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From: "Rachel bryan" <>
Subject: RE: [LUDDINGTON] Wright Ludington House
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 08:16:19 -0600
In-Reply-To: <BAY13-F6A3A0373A25514663092B85440@phx.gbl>


This is the house designed by Bertram Goodhue

Wright Saltus Ludington was one of Santa Barbara's most outstanding art
collectors and community philanthropists. Born in 1900, he was the second of
three sons of Charles H. Ludington. Ludington Sr. was a corporate lawyer and
investment banker. For a number of years, he was involved with the Curtis
Publishing Company, best known as the publisher of the popular magazine The
Saturday Evening Post.

Wright Ludington first came to California to attend Thacher School in Ojai
in 1915-16. In the spring of 1925, his father purchased Días Felices (Happy
Days), the Montecito estate of Henry Dater Jr. Dater had purchased 10 acres
along Sycamore Canyon Road in 1896, but it was not until 20 years later that
he engaged architect Bertram Goodhue* to design a Moroccan-style home.
Goodhue was a well-known designer of churches and was the architect of the
Los Angeles Public Library. His designs for the 1915 San Diego Exposition
have been credited with rekindling interest in the Spanish-Colonial
architectural style in California. His local commissions included the J. W.
Gillespie estate in Montecito and the Montecito Country Club.

Charles Ludington passed away in 1927 and Wright Ludington inherited the
estate. He rechristened it Val Verde and engaged nationally known landscape
architect Lockwood de Forest Jr., whom he had met while a student at Thacher
School, to transform the gardens. De Forest worked on the gardens on and off
for most of the rest of his life; they are his crowning achievement. The
estate's reservoir became a swimming pool and Ludington had an art gallery
built to house his growing collections. Ludington utilized the atrium to
house his collection of classical statuary.

Ludington's love of art may be traced back to family trips to Europe in the
1920s. He was an eclectic collector. He gathered antiquities from the Middle
East, Greece, and Rome, some more than 4,000 years old. He also collected
modern masters such as Picasso, Matisse, Dalí, and Degas and often was ahead
of the curve in recognizing talent. A fine artist in his own right,
Ludington studied at Yale, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the
Art Students League of New York. During World War II, he designed camouflage
for the Army.

Ludington was one of the founders of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art,
serving as a vice president of the board in 1940 and president in 1951. He
endowed the central atrium of the museum to hold his donated collection of
classical sculpture in honor of his father. Over the years he gave the
museum over 300 pieces, including a fabulous collection of oriental artwork
in 1983, again, in honor of his father. Through his gifts Ludington hoped
that others' lives "will be enriched as mine has been by the many wonderful
things artists have to tell us."

In 1957, Ludington engaged architect Lutah Maria Riggs to design a home off
of Bella Vista Drive that would better showcase his collections. The display
rooms in the new home, which Ludington named Hesperides, were the most
dramatic elements of the residence. Ludington had the walls of the picture
gallery painted black to dramatically contrast with and set off the
canvases. Elizabeth Kellam de Forest, widow of Lockwood de Forest Jr.,
designed the gardens. Riggs designed yet another, smaller house for
Ludington in the early 1970s. Wright Ludington passed away in 1992 at the
age of 91.

In 1955, Ludington had sold Val Verde to horsewoman Marjorie Buell, who
almost immediately sold it to Dr. Warren Austin. Over the years, Dr. Austin
added on to the estate until it encompassed some 17 acres. The estate, with
its magnificent gardens, is today owned by a nonprofit organization.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Michael Redmon, director of research at the Santa Barbara Historical
Society, will answer your questions about Santa Barbara’s history. Write him
c/o The Independent, 122 West Figueroa St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101.

-----Original Message-----
From: Barbara Campbell [mailto:]
Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2005 10:48 PM
To:
Subject: [LUDDINGTON] Wright Ludington House


http://flamenco.sims.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/flamenco/production/FrankenMatrix?
q=concept:225689/object:2894&group=object


Does anyone know who this house belonged to?



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