to do whatever she could in order to help start such a school. Frank Frost, another valley resident, also wanted to do his share of work toward the new school.
E. D. Libbey, Ojai’s greatest benefactor, had just subdivided a large tract of land and had named it the Arbolada; and Frost felt that the lots in the subdivision would sell more rapidly if there were a school nearby. Frost wrote to Libbey in Toledo, Ohio and said, “You never can sell your land unless you can also say there is a good school nearby.” It was just the right message. Libbey donated a parcel of land to the group with only one restriction. They could have any amount of land they required, but it had to remain in the ownership of Libbey until three years had passed and the school had succeeded. The Ojai Valley School officially opened for business in October 1923.
With so many students requesting to attend the new school and wanting to be boarding students, Frost decided that to do his part, he would build a dormitory for the school. He supervised the building, which originally would hold 30 students, and it was filled to capacity the first day.
Yeomans wrote to Mrs. Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen to see if she could be persuaded to leave the Francis Parker School of Chicago and come to the Ojai Valley and be principal of the new school. Thorne-Thomsen accepted the position and arrived in the valley, only to be sick most of the first year; so it was up to Yeomans to be in charge during that time. He thought of himself more in the capacity of janitor rather that principal. He felt that “a school and its faculty are not a group working together for the benefit of the school on equal footing always, the school has no power of growth.”
As word spread up and down the state about this new school and the progressive learning that was taught there, people became anxious to hear all they could about it. Invited to speak at a large function in Los Angeles, Yeomans found himself extremely nervous in front of the crowd of people. Once he had spoken a few words, in which he referred to himself “as a pump manufacturer, not an educator,” he became at ease. He said he “was there as a rebel against his own painful and unhappy education in childhood, where fear ruled his entire life and school was a prison.” At that time he had promised himself when he grew up, he would try to save other children from such an unhappy life.
Libbey advertised the new school in his sales brochures for his Arbolada lots. “In this lovely sport, far away from the noise and crowding of city schools, children are given a superior training” and a far finer appreciation of life. The purpose of the school is “to cherish and develop the individuality of each pupil rather than to turn out a rubber stamp product.” This proved to be a successful move for both.
Source: David Mason, “Ojai Valley School merged educators dreams.” Ojai Valley News, October 1, 1999
“A greater Ojai shall arise sphinx-like from the ashes of homes and public buildings laid waste for the fire demon.” — The Ojai, June 29, 1917
The Foothills Hotel was to be no exception to the above quote. It would, indeed, rise again even more splendidly.
The Second Foothills Hotel
The Foothills Hotel was one of a number of hotels being built to accommodate the tourist business that was booming in the state of California, primarily in the southern half. The area had great potential as a place where people could go to escape the harsh eastern winters.
The Raymond Hotel in Pasadena (1886), Hotel del Coronado in San Diego (1887), Potter Hotel in Santa Barbara (1902) and the Foothills Hotel in Ojai (1903) were the legendary grand dames of the area. They were quickly becoming the talk of the western world.
Much of the grand hotels’ popularity was traced directly to the writings of Charles Nordhoff, a famous eastern author who had written glowing accounts of Southern California.
The population of the entire state of California in 1870 was 560,000, but by 1900 it had increased to 1,485,000; and during the same period, more than three million copies of Nordhoff’s books on California had been sold.
The Foothills Hotel had charm and elegance and was so in demand that potential guests would have to write in advance, send current financial statements and wait to be notified if reservations would be coming their way or not. Many waited, but few were chosen.
The hotel built cottages on the grounds for even more guests, and during its prosperous years that would still not accommodate the many requests for reservations.
Built entirely of wood in a fire-danger area, the two-and-a-half story hotel made an impressive sight. High enough on the ridge to have a commanding view, across the manicured acres of the golf course, of the valley below, and with the majestic mountains as a backdrop, it was a place where travelers could gather to relax, play golf, or even ponder an investment in the young community.
The summer of 1917 was really not much different from most Ojai summers. It was hot, and the fire season had once again arrived, a time that most valley residents dread even to this day. And as luck would have it, a fire broke out in Matilija Canyon, because of carelessness by a camper, and quickly swept the hills and headed to the valley.
Many believed that Ojai was doomed, and the flight to safety began early in the evening. Of the 60 or more structures lost, the Foothills Hotel was one of them.
The fire was so consuming and the high winds were blowing so relentlessly that during the day feather mattresses were flying out of the windows of the hotel and helping the spread the fire to the valley below.
That fire, like so many before and since, ended with thoughts of the people being, “We must unite and begin to rebuild.”
