Added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 31, 1980

Amidst the abundant natural beauty of the LA County Arboretum and Botanic Garden sit two man-made wonders from the late 19th century: the Queen Anne Cottage & Coach Barn of Elias J. “Lucky” Baldwin. Architecturally-speaking, these two structures are oddities – one, a guest house with small rooms and no kitchen or dining room, that functioned more as a viewing platform for the lake and greenery around it; the other, a spacious stable for work horses that, you could argue, was more tastefully designed than the matching one for humans. 

But the Queen Anne Cottage & Coach Barn are historically significant for more than their architecture. They’re also the best-preserved material connections we’ve got to the life of Lucky Baldwin, the founder and first mayor of Arcadia, and one of the most influential landowners in LA history.

Lucky Baldwin was an entrepreneur, investor and real estate speculator who amassed a massive fortune through a combination of business acumen and dumb luck. Born in Ohio, Baldwin worked as a grocer and hotelier in Racine, Wisconsin. In 1853, a 25-year-old Baldwin began the long journey to San Francisco with his first wife Sarah Anne Unruh and their daughter, Clara. They loaded their wagons with tobacco, brandy and tea for trading; the brandy he unloaded on Brigham Young’s brother in the Utah Territory, and the tobacco and tea he would trade for horses, which he later sold in Sacramento for a hefty profit.

San Francisco’s population had exploded after the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848. And while Baldwin would get rich off of mining interests, he first focused on other ways of supporting the burgeoning mining industry. He profited as a hotel flipper and a brickmaker, entered into the livery business for seven years, and founded a lumber company in Virginia City, Nevada. 

It was in Nevada that Baldwin made his millions, and earned his nickname. Large deposits of silver (called the Comstock Lode) were discovered on the slope of Mt. Davidson in 1859, and by the 1860s Baldwin was buying up shares in speculative mining companies. In 1867, Baldwin took off for India¹ on an exotic animal hunting trip. But before he left, he gave instructions to his broker to sell shares of his stock in the Hale & Norcross mine if the share price dipped below what he paid for it. It did, but Baldwin had forgotten to give his broker the key to his safe, so he couldn’t access the share certificates. The Hale & Norcross mine struck a silver bonanza, share prices went through the roof, and Baldwin returned from his world travels a newly-minted millionaire. He continued to buy and sell his mining stock at just the right time, and by the time he arrived in Southern California, he was worth in the neighborhood of $5 million.

Lucky Baldwin came down to Southern California in the mid-1870s to explore new mining interests. When he took a day trip to the old Rancho Santa Anita in the San Gabriel Valley, he was struck by its beauty and fertile ground. He knew he had to own it.

For thousands of years the land now occupied by the LA County Arboretum and Botanic Garden was tended by the native Tongva and Kizh peoples. The lake that we see today, next to the Queen Anne Cottage, was there during Native American times, and would have been an important source of water for them. 

When the Spanish founded the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel in 1771, the land became part of the Mission’s holdings, but once Mexico declared independence in 1821, the missions’ land was taken away by the Mexican government and sold off as large parcels called “ranchos.” In the case of the ~13,000-acre Rancho Santa Anita, its first owner after Mexican independence was a Scottish immigrant named Hugo Reid. The simple adobe that Reid built for himself and his wife around 1839 was still there when Lucky Baldwin arrived. 

Rancho Santa Anita’s owner in 1875 was Harris Newmark – a wholesale clothing merchant, developer, historian and a big supporter of LA’s Jewish community. He sold the rancho (down to ~8,000 acres by then) to Baldwin for around $200,000, paid largely in cash. This wasn’t Baldwin’s only big land acquisition in Los Angeles. By 1880 he had also acquired Rancho La Cienega from the Temple-Workman family (that’s a pretty sad story). At the peak of his land baron-ness, Baldwin’s holdings encompassed more than 50,000 acres, including present day Baldwin Hills, Arcadia, Sierra Madre and Monrovia.

Just like he did up in San Francisco, Baldwin tried his hand at a number of new ventures at the Rancho, and he succeeded at most of them. He planted acres of citrus trees, walnuts and almond trees, and grapevines for his winery and award-winning brandy distillery. There were cattle, sheep and hogs, and also some 500 horses – many of which were thoroughbreds, bred specifically for racing. Baldwin was a pioneer of horse racing in Los Angeles, and built a popular track in 1907, not far from where the Santa Anita Race Track is today.

Operating his vast ranch was a giant corps of workers. Historians point to the fact that Baldwin hired many Black, Chinese and Mexican workers for his labor force, at a time when they were openly excluded from parts of LA’s economic life. He told the LA Times in 1902 that the Chinese workers were “the most reliable laborers (I) can get.” At the same time, Baldwin biographer C.B. Glasscock claims that the non-white workers were paid less than their white counterparts; the multicultural workforce was likely motivated by Baldwin’s bottom line more than anything else. 

Baldwin was also a notorious womanizer with a predilection for women much younger than him. In addition to his four wives, he had an endless series of extra-marital affairs, many of which resulted in nasty press writeups and even nastier court cases. He was shot twice by former paramours (or their sisters) who accused him of rape or other indiscretions. 

