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Photograph album of "Green Gates," Coldwater Canyon, Beverly Hills, Calif., 1925-1932
94/326  
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Collection Details
 
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  • Descriptive Summary
  • Administrative Information
  • Scope and Content
  • Indexing Terms
  • Related Material

  • Descriptive Summary

    Title: Photograph album of "Green Gates," Coldwater Canyon, Beverly Hills, Calif.
    Date (inclusive): 1925-1932
    Collection number: 94/326
    Physical Description: 1 album (229 photographic prints) : albumen, 21 x 26 cm (album)

    Some photographs are hand-colored.

    Photographs are mounted on rectos and versos of leaves of stiff white paper, with up to twelve photos per page; captions below in pencil, presumably by the compiler of the album, supply name of subject and date. In some cases, the subject has signed with his autograph and dates of his visit.

    Album covers have been lost.

    Spec. Coll. copy: album (without covers) is laid in manila cardboard folder.
    Abstract: Photograph album containing photos, dated 1925-1932, of the estate in Coldwater Canyon, Beverly Hills, known as "Green Gates," possibly located at 9606 Heather Road.
    Language: Finding aid is written in English.
    Language of the Material: Materials are in English.
    Repository: University of California, Los Angeles. Library Special Collections.
    Los Angeles, California 90095-1575
    Physical location: Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library Special Collections for paging information.

    Administrative Information

    Restrictions on Access

    Open for research. STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library Special Collections for paging information.

    Restrictions on Use and Reproduction

    Property rights to the physical object belong to the UC Regents. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.

    Provenance/Source of Acquisition

    Formerly owned by Margaret Randolph Elliott, who passed it on to Jean Sholes Van Houten, who lived in Princeton, N.J. from 1944-1997, and was a companion to Mrs. Elliott in her later years.
    Gift of David Van Houten of Bethlehem, NH, January 2010.

    Preferred Citation

    [Identification of item], Photograph album of "Green Gates," Coldwater Canyon, Beverly Hills, Calif. (Collection 94/326). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.

    UCLA Catalog Record ID

    UCLA Catalog Record ID: 4233582 

    Scope and Content

    The album documents the owners of the estate, possibly Margaret Randolph Axson Elliott (sister of Ellen Axson Wilson, first wife of President Woodrow Wilson), and her husband Edward Graham Elliott, and their wire fox terrier dogs, Pat and Michael, during the years 1925 to 1932. The album opens with a view of "Green Gates," approached by a sweeping gravel driveway, nestled in the canyon. Above the photo, is the letterhead of the personal stationery of the owners, which reads "'Green Gates' Coldwater Canyon, Beverly Hills, California." There are many photographs of the owners (never clearly identified), playing with their terriers, as well as members of the household staff: butlers Alan, Clarence, and Estes, housemaid Mamie, and gardener Charvez, "El Chico." There are several photos of Axson and Elliott family members: Annie Mary Elliott may have been Edward's mother or sister; Stockton Axson ("S.A."), English professor at Rice University, was the brother of Ellen Axson Wilson and Margaret Axson Elliott; Nellie Randolph Wilson McAdoo was the daughter of Ellen and Woodrow Wilson; she married Wilson's Secretary of the Treasury, William G. McAdoo. Nellie is pictured with her two daughts, Ellen Wilson McAdoo and Mary Faith McAdoo. Most of the photos document visitors to Green Gates, some drawn from Hollywood, such as the British actor and director Gerald Grove, a frequent visitor; his father Sir Walter John Grove; Anne Grove (Gerald's wife?); and the actor Alfred Schreiber. Other visitors include prominent lawyers, civic leaders, and scholars, such as Edgar Dawson, history scholar; Radoslav A. Tsanoff, philosophy scholar; Charles G. Osgood, English professor at Princeton; Carl C. Brigham, professor of psychology at Princeton, and creator of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT); Nell Watts Clark, wife of the lawyer and conservation leader, Irving M. Clark, Sr.; Alicia "Ellie" Mosgrove, civic and social worker, and founder of a girls' school in Westlake; Medora Clark, wife of the American Impressionist artist Alson S. Clark, who moved to Pasadena in 1920 and taught fine art at Occidental College; the young California artist Robert C. Gribbroek; members of the Ricketts family of Pasadena, Kate Bruce Ricketts, Dave Ricketts, and Harry Ricketts; and "four portraits from the Huntington Collection:" Hardin Craig, English Renaissance scholar and professor at Stanford and UNC Chapel Hill; Charles B. Robson, European history professor at Chapel Hill; Godfrey Davies, English historian and librarian at the Huntington Library; and Italian scholar, Elio Granturco, later of the Library of Congress. One series of photos documents a vacation trip by "M.R.E." and "E.E." (Margaret Randolph Elliott and Edward Elliott) to the HF Bar Ranch (in Sheridan, Wyoming?), and includes shots of the ranch hands Harry H. Huson, Sandy Jacques, the horses "Magpie" and "Wineglass," and views from the top of the Continental Divide.

