Harry Carey Ranch, 28515 San Francisquito Canyon Road, Saugus, Los Angeles County, CA

Significance: Nine buildings of the main Harry Carey Ranch complex comprise the Harry Carey Historic District. Eleven additional buildings and structures were previously surveyed and have been found to be non-contributing. Harry and Olive Carey had the ranch house, and its various outbuildings, built during the 1920s and 1930s, a period when they and their children lived at the ranch. Both Harry and Olive Carey were members of the early motion picture industry in Southern California, but Harry had the more prominent and prolific career, performing in well over 200 films between the 1910s and early 1940s. Because the property played a role in the formative years of the film industry itself, and specifically to the location filming done in the Santa Clarita Valley, it is strongly associated with a historically significant trend: the development of the motion picture industry in the region. The fact Careys lived on the ranch at various times during more than twenty years of Western film star Harry Carey's professional life. The property also embodies distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction. The main house and other smaller adobe structures represent a distinctive type and method of construction in both their vernacular expression of Spanish Colonial Revival styling and in the individuality of it unique architectural details, such as the wall niches, built in cabinetry, and exposed telephone pole ceiling beams of the main house. Nine buildings on the former Harry Carey Ranch comprise the Harry Carey Ranch Historic District: Building 1: Adobe Stables; Building 2: Bunkhouse; Building 3: Smokehouse; Building 4: Joe's Cabin; Building 5: Main Ranch House; Building 6: Lower Garage (destroyed in 1994 earthquake); Building 7: Upper Garage; Building 8 Wood Stable; Building 9a: Caretaker's House. Leslie Heumann and Helen Wells of CRMS identified the district in a historic resources inventory and evaluation that they prepared (using State of California inventory forms, or DPR 523 forms) for 18 buildings and structures on the Harry Carey Ranch in July 1993. This inventory was conducted as part of the "Tesoro Del Valle Survey." The California Office of Historic Preservation (OHP) agreed with the findings of the Heumann and Wells survey. Because the OHP concurred, it placed the district in National Register of Historic Places status "2D2" on January 3, 1996 in its history property database. This status reflects that each of the contributing buildings of the ranch has been "determined eligible for listing through a consensus determination," although they have not yet been officially listed on the National Register.
Survey number: HABS CA-2712
Building/structure dates: 1920-1940 Initial Construction