We were at a car show in the City of Industry and I saw this museum listed on
Trip Advisor. I use TripAdvisor a lot for picking restaurants, hotels and
things to do. We have never had a bad experience when picking the top places
to eat. But I digress. the Homestead museum turned out to be much more then
anticipated and was a real find. It has a lot of history of the Los Angeles
region from the early 1800s to about the 1930s. The picture to the left is the
Workman house constructed about 1840. It is an adobe house and at one point
they covered it with granite to protect the adobe.
click photo to enlarge
The picture to the left is La Casa Nueva and is built in the Spanish
Colonial Revival style. All of the architectural highlights and stained
glass windows are a real treat. The interesting thing is over the years the
family lost then regained the property a few times. Today it is run by the
city. In 1917 Walter P. Temple used wealth from an oil discovery to
repurchase 75 acres of the original family rancho. On this property he had
the new house built. By the early 1930s, the Temple family lost the house
and it became a boys' military school and a convalescent hospital before it
was acquired by the City of Industry in the mid 1960s.
click photo to enlarge
There are about 50 stained glass works of art in the house. Because the
house was designed in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, the windows were
created to complement its pre-industrial and handmade appearance. The
artists drew their inspiration from the stained glass windows of medieval
Europe. The entire complex is well worth a stop if you are ever in the City
of Industry. It is home to over 2,500 businesses and in the 2010 census there
were only 219 residents.