In the years right after he purchased Rancho Santa Anita, Baldwin still spent much of his time in San Francisco. He married a beautiful young woman named Jennie Dexter in 1875 – his third wife – and they lived in the luxurious Baldwin Hotel that Baldwin had built that same year. In 1876 Jennie gave birth to their daughter, Anita, named after the Baldwins’ rancho.

Fast forward a decade and a lot had transpired. Jennie died of tuberculosis in 1881; Baldwin suffered one of the aforementioned gunshots, from a woman named Fannie Verona Baldwin (who may or may not have been related to him) for alleged rape; he sired an illegitimate child in 1884; and Lucky married his fourth wife, 16-year-old Lillie Bennett. In 1885, Lucky and Lillie moved down to Rancho Santa Anita. They slept and ate in the old Hugo Reid Adobe, which had been expanded over the years. But Lucky also commissioned a fanciful new guesthouse, right across the lake: the Queen Anne Cottage.

While there’s no definitive proof of its designer, the Queen Anne Cottage is often attributed to Lillie Bennett Baldwin’s dad, the architect Albert A. Bennett. He was once employed as the State Architect of California, which meant he oversaw construction of the State Capitol Building, prison projects at San Quentin and Folsom, plus county courthouses throughout northern California. In fact Lucky Baldwin first met Lillie Bennett with her dad, while he was down in LA, pitching his services for the LA County Courthouse (he lost that job to Curlett, Eisen and Cuthbertson).

Albert Bennett was used to stately, substantial, even sober-minded buildings. What he (maybe) designed for his daughter and son-in-law is exactly the opposite: it’s a puff pastry of a building – so much fun to look at, but mostly decoration. Even for a building in the Stick/Eastlake style, which is known for its whimsical ornamentation, this one is extra floofy. Look at all that gingerbread ornamentation, sticking up from AND hanging from the overhangs like wooden icicles; the wraparound lanai, padding out the house’s surprisingly small footprint; the turquoise entrance dome; and of course the tower that dominates the whole structure, like a small-scale lighthouse intended to keep geese from crashing into the side of the lake.

This cottage was what you might call a “belvedere,” a summer house whose purpose was to view the gardens, and to be viewed from the gardens. It functioned as a casual guesthouse, more than a proper house. There was a bedroom, a library, a music room, a parlor and a bathroom, all modestly sized; there were no spaces for service staff or storage, no kitchen or dining room. For meals, guests would join the Baldwins at the Hugo Reid Adobe.

Though it was atypical for a residence owned by a wealthy family, the Queen Anne Cottage’s insides were very nicely appointed. You had black walnut doors and frames, marble fireplace mantels, fine wood wainscoting and a marble approach leading to an entrance hall covered in mosaic tiles. In the early years, before Baldwin brought electricity to the cottage, the chandeliers and furnaces were powered with naphtha gas; according to the Arboretum expert who spoke to Huell Howser, Baldwin didn’t believe in burning wood.

The Queen Anne Cottage also contains some superb stained glass, made by John Mallon of Pacific Art Glass Works. There’s a glass portrait of Byron, and another of Shakespeare. The most remarkable of the windows is a portrait of Lucky Baldwin’s deceased third wife Jennie Dexter, laden with jewels, and featuring an almost photorealistic depiction of her face. The timeline for when exactly it was installed is a bit unclear, but I want to believe that Baldwin commissioned it after Lillie Bennett left him in late 1885 (they never officially divorced, but she can’t have been too pleased when another young woman, Louise Perkins, accused her new husband of “indiscreet actions” that same year). Several sources claim that after Bennett left, Baldwin dedicated the guesthouse to the memory of Jennie Dexter, who he described as the one great love of his life. He also hung a nearly life-sized oil portrait of Dexter in the parlor.

In addition to the Queen Anne Cottage, the coach barn just southwest of it is also part of the National Register listing. It was used to house the horses, carriages and horseman that Lucky Baldwin relied on for his day to day comings and goings. Decorating it is the same red and white frippery as the cottage. 

The inside of the Coach Barn may be even more refined than its human counterpart. Handsome, alternating boards of Port Orford cedar and redwood stripe the walls, a motif you’ll find repeated in the cottage’s bathroom. The walls between the horse stalls are topped by intricate wrought-iron dividers, and acorn-shaped finials. Up in the hayloft on the second story, there was once a ladder leading to the cupola – another feature shared between the two buildings, though the one at the Coach Barn housed a horseman instead of a bell. 

Just outside the barn is a third, much smaller red and white edifice: a dog house, where Baldwin’s bull mastiffs once drowsed when not guarding the ranch.  

The Coach Barn played an important role in the Queen Anne Cottage’s dramatic second act. Lucky Baldwin finally ran out of luck in 1909 and died of pneumonia. After his death, Baldwin’s second daughter Anita closed the cottage, inventoried all the stuff inside, removed everything that could be removed (stained glass, tile, marble mantels, doorknobs, etc.) and stored it in the Coach Barn, in hopes that someone would find it useful someday.  

