Category: vintage landscape

The Sunday porch: Santa Barbara

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Vhay house, Santa Barbara CA, 1934, HABS, Library of CongressThe north porch of the Vhay House, 835 Leguna Street, Santa Barbara, California, April 1934, by C. A. Fletcher for an Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.*

Vhay house, Santa Barbara CA, 1934, HABS, Library of CongressThe Rafael Gonzalez House, which was owned by Louise and David Vhay at the time of these photos, was built in 1825.  It is a typical adobe townhouse of the Mexican California period, with walls over 2′ (.61 m.) thick.

Gonzalez was a soldier and landowner when he built the house for his Italian bride. He became mayor or alcalde of Santa Barbara in 1829.  His daughter, Salome, inherited the home in 1866 and lived there until 1923.

The Vhays restored and enlarged the house.  It is now occupied by Randall House Rare Books.

Vhay house, Santa Barbara CA, 1934, HABS, Library of CongressAbove: bougainvillea above and calla lilies below, along the north porch, by C. A. Fletcher.

Vhay HABS, 1934, Library of CongressAbove: north porch, by C. A. Fletcher (cropped by me).

Vhay house, Santa Barbara CA, 1934, HABS, Library of CongressAbove: south porch from the southwest. Photographed April 1934, by H. F. Withey.

Vhay house, Santa Barbara CA, 1934, HABS, Library of CongressAbove: detail of south porch, east end, by H. F. Withey.

Vhay house, Santa Barbara CA, 1934, HABS, Library of CongressAbove: 1934 drawing by Frederick C. Hageman (also the small plan above).

2010 photo by Dilly Lynn, via Wikimedia CommonsAbove:  2010 photo of the Rafael Gonzalez House, now a rare book store, by Dilly Lynn, via Wikimedia Commons.  There’s also a nice painting of the house in 1953 here.

The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970.

.    .    .    — for a sec
he even sees the calla lily’s furl
in the gesture of voilà!

— Farnoosh Fathi, from “Sympathy“

*All photos and drawings here, except the last image, via Vhay House HABS, Library of Congress.

Life in gardens: Bélesta, France

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Bebe et les pigeons, Belesta, 1897, flickr Commons

“Bébé et les pigeons, Bélesta,” 1897, by Eugène Trutat, via Bibliothèque de Toulouse Commons on flickr.

Trutat (1840-1910) was a naturalist, geologist, mountaineer of the Pyrenees, and the curator of the Museum of Toulouse.

He was also an early photographer — beginning in 1859 — and was particularly interested in using the medium for science. He eventually took almost 15,000 images and authored a number of books, including Photography Applied to Archaeology and Photography Applied to Natural History.

Trutat took many beautiful pictures of his family and friends, including the one here, of his sons, Paul and Henri. He took several photos of Bébé, a little girl, in October 1897.

There’s more in words than I can teach:
Yet listen, Child! — I would not preach;
But only give some plain directions
To guide your speech and your affections.
Say not you love a roasted fowl
But you may love a screaming owl,
And, if you can, the unwieldy toad
That crawls from his secure abode
Within the mossy garden wall
When evening dews begin to fall,
Oh! mark the beauty of his eye:
What wonders in that circle lie!
So clear, so bright, our fathers said
He wears a jewel in his head!
And when, upon some showery day,
Into a path or public way
A frog leaps out from bordering grass,
Startling the timid as they pass,
Do you observe him, and endeavour
To take the intruder into favour:
Learning from him to find a reason
For a light heart in a dull season.
And you may love him in the pool,
That is for him a happy school,
In which he swims as taught by nature,
Fit pattern for a human creature,
Glancing amid the water bright,
And sending upward sparkling light.

— Dorothy Wordsworth, from “Loving and Liking: Irregular Verses Addressed to a Child“

Life in gardens: Napier, New Zealand

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Williams garden, via National Library of New Zealand Commons on flickr“Group in the garden of William and Lydia Williams, Carlyle Street, Napier,” ca. 1890, a stereographic image by William Williams, via the National Library of New Zealand Commons on flickr.

Williams garden, via National Library of New Zealand Commons on flickr

The online catalogue of the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington provides further details:

Lydia Williams is in the centre, playing the banjo. Seated at the right is her sister, Amy Devereux. The man with the camera is Russell Duncan. The other man’s identity is unknown but it is possible he was a member of a group such as the Fisk Jubilee Singers, a troupe of Negro singers and musicians who toured New Zealand in the late 1880s. Photograph taken by Lydia’s husband William Williams.

Russell Duncan was later to become a well known photographer and historian of Napier.

Another photo by Williams, below, also from the Alexander Turnbull Library, seems to show the same group, on the same day.

Williams garden, via National Library of New Zealand The man eating may be Williams, rather than Duncan.

What junipers are these, inlaid
With flame of the pomegranate tree?
The god of gardens must have made
This still unrumored place for thee
To rest from immortality,
And dream within the splendid shade
Some more elusive symphony
Than orchestra has ever played.

— Grace Hazard Conkling, from “Symphony of a Mexican Garden“

Vintage landscape: February flowers

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Tulare Valley, Calf. in February, via SMU, flickr“Tulare Valley, California; gathering flowers in February,” 1868, by Alexander Gardner, via SMU Central University Libraries Commons on flickr.

You can click on the image and enlarge it.

Best and brightest, come away!
Fairer far than this fair Day,
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
The Brightest hour of unborn Spring,
Through the winter wandering,
Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn
To hoar February born.
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
It kissed the forehead of the Earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free,
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains,
And like a prophetess of May
Strewed flowers upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.

— Percy Bysshe Shelley, from “To Jane: The Invitation“

(Posts with photos from the here and now are coming shortly.  We had house guests and were traveling last week.)

The Sunday porch: Bound Brook, N.J.

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Bound Brook, N.J., Feb. 1936, porches, via Library of Congress“Back [?] porches of a series of identical houses. Bound Brook, New Jersey,” February 1936, by Carl Mydans, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The winter of 1935/1936 was one of the coldest of that decade in North America.  And the following summer brought the infamous 1936 heat wave.

Carl Mydans was working for the U.S. Resettlement Administration when he took this picture.  Shortly afterwards, he was hired by Life and is probably best remembered today for his war photography for the magazine.

February, month of despair,
with a skewered heart in the centre.

— Margaret Atwood, from “February“