If you love Victorian architecture and style, this is the place for you: the Heritage Square Museum in Los Angeles can take visitors back in time to the years between the American Civil War and the early 1900s, to a place where time seems to stand still. Let’s find out what it is and how to visit it.
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About the Heritage Square Museum
The Heritage Square Museum is an open-air museum in the Montecito Heights neighborhood of northeast Los Angeles. The museum, founded in 1969, was created with the intention of preserving some historic Victorian-style buildings that were in danger of being destroyed during the city’s economic boom and population development. In the 1960s, in fact, many cottages and beautiful mansions were demolished to make way for skyscrapers and multi-unit apartment buildings.
Some citizens and the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Board objected to the demolition of so many historic homes and decided to work to preserve some of them, so in 1969 they founded the Heritage Square Museum by moving and bringing together nine buildings, restoring them, and creating a small oasis where you can get a taste of what life in Southern California in the late 1800s might have been like.
Directions
The Heritage Square Museum is located at 3800 Homer Street in Los Angeles, along 110 Arroyo Seco Parkway and just 10 minutes from Downtown LA. The open-air museum is also a very short distance from Dodger Stadium.
If you are driving you can follow these directions:
- northbound on the 110: exit at Avenue 43, turn right onto Homer Street and continue to the end of the street. The museum parking lot is on the right.
- southbound on the 110: Exit at the Avenue 43 exit, turn left, cross the bridge and continue to the first stop sign. Turn right onto Homer Street and continue to the parking lot on the right at the end of the street.
Parking at the museum is free.
If you are on the subway, take the Gold Line and get off at the Southwest Museum stop. From the stop you will have to walk about 18 minutes to reach the museum. Otherwise you can take bus number 182 and get off at Griffin Avenue at the intersection with Avenue 39.
Tickets, Tours and Opening Hours
The Heritage Square Museum is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm. The museum is closed on the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.
The ticket cost is $10 for adults, $8 for those over 65, and $5 for children between 6 and 12 years old. Children under 6 get in free.
The museum also offers daily guided tours at 12 noon and 3 pm. Tours last about an hour and cost $16 per person.
For wheelchair users, only 3 historic buildings (Palms Depot, Perry House and Colonial Drugstore) have ramps and even walking the pebbled paths may not be very easy.
Things to See
Inside the Heritage Square Museum you will be able to admire:
- Hale House: built in 1887 by George W. Morgan at the foot of Mount Washington in Highland Park is considered the ‘most photographed house in the entire city.’ After numerous changes of ownership it was purchased by Beret Bessie Hovelsrud and her husband James G. Hale in 1906. Bessie Hovelsrud lived in the house until the 1960s, and after her death in 1967, her granddaughter decided to donate it to the museum in 1972. The Queen Ann style, pastel green and pink colors, and perfectly restored interior make it a one-of-a-kind piece.
- Valley Knudsen Garden Residence: the French mansard roof and Second Empire style give it a unique characterization among all other houses of this type. The property was originally located on Mozart Street in Lincoln Heights.
- John Ford House: built in 1887 by the Beaudry Brothers it was similar to many other houses of the time. What made it famous was its owner, John J. Ford, a famous California sculptor and carver whose inlaid woodwork can be seen at the California State Capitol in Sacramento and the Iolani Palace in Hawaii. The decorations and inlays inside and outside the John Ford House were all done by hand by the artist.
- Dr. Osborne’s Carriage Barn: this Queen Ann-style barn with neo-Gothic details was built in 1899 on the land where Pasadena’s Huntington Memorial Hospital now stands. It originally accommodated horses and a carriage, then was used as a garage and dwelling. In 1981 it was moved inside the museum saving it from demolition.
- Palms Depot: When the Southern Pacific railroad company arrived in Southern California in 1876, it radically changed the way people moved and transported goods. It seemed almost impossible to build a rail line between Los Angeles and Santa Monica, yet in 1887 a new railroad station, Palms Depot, stood on a crossroads in a new urban area, the only one between Los Angeles and the sea. The Palms Depot operated for freight and passengers until 1933 and was declared a historic landmark in 1963. It was moved to the museum in 1975. The building was also a movie set in several films including Laurel & Hardy. Today the Palms Depot houses the museum’s Visitor Center inside.
- Lincoln Avenue Methodist Church: construction of this Methodist church began in September 1897 and its dedication was in April the following year. The church has a Queen Ann and Carpenter Gothic style together with the traditional style of Methodist churches with non-axial planes and the entrance placed at the opposite corner to the pulpit (Akron style originating in Ohio). It saw its heyday in 1898 when it was surrounded by gardens and thick vegetation, but by the 1960s its size was no longer adequate for the number of worshipers. In 1979 it was purchased by the Post Office and in 1981 divided into six parts and transferred to the museum.
- William Hayes Perry Mansion: built in 1876 by a prominent businessman named William Hayes Perry to the design of architect E.F. Kysor, this is the largest house in the museum. When it was built in the Boyle Heights neighborhood, the property was the most expensive residence built in Los Angeles up to that time. In 1888 it was purchased by Judge Stephen C. Hubbel. However, over the decades the house was gradually abandoned and vandalized. In 1975 it was moved to the museum thanks to the intervention of the Colonial Dames Society of America. The house is also known by the name Mount Pleasant House.
- Longfellow-Hastings Octagon House: what characterizes this house is undoubtedly its octagonal shape. Gilbert Longfellow built his first octagon house in Maine, and when he moved to California he decided to build another one. In the late nineteenth century it was indeed very popular, especially on the East Coast, to build octagonal-shaped houses in the wake of architect Orson S. Fowler’s book published in 1848, in which he argued for all the merits of this type of construction, from increased light and air circulation to the savings in building eight sides instead of the traditional four. This is one of the last remaining 500 octagonal houses in the entire United States and has been in the museum since 1973.
- Colonial Drugstore: the building housed a pharmacy and was built a short distance from where the museum is today. It was operational for over 60 years serving the local community. In memory of George A. Simmons, the Simmons family donated not only the building to the museum, but also a collection of pharmaceuticals and cosmetics with over 80,000 items produced between 1888 and 1950.
Where to Stay in the Area
The area where the Heritage Square Museum is located is a fairly quiet and safe area in northeast Los Angeles. You can easily reach downtown in a short time using public transportation. An idea might also be to choose accommodation a little further northeast in the beautiful city of Pasadena. For more details please read our guide on where to stay in Los Angeles.
