Rancho Los Alamitos, 6400 Bixby Hill Road, Long Beach, Los Angeles County, CA

2012-2013 HALS Heroes Stipend Recipient. The Northern California Chapter of the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) has initiated a program to promote the documentation of California's cultural landscapes. They offer stipends to qualified persons to prepare HALS measured drawings or large-format photographs.
See also HABS CA-310 for additional documentation.
Significance: The Gardens of Rancho Los Alamitos are an outstanding example of early 20th Century formal landscape planning, exemplifying not only the cultural character of the times but carrying on a tradition of the Beautification Movement of the late 19th Century.

The Gardens as we see them today are the work of Florence Bixby, who built on the gardens created between 1868 and 1906 by her mother-in-law, Susan Bixby. During the period between 1921 and the late 1940s, Florence was assisted by prominent landscape designers and plantsmen. These included William Hertrich, head gardener at the Henry Huntington Estate, Allen Chickering, a native plant expert and college classmate of the Bixby's, Paul J. Howard landscape designer from the great Los Angeles horticultural Howard family, Florence Yoch from the Pasadena firm of Yoch & Council and the California office of the Olmsted Brothers.

Rancho Los Alamitos is listed twice on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1974 it was listed for its significance as the general site of the Gabrielino village of Povuu'ngna. In 1981 it was listed as a place illustrative of the evolution of the Southern California region and for its long history of more than fifteen hundred years of continuous occupation. HABS (CA-310).
Survey number: HALS CA-90
Building/structure dates: ca. 1921- ca. 1949 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: ca. 1868- ca. 1906 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: ca. 1804 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: ca. 1970 Subsequent Work
National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 81000153