Abbey San Encino
Abbey San Encino in the Highland Park area is a unique artifact of early 20th century Los Angeles. In 1915 Clyde Browne — of Browne & Cartwright, the company that printed USC’s Daily Trojan and Occidental College’s weekly paper — started building his home along the Arroyo Seco, just off what was then Pasadena Avenue. He used rocks taken from the Arroyo Seco, building his own railroad from the property down to the banks of the arroyo to transport them, as well as whatever other materials he could get his hands on including bits and pieces from the ruins of European buildings, scrounged rocks and bricks from demolished local buildings, metal from dilapidated cars, and bells from train and fire engines and Garvanza Elementary School. The house was completed in 1921, but he didn’t move his family in until 1924. It is a designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.
Highland Park, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County
Photographer: John Bare