In the 1920s, Anita Baldwin began selling off portions of Rancho Santa Anita for development. The historic core that included the Queen Anne Cottage and Coach Barn was sold to LA Times publisher Harry Chandler in 1936, and 11 years later, LA County and the State of California jointly bought 111 acres from Chandler’s corporation, which became the basis of the Arboretum.

When the Arboretum turned its sights to the historic structures on premises in 1952, they aired out all the stuff gathering dust in the Coach Barn since Lucky Baldwin’s death. They had to replace rotting wood, shore up the tower which had been slowly pulling away from the rest of the house, kick out some raccoons and bats from the attic, replaster some moldings…but for the most part it was in good shape. And thanks to Anita Baldwin’s careful packing, the original stained glass, marble mantelpieces and solid walnut doors could be reinstated.

These days, visitors to the Arboretum can stroll around the lake and admire the Queen Anne Cottage from the outside, or sit on the wide lanai and take in views of geese and ducks honking the day away. You can imagine you’re Lucky Baldwin, enjoying the beautiful centerpiece of your dominion. Or Lillie Langtry, the British actress that was known to frequent the guesthouse. Or Tattoo from Fantasy Island, who issued his famous catchphrase “De plane! De plane!” from atop the Queen Anne Cottage cupola. 

1. Lucky Baldwin discovered his love of peacocks while he was in India. It’s said that he imported three peacocks and peahens after his trip, which became the ancestors of the peafowl currently stalking the Arboretum. ↩︎

Thank you to Mitchell Bishop and Nancy Yoshihara of the LA County Arboretum for helping me source the Historic Structure Report and article on John Mallon. And thank you to Kyle Mickelson of Judson Studios for hooking up photos of the Jennie Dexter stained glass. 

Sources & Recommended Reading

+ “Accident at Baldwin’s” (Los Angeles Times, January 23, 1885 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “An Earthly Paradise: Mr. E.J. Baldwin’s Priceless Principality” (Los Angeles Herald, December 15, 1885 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Baldwin’s Belvedere” (Los Angeles Times, May 8, 1886 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Baldwin Series: Elias Jackson ‘Lucky’ Baldwin” (VIDEO – The Gilb Museum Of Arcadia Heritage on YouTube, September 11, 2021)

+ Bishop, Mitchell Hearns: “The Reid-Baldwin Adobe Restoration” (Arboretum.org) 

+ “Elias Jackson ‘Lucky’ Baldwin” (ArcadiaCA.gov)

+ “Fantasy Island 1978 – 1984 Opening and Closing Theme (With Snippet)” (VIDEO – TeeVees Greatest on YouTube, April 28, 2016)

+ “Harris Newmark” (ArcadiaCA.gov)

+ “Historical Structures” (Arboretum.org)

+ Historic Resources Group: “Queen Anne Cottage Historic Structure Report” (2015 – via Mitchell Bishop)

+ Howser, Huell: “Visiting with Huell Hoswer: Lucky Baldwin Cottage” (VIDEO – PBS SoCal on YouTube, March 9, 2015)

+ “Hugo Reid” (ArcadiaCA.gov)

+ “Jane Virginia ‘Jennie’ Dexter Baldwin” (Findagrave.com)

+ “Lucky Baldwin: A Look at His Famous Ranch and Its Wonders” (Los Angeles Times, June 11, 1893 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “‘Lucky Baldwin:’ How the Owner of Santa Anita Won His Title” (Los Angeles Times, August 26, 1885 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Lucky Baldwin’s Latest Fortune” (Los Angeles Times, March 9, 1902 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Lucky Baldwin Shot At in Court” (The San Francisco Call, July 3, 1896 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Lucky Baldwin Sued for Breach of Promise” (Los Angeles Times, April 29, 1885 – via Newspapers.com)

+ Meares, Hadley: “Baldwin’s Belvedere: The Queen Anne Cottage at the L.A. Arboretum” (PBSSocal.org – August 31, 2015)

+ Parra, Alvaro: “Elias ‘Lucky’ Baldwin: Land Baron of Southern California” (PBSSocal.org, September 5, 2013)

+ Parra, Alvaro: “The Melting Pot of Laborers at Santa Anita Ranch” (PBSSocal.org, August 28, 2013) 

+ Powell, John Edward: “A Guide to Historic Architecture in Fresno, California: Albert A. Bennett (1825-1890)” (HistoricFresno.org)

+ “Rancho Owners” (ArcadiaCA.gov) 

+ “The Santa Anita Tract ON SALE” (Ad – Los Angeles Herald, December 30, 1885 – via Newspapers.com)

+ Wilkman, Jon: “E.J. Lucky Baldwin” (SocalHistory.org, 1999 – via Internet Archive)

+ Wolf, Jim: “‘Distinctively Californian:’ John Mallon and the Artistic Legacy of the Pacific Art Glass Works, 1858-1897” (Nineteenth Century, Vol. 39, No. 1 – via Mitchell Bishop)