Added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 2, 1986

Littered throughout LA’s architectural history of the late 1920s and early 1930s are plenty of tales of construction left unfinished and careers halted due to the Great Depression. While my bleeding heart is most sympathetic to the hundreds of thousands of average people who lost their homes to foreclosure after the 1929 stock market crash, the story of Villa Francesca in Rancho Palos Verdes is an example of how even wealthy Americans had to unexpectedly alter their housing plans. 

Villa Francesca was to be the grand estate of Harry E. Benedict, one of the early developers of the Palos Verdes peninsula. Benedict was the right-hand man of Frank Vanderlip, a fabulously successful New York banker and former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, whose syndicate purchased the 16,000-acre peninsula from Jotham Bixby (see Etan Does LA #125 for more on him) in 1913, with the intention of turning it into luxury real estate. 

As President of Vanderlip’s Palos Verdes Corporation, Harry Benedict supervised the development of a 3,000 acre swath called Palos Verdes Estates (see my visit to the Mirlo Gate Lodge Tower for more backstory on that) in the ‘20s. Since the rest of the peninsula didn’t really take off ‘til after WWII, Benedict and Vanderlip had their pick of some prime vistas when they decided to commission homes for themselves. They chose the ridonkulously picturesque Portuguese Bend section to the south; Benedict’s 10-acre parcel, just south of the Vanderlips’ own, was a wedding gift from the bossman. 

Here’s a relevant notice in the April 1929 edition of Palos Verdes Bulletin, a booster publication by the Palos Verdes Homes Association:

The announcement recently made by Mr. and Mrs. Frank A. Vanderlip that they had ordered plans for a large Italian villa on their estate at Portuguese Bend has been followed by similar statements from other owners in this district…Mr. and Mrs. H. E. Benedict of Scarborough, New York, also are planning a residence just back of Portuguese Point on Paseo del Mar…These buildings are all to be in Italian renaissance style, designed by Architect Gordon B. Kaufmann of Los Angeles.

–Palos Verdes Bulletin, April 1929

At the time, Gordon Kaufmann was one of the busier architects in LA, with Scripps College, the Doheny Mansion and Westwood’s Holmby Hall in the recent rearview, CalTech’s “south houses” dorms and the monumental Los Angeles Times Building just ahead. Kaufmann was a master of Mediterranean revival design, a sort of mish-mash of Italian, Greek and Spanish colonial styles that, to the modern eye, often just feels old and European and smacks of generational wealth – like Medici-style, dynastic generational wealth. Palaces, villas, the kind of residences that probably feel most comfortable to rich people. That’s okay! Maybe they’ll invite me to their next garden party. 

Kaufmann’s original plans for the 10-acre Benedict estate called for a mansion up the hill, a gate lodge and a u-shaped “farmstead” building that would house the Benedicts’ servants, horses and cars.

For his $35,000, Benedict got the gate lodge and farmstead, but no mansion. Work stopped after the first two buildings were completed in early 1930, ostensibly because of the financial and emotional toll of the stock market crash. As historian Delane Morgan puts it in The Palos Verdes Story (as quoted in this 1987 story in the Los Angeles Times), “People who could still afford to build elaborate homes were in no mood to construct them.” Harry and his first wife Frances, the namesake for Villa Francesca, moved into the gate lodge as their main digs.

That gate lodge, while not the palace the Benedicts had envisioned, must still have been a wonderful place to live. Keep in mind the Portuguese Bend Community Association so wills it that Etan Q. Public must stay outside the entrance gate to the estate. But based on the historic photos I’ve seen of Villa Francesca, plus the drone footage above, Gordon Kaufmann brought plenty of refinement and detail into the estate’s smaller-than-expected footprint. With its stucco walls and Spanish tile and nifty dragon-themed iron light fixtures, the exterior is equal parts nobleman’s villa and well-kept-up California mission. It’s a unique translation of the Mediterranean revival style to a coastal California setting. The interior looks cozy and light-filled; my favorite part is the staircase, bordered on one side by a giant arched window, divided into 24 panes.

Above photos courtesy Palos Verdes Library District Local History Center

The mission vibe carries into the farmstead side, especially in the white stucco archways that line the stables. In later years, after Benedict died, a dressage ring was added and the new owners Kay and Richard Bara would let girls from the local Pony Club ride down and practice show jumping. In this 2021 story in Peninsula magazine, Kay Bara’s brother fondly remembers the family tradition of shoveling horse manure together. 

Harry E. Benedict lived in that gate lodge from 1930 until just before his death in 1977. So much changed in the intervening 47 years. Benedict’s old boss Frank Vanderlip died in 1937; the awe-inspiring Wayfarers Chapel (see Etan Does LA #118) was completed in 1951, just a mile down the road; Frances passed in 1956, the same year that some poorly-planned roadwork triggered a 260-acre landslide that impacted dozens of homes, and continues to move; and the Palos Verdes peninsula continued to blossom into the upscale coastal retreat that it is today. 

I hope it gave Harry some pleasure knowing that his work in developing the Palos Verdes peninsula had such an impact, even if his own slice of the good life – at least as measured in square footage – was smaller than expected.

There aren’t too many photos available of the inside of Villa Francesca. If you’re curious, download the NRHP nomination form and scroll down to pages 14-44. 

Sources & Recommended Reading 

+Villa Francesca’s NRHP nomination form

+Faris, Gerald: “‘Phantom’ P.V. Peninsula Villa Named Historical Site” (LA Times, 1987)

+“NEW ESTATES AT PORTUGUESE BEND” (Palos Verdes Bulletin, April 1929) – accessed via PalosVerdesHistory.org

+Cartozian, Stephanie: “Villa Francesca” (Peninsula, March 2021)

+Palos Verdes Library District Local History Center