Added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 17, 2014

When Judie and J.P. O’Neill went house hunting in Altadena in 1997, friends and realtors told them “Don’t buy west of Lake Avenue.” There was a perception back then that the more racially diverse parts of Altadena were less desirable, less well-maintained. Even though the neighborhood just west of Lake was once home to some of Altadena’s most notable residents, in its most historic homes. Mapmaker Andrew McNally’s house is on Mariposa, a couple modern blocks away from the old Victorian built by Altadena’s founder, Frederick Woodbury. Just down Mariposa is a large Mediterranean revival once owned by Zane Grey, author of Riders of the Purple Sage, one of the most popular western novels of all time. 

Frankly I have no idea where that prejudice against Altadena’s westside came from. I was living in Altadena in the late 1990s, just east of Lake, and my family’s tidy mission revival had nothing on Villa Carlotta, the house that the O’Neills settled on. The two-story mansion anchors a beautiful block of Mendocino Street, full of well-kept single-family homes shaded by a diversity of mature trees. If it tells you anything, the houses surrounding it hover in the $2.5 – $3 million range, according to Zillow estimates. The O’Neills bought Villa Carlotta for $600,000 back in 1997; today it’s on the market for $5.3 million. If the “Don’t buy west of Lake” perception was ever accurate, it’s certainly not anymore. 

Villa Carlotta is one of the many residential jewels designed by Myron Hunt, one of the most prolific, admired architects practicing in early 20th century LA. Either by himself or with others, Hunt designed the Rose Bowl, the Huntington Library, Occidental College, Throop University (a forerunner to CalTech), the Ambassador Hotel, the Huntington Hotel (now the Langham Huntington), the Malaga Cove Plaza Library and the Pasadena Central Library. He was known for the refined elegance of his large-scale buildings, many of which incorporated Mediterranean design tropes. 

Hunt was also an inspired designer of residential architecture. At Villa Carlotta, he merged Mediterranean with craftsman styles in unusual ways. Greenish clay tile roofs, wooden balconies, wide eaves and arroyo rock walls aren’t so uncommon in LA. It’s much more unusual to see them all united in one house. But the exterior works beautifully by playing up the natural materials, which complement the lush flora that surrounds the house, and the Verdugo Mountains to the north. 

Villa Carlotta was built in 1917 or 1918 (sources differ on the year of completion) for Francis Raymond Welles, his wife Anna and their family. Welles was an American who had served for 30+ years as the head of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone manufacturing company in Europe. Beginning in the 1880s, he oversaw the company’s factory in Antwerp and helped expand its presence throughout the continent.

Welles resigned from the Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company in 1913, moved back to America, and commissioned Villa Carlotta as a summer retirement home. I’m guessing that Welles chose this location because his brother Arthur already lived in a large craftsman-style (known as “Rosewall”) right at the corner of Mendocino & Raymond.

For their new digs, the Welles family asked Hunt to incorporate elements of their family estate in France. Villa Carlotta’s high ceilings, tall windows and extensive wood paneling were all reminiscent of their old home; Hunt was himself a big fan of this style of wood paneling, and you can see echoes of the Villa Carlotta walls in the Pasadena Central Library, built a decade later.

The home was also influenced in more direct ways by Francis Welles’s former occupation: it was one of the first houses in Altadena wired for electricity from the get-go, and the family installed seven Bell telephones throughout the house, which were later transformed into an elaborate intercom system. 

The interior of Villa Carlotta is remarkably well-preserved for its age. You’ll find century-old stuff everywhere you look, from the bathroom tile to the multiple Batchelder fireplaces to the stunning floor-to-ceiling oak shelving in the library. Pocket doors, built-ins, lighting fixtures, even the paint in the former servants’ quarters – all original. At least as of 2020, there were 13 gravity furnaces in the basement from the home’s earliest days, one of which is still controlled by the same push button panel that the Welleses used. The elevator dates to 1946, the pool to 1963 and I’ve got a hunch the jukebox in the billiard parlor didn’t come with the house. Other than that, you’re experiencing the house much like the Welleses did (perhaps with fewer wait staff).

What wows me the most about Villa Carlotta is how light it all feels. All that wood in the entry hall, staircase and library could have shrouded these gathering spaces in darkness. But the height of the ceilings, and the extra tall windows, bring every last ounce of sunlight into the center of the home. And when you tire of just seeing the sunlight stream through the window, you can always wander around the gorgeous backyard, with its central fountain and secluded seating nooks. This is quintessential California architecture, taking ample advantage of the mild California climate by treating the outdoors as an extension of the indoor living space. 

