October, 1905 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



249 



A Southern California Ranch 



By Charles F. Holder 



HAT there is a subtle charm about ranch 

 life no one who has passed through the 

 strip of country between the desert and the 

 deep sea on the southern California coast 

 can deny, but what it is is another ques- 

 tion. What the Eastern man calls a farm 

 the Californian designates a ranch, and by the same token the 

 farmer is a rancher. Here the resemblance ends, as the con- 

 ditions which environ the two are entirely different. The 



great ranches still remain more or less intact, and one of the 

 largest in southern California, and possibly the most at- 

 tractive, is the Santa Anita Rancho, in Los Angeles County, 

 about fourteen miles from Los Angeles, on the slope of the 

 Sierra Madre Range, destined in the near future to become 

 one of the most delightful of the many suburbs of Los 

 Angeles, whose limits are now within about two miles of 

 the borders of that city. It is said that the ambition of 

 E. J. Baldwin, the owner of Santa Anita, was to own a strip 



The Ranch Home across the Lake, Showing Diversity of Plants and Trees, the Vegetation Being Principally Tropical 



typical big California rancher is in every sense the possessor 

 of an eminent domain. He owns and controls a princi- 

 pality, and on some of the old ranches one could ride for 

 days and find new and diverting scenery. 



A few years ago, comparatively speaking, all California 

 was divided into these principalities, but to-day, owing to the 

 increased value of the land and the high taxes, they are 

 being cut up. Towns and villages are plotted on them, and 

 what were once farms now become town sites. Many of the 



of land several miles wide, and from the Sierra Madre to 

 the sea — a distance of thirty miles. 



That he nearly succeeded is well known, and doubtless, 

 it would have been an accomplished fact had land not leaped 

 into high values so rapidly. As it stands, this estate is 

 represented by a number of splendid ranches that sweep 

 down from the mountains, crossing the Puente, or Mission 

 Hills, to the Pacific, whose blue waters can be distinctly 

 seen shimmering in the sun. 



