SoCal Castles: Lummis House – El Alisal

A castle you ask?

Well, according to my kids it looks like a castle, and you know the old duck saying.

My entire brood stopped by on a recent weekend and the volunteers were so great with my kids. They brought out a box of historic toys and proceeded with a demonstration. But, what my oldest felt was the highlight was the stump chair/toilet.

Th architect and designer was Charles Fletcher Lummis (1859 – 1928) an interesting bloke who attended Harvard with Teddy Roosevelt, walked from Ohio to Los Angeles to take a job at the LA Times, was the city librarian for the Los Angeles Public Library, was a proponent of Native American rights, established the Southwest Museum, and was … a drinker and womanizer.
Lummis built El Alisal between 1889 and 1910 and he threw some crackerjack parties at his domicile. The property is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument and on the list of the National Register of Historic Places.

El Alisal means “Alder grove” in Spanish. Now a days, the Historical Society of Southern California (HSSC), the oldest historical society in California, is headquartered in El Alisal.