Francis and Anna Welles spent over a decade living the good life at Villa Carlotta, with frequent trips to Europe. But in the early 1930s, one of their daughters, Anna Welles Brown (yes, that’s two generations of Annas) moved into the house with her husband and four children, after losing everything during the Great Depression. In 1934 Francis and Anna returned to France permanently; Anna Welles Brown and her family stayed (less husband Wylie, who moved to Texas to manage a cattle ranch).

In the coming decades, the entire neighborhood would fill up with the Welles family. The younger Anna’s brother Robert moved to a house designed by Roland Coate next door; during WWII another sibling, Carlotta (perhaps the inspiration for the name “Villa Carlotta?”), moved to Altadena from France and bought a home half a block away on Visscher Place; their aunt Emma was two blocks away, on Mendocino Street & Santa Anita Avenue. Add in uncle Arthur’s Rosewall residence on the other side of Villa Carlotta, and that’s five Welles-related homes within a .3 mile radius. 

Anna Welles Brown eventually sold Villa Carlotta to a young neighbor she befriended, named Dorothy Hall. Dorothy and her husband bought Villa Carlotta in 1956, while Anna moved into a large back house that’s no longer part of the property. And that’s when the barn owl incident occurred: 

Tuffy has proved he is a real “night owl.” Once he got a chance to get out of the house, the trained barn owl spent a whole week living it up. 

The way it happened was that Mrs. Robert Speight of 2378 Morslay Rd., Tuffy’s owner, left the bird with Sherwood Hall, of 234 E. Mendocino St., while the Speight family went on vacation. 

But Tuffy flew out an upstairs window and, later, turned up a mile away at the home of Mr. and Mrs. C.R. Carkee, 637 E. Altadena Dr., where he scolded blue jays, chased the family cat, romped with the Carkeeks’ son, Charles, 19, and generally had a high old time until Charles learned that Hall had reported the barn owl missing. 

Tuffy is back home again. It’s probably a tossup who had the most interesting vacation – he or his owner. 

– “Tuffy Shows He’s a Real ‘Night Owl’, Los Angeles Times, August 30, 1964 

Dorothy Hall lived at Villa Carlotta for nearly 40 years. By 1995 she was widowed, living most of the time on the east coast with her son Sherwood, and ready to sell. The house was in a pretty rundown state when the O’Neill family bought it two years later, but they were looking for a fixer-upper with more space, and Villa Carlotta fit the bill. The Halls and the O’Neills joined together for a holiday soup party right before the O’Neills moved in. 

The O’Neills spruced up Villa Carlotta mightily in the years since they moved in, restoring the rundown bits, replacing and gently refurbishing the upstairs bedrooms. They also unlocked its potential as a filming location – the home’s been used in episodes of Young Sheldon, NCIS, Criminal Minds and The Sex Lives of College Girls, and David Fincher shot scenes from The Social Network here.

And now, it’s time for another changing of the guard at Villa Carlotta. As of August 2024, the house is once again up for sale. It’s been lucky enough to have three families as longtime stewards. If you’d like to be the fourth, hit up Scott James & Christian Stillmark at Douglas Elliman Real Estate. 

Thanks to Scott James, Christian Stillmark and Priyanka Banerjee of Douglas Elliman Real Estate for hooking up the contemporary photos and film history of Villa Carlotta. And thanks to filmmaker Curtis McElhinney for putting me in touch with homeowner Judie O’Neill.

Sources & Recommended Reading/Watching

+ “234 E Mendocino Street, Altadena, CA 91001” (Elliman.com)

+ Carrier, Susan: “Value Judgments” (Los Angeles Times, November 11, 2001)

+ Cisneros, Stephanie, Historic Preservation Partners: Villa Carlotta’s NRHP nomination form

+ Estreich, Bob & Jan Verhelst: “The Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company of Antwerp, Belgium” (bobsoldphones.net – via Internet Archive)

+ “Huntington Guild Sounds Emergency, and Husbands Rush to the Rescue” (Los Angeles Times, May 1, 1977 – via ProQuest)

+ James, Scott & Christian Stillmark: “A Masterpiece of History and Vintage Technology: Villa Carlotta Stands in Timeless Elegance” (PasadenaNow.com)

+ Keller, Loretta Schertz: “TOUR: Altadena Home Tour Is a Walk to the Past” (Los Angeles Times, November 20, 1991)

+ McElhinney, Curtis, Trailblazer: “Five Houses by Hunt” (FORT:LA, 2023)

+ O’Neill, Judie: “The Villa Carlotta End of the Block” (PDF – Altadena Heritage Newsletter, May 2014)

+ The Simon Productions: “Villa Carlotta” (VIDEO – FORT Films, 2023)

+ “Tuffy Shows He’s a Real ‘Night Owl’” (Los Angeles times, August 30, 1964 – via ProQuest)

+ Various building permits for 234 E. Mendocino Street (LA County Public Works Building Permit Viewer)