Heritage Square Museum facts for kids
Hale House, Heritage Square Museum, Los Angeles.
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| Established | 1969 |
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| Location | 3800 Homer Street Montecito Heights Los Angeles, California |
| Type | Historic house museum |
The Heritage Square Museum is a cool place in Los Angeles, California where you can step back in time! It's like an outdoor museum that shows you how people lived and what buildings looked like in Southern California from 1850 to 1950. It's located right next to the Arroyo Seco Parkway in the Montecito Heights area.
This museum helps tell the story of how Los Angeles grew super fast during those 100 years. Friendly guides give tours that share facts about the history, building styles, and culture of the area. They also have special events, talks, and displays about historical things.
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History of the Museum
Back in the 1960s, Los Angeles was growing very quickly. Many beautiful old Victorian buildings were being torn down. There was a program to list important historical buildings, but it couldn't always save them.
So, in 1969, a group of people who cared about history decided to do something. They created the Cultural Heritage Foundation. This group started Heritage Square as a safe place for important buildings. These buildings would have been destroyed if they stayed in their original spots. Instead, they were carefully moved to the museum grounds.
Buildings You Can Explore
Between 1969 and 2005, eight historic buildings, a vintage train car, and a trolley car were saved from being torn down. They were all moved to the Heritage Square Museum. Here are some of the amazing buildings you can see:
Mt. Pleasant House
The Mount Pleasant House was built in 1876. A rich businessman named William Hayes Perry owned it. A famous architect named E. F. Kysor designed it. The house has fancy details that show how wealthy the family was. These include tall Corinthian columns, beautiful wooden floors, a grand main staircase, and marble fireplace mantles.
It was built in a popular neighborhood called Boyle Heights. At the time, it was one of the fanciest and most expensive homes in Los Angeles. The house has a fancy Victorian style called Italianate. In 1975, it was moved to the museum grounds. A group called the Colonial Dames Society of America started fixing it up.
The Palms Depot
{{Main: Palms Depot}} The Palms Depot was built around 1875 for an old train company. It later became part of the Pacific Electric Railway in 1911. This train station was used until 1953. In 1963, it was marked as an important historical building. To save it from being torn down, it was moved to the museum.
Longfellow-Hastings Octagon House
This house is very special because it has eight sides! It's one of only about 500 octagon-shaped buildings left in the whole United States. This unique style came from ideas by Orson Squire Fowler in the mid-1800s. He believed that eight-sided homes were better than regular four-sided ones.
People thought these houses had more light and better air circulation. This meant they could save money on heating in winter and stay cooler in summer. They also believed they were easier and cheaper to build. Most octagon houses were built in the eastern U.S. in the 1850s. This one is unusual because it was built later, in 1893. It was moved to the museum grounds to be saved.
The John J. Ford House
The Ford House was built in 1887. It was part of a group of simple homes for middle-class families in downtown Los Angeles. This house is interesting because of who lived there: John J. Ford. He was a very famous wood carver.
John Ford created carvings for important places like the California State Capitol and the Iolani Palace in Hawaii. He even carved parts of Leland Stanford's private train car. Because he was a wood carver, all the carvings inside and outside his house were done by hand. They have beautiful, unique designs.
Lincoln Avenue Methodist Church
The Lincoln Avenue Methodist Church was built in 1897. It was originally located in Pasadena. The church was designed in the Carpenter Gothic and Queen Anne styles. Its floor plan is also special, following an old Methodist tradition. The entrance is in one corner and the pulpit (where the speaker stands) is in the opposite corner. This style is called the Akron style.
Carriage Barn
This carriage barn was built in 1899. It was originally on the property of what is now Pasadena's Huntington Memorial Hospital. It belonged to Dr. Osborne, who worked at the hospital. The barn has a Queen Anne Cottage style with some Gothic Revival influences. It has three pointed gables and a unique sloped roof. The barn was saved from being torn down and moved to Heritage Square Museum in 1981.
Valley Knudsen Garden Residence — Shaw House
The Shaw House has a unique style for the West Coast called Second Empire. It features a French mansard roof. This house is smaller than the Hale and Perry Houses.
Hale House
The Hale House was built in 1887 by George W. Morgan. He was a land speculator and real estate developer. It was built near Mount Washington in Highland Park, just a few blocks from the museum. This building is a great example of the Queen Anne and Eastlake styles.
The house was sold many times. It was moved from one street to another before James G. Hale bought it in 1906. The Hale family owned it until the museum got it in 1970. It was also named a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. When the house was fixed up, workers found small pieces of the original paint colors. They used these to make sure the outside of the house looked just like it did before. The inside has been restored to look like it did in 1899.
The Salt Box
The Salt Box was one of the last homes left on Bunker Hill. It was also one of the first homes moved to the Heritage Square Museum grounds. It was built in the Saltbox style. Sadly, soon after it arrived, a fire destroyed it. It is still remembered as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.