    Indexing Terms

    The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

    Subjects

    Axson, Stockton, 1867-1935 --Photographs.
    Briggs, Mary E. --Photographs.
    Briggs, Walter M. --Photographs.
    Brigham, Carl C. (Carl Campbell), 1890-1943 --Photographs.
    Brigham, Elizabeth G.F. Duffield, fl. 1923-1930 --Photographs.
    Clark, Medora --Photographs.
    Clark, Nell Watts --Photographs.
    Craig, Hardin, 1875-1968 --Photographs.
    Davies, Godfrey, 1892-1957 --Photographs.
    Dawson, Edgar, b. 1872 --Photographs.
    Elliott, Margaret Randolph, 1881-1958 --Photographs.
    Elliott, Edward, b. 1874 --Photographs.
    Elliott, Annie Mary --Photographs.
    Gilmour, Cecile --Photographs.
    Gilmour, Ethel B. --Photographs.
    Granturco, Elio, fl. 1925-1931 --Photographs.
    Gribbroek, Robert C., 1906-1971 --Photographs.
    Grove, Gerald, 1886-1962 --Photographs.
    Grove, Walter John, d. 1932? --Photographs.
    Grove, Anne --Photographs.
    Horton, Frank --Photographs.
    Horton, Gertrude B. --Photographs.
    Huson, Harry H. --Photographs.
    Jacques, Sandy --Photographs.
    McAdoo, Eleanor Randolph Wilson, 1889-1967 --Photographs.
    McAdoo, Ellen Wilson, b. 1915 --Photographs.
    McAdoo, Mary Faith, b. 1920 --Photographs.
    Mosgrove, Alicia, fl. 1909-1929 --Photographs.
    Mulligan, Charlotte --Photographs.
    Osgood, Bella --Photographs.
    Osgood, Charles Grosvenor, 1871-1964 --Photographs.
    Osgood, Jean E. --Photographs.
    Partridge, F.H. --Photographs.
    Robson, Charles B. (Charles Baskervill), 1900-1993 --Photographs.
    Schreiber, Alfred, fl. 1920-1931 --Photographs.
    Sloane, Curtis --Photographs.
    Tsanoff, Radoslav Andrea, 1887- --Photographs.
    HF Bar Ranch --Photographs.
    Architecture, Domestic --California --Los Angeles --Photographs.
    Wire fox terrier --Photographs.
    Dogs --Photographs.
    Los Angeles (Calif.) --Photographs.
    Wyoming --Photographs.

    Genres and Forms of Material

    Photographic prints.
    Photograph albums.

    Other Index Terms Related to this Collection

    Elliott, Margaret Randolph, 1881-1958, former owner.
    Van Houten, Jean Sholes, fl. 1944-1997, former owner.
    Van Houten, David, donor.

    Related Material

    Part of the Photograph Album Collection (Collection 94)   in UCLA Library Special Collections.