E.D. Libbey, Ojai’s greatest benefactor, sent a telegram conveying his sympathy for the loss and said, “From such devastation and ruin will spring renewed energy and courage.”
Within days, the architects Mead and Requa, who had earlier designed the arcade and post office tower, were preparing plans for an even greater Foothills Hotel. The town newspaper proclaimed that there would be “no unnecessary delay in the building and furnishing of the handsome hostelry to be.
From the balcony looking south.
Built on the same foundation, the new hotel was a two-story, white stucco building, a model of completeness and easily surpassed anything of its size on the coast in modern appointments and equipment. A large and commodious lobby with a huge fireplace occupied the center of the lower floor of the main building. Large, easy armchairs, sofas and settees were invitingly arranged around the room.
To the left of the fireplace was the manager’s office, so situated that a clear observation could be had of all parts of the lower floor. To the back of this was a very cozy private breakfast or luncheon room, where special and private dinners could be served.
To the east of the lobby was the ladies parlor—large, roomy and comfortable, with a magnificent view of the valley below. Adjoining this was a parlor for maids and attendants across the hall, leading in from the east entrance, were the lavatories.
In the west wing of the lower floor was the large and spacious dining room, partitioned from the lobby with a glass panel arrangement, which could be folded back, converting these two rooms into a large ballroom.
To the north of the dining room was the kitchen, with its large range, modern steam dish-washing machine, and, with all the other modern appliances, it was one of the finest kitchens on the coast. Adjoining the main kitchen was the bakery and pastry kitchen.
To the east of the kitchen was a very inviting dining room for the help, maids and chauffeurs. The upper floor was given over entirely to 18 guest apartments with their individual baths.
Four cottages were located near the hotel that consisted of two and three bedrooms and baths, living rooms and sleeping porches. Just in front of the hotel were the tennis courts and golf course.
It was open only during the winter months, and because of the remoteness and lack of some services, many visitors simply wanted to make the hotel a temporary destination for resting from the rigors of life in the big cities, and for escaping from colder climates.
Much of Ojai’s social life centered around the hotel. Many delightful nights of entertainment were held and were open to the public in the spacious lobby. The most prominent was the first Frost-Coolidge Music Festival, which started in 1926. Many consider the event to be the inspiration for the present Ojai Music Festival.
The festival was announced to the valley through the local newspaper, The Ojai, in August of 1925 and was held in April of 1926. It was front-page news. “One of the greatest musical events that has ever taken place in America came to a close on Sunday evening with the final concert of the Ojai Musical Festival.”
It surpassed all expectations, great as they were; and the five concerts stood out as unquestionably the most wonderful thing that had ever happened in Ojai.
The Ojai newspaper continued to rave, “To have entertained at one time a group of world-famous musicians, any one of whom is able to command the attention of the music world, wherever he or she may be, to have heard during a period of three days three such famous aggregations as the London String Quartet, the San Francisco Quartet and the Little Symphony of New York under Georges Barrere, are experiences almost unknown in musical history.”
The lobby of the Foothills Hotel provided an auditorium so perfect that both audiences and artists confessed surprise. From the rearmost seat inside and the furthermost seat outdoors, every note was clear and distinct.
More than 500 people attended each concert, the greater number from the Ojai Valley itself, and about one-third coming from outside the valley.
One of the striking things about the festival was the arrangement of the programs. Only experts, such as Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge and Mr. Franklin Jefferson Frost, could have planned five such complete and self-contained concerts.
Each was a gem; each brought out a special phase of music; each gave scope for a particular branch of instrumentality; and each gave the audience an opportunity to hear a different artist or group of artists. It was felt that the Ojai Music Festival would become a yearly event.
The hotel would continue to attract high society until the Depression of 1929, when the hotel’s popularity began to decline. It would continue to operate, but the years had taken their toll; and the Foothills Hotel was no longer the well-polished resort it had once been. The visits of eastern and Hollywood elite had all but ceased. Countless tales exist, some true, some legendary, and some nearly forgotten—of the notables who experienced the Foothills Hotel.
By 1942, the hotel was sold to the California Preparatory School, started in Pasadena as a military academy and then moved to Ojai. The hotel and cottages were remodeled for the use of the school, that would accommodate 100 students.
The property was sold again in 1955 for the establishment of Camp Ramah and enlarged to accommodate 200 students of the Jewish faith. Camp Ramah, needing more space, purchased El Rancho Rinconada and disposed of the beautiful Foothills Hotel.
The historic Foothills Hotel became but a memory in 1976 with the help of a demolition crew, and once more an Ojai treasure was gone.
By David Mason, Foothills hotel was a legendary grand dame of the area, Ojai Valley News, June 4, 1999
