As anyone who knows me knows, I love the 1920s. I dressed as a flapper for my high school senior prom, I included a character from the 1920s in my most successful fiction work, I have a '1920s' tag on my tumblr, I regularly imagine myself and Sarah as flappers in 20s New York City, and I cut my hair in a bob style in honour of the flappers and bright young things of the roaring twenties.
I also love local history. Wherever I am in the world, I seek out the stories and monuments of local events and characters. Considering what my job is, this should come as a shock to no one.
There is a place in Campbell, not too far from my work, which combines these two interests, that I had to see one last time before leaving California. And that place is Ainsley House, which I went to visit not too recently - actually, on 22 April.
This is going to be a photo-heavy post, not a text-heavy post.
First off, you may be wondering, "what the fuck is an Ainsley House?" Well, follow me through the door and find out...
Ainsley House is one of the houses of local rich guy John Ainsley, who earned his fortune in the fruit industry. This area wasn't always a tech capital, you know. For a long time - I think about a century or so - the Santa Clara Valley was an agricultural area known as "The Valley of Heart's Delight". (NOT the Valley of THE Heart's Delight - there is no second "the" in the title, as my boss will rant about. It's one of her pet peeves.) This house was built in 1925 in a Tudor Revival style, which was really popular at the time and means that the house has lots of really pretty Tudoresque details, such as carved oak branches in the doorways that would look just as good in one of Henry VIII's castles as they would in this California landmark.
The house is now a house museum, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. According to wikipedia, the Ainsley family donated the house, its furnishings and the carriage house to the City of Campbell in 1989 and they were moved to their present location at 300 Grant Street in Downtown Campbell in 1990. In some ways it does have some similarities to the Winchester Mystery House, where I work. Mrs. Winchester and Mr. Ainsley were both orchardists (though for Mrs. W, she was rich before she started selling fruit), and both houses are beautiful examples of old architecture now open to the public. Both are local landmarks and both are on the National Register of Historic Places. Incidentally, my tour guide at the Ainsley House used to work at Winchester, and we bonded over that, which was nice.
Look how beautiful that dining room is. It's the more formal dining room; the doorway in the back of the photo leads to a more casual dining room:
Also, check out the fireplace in the informal dining room??? Look at the detail on those tiles:
(I should have taken notes. The tour guide told me where the Ainsleys bought all of their tiles, but I cannot recall the name of that company)
Some more history, from the Ainsley House's official website:
"The historic Ainsley House is an example of the English Tudor Revival style popular in the South San Francisco Bay Area during the 1920s. The home was built in 1925, as the third home for Campbell canning pioneer John Colpitts Ainsley and his wife Alcinda. The home originally sat in the southwest corner of their 83-acre (340,000 m2) orchard on the corner of Hamilton and Johnson (now Bascom) Avenues. The historic home was moved to its present location at 300 Grant Street in Downtown Campbell in 1990.
Since its relocation, the historic home has been restored to its original 1920s appearance inside and out. The Ainsley House is a City-run historic house museum and is open to the public. The 15 rooms are furnished with much of the original furniture from the era when the house was one of the grand homes in the Santa Clara Valley. The house is not only a symbol of J.C. Ainsley’s success, but of the prosperity found in Campbell at the height of the fruit canning and drying industry."
The parlour was beautiful, I could have happily stayed in this room for hours, with its silk wallpaper, grand piano, period furniture, and this really unique wood detail that I've never seen in any other house, including the one I work at:
The Ainsleys also had a maid, who was either Swiss or Swedish, again I cannot remember what my guide told me. She had a bedroom in the house which seems to indicate that she may have been a live-in maid, but she also may have had her own house off-property and only stayed during weekends. Here is her bed, with a period "friendship quilt" adorning it:
Oh and some kitchen photos? I am loving that stove and ice box.
John and Alcinda's bedroom upstairs was more formal than the maid's, and it seemed to me to be in more of a romantic French country style than an English tudor style. According to the tour guide, that's because Alcinda got to decorate the bedroom and the adjoining bathroom.
The two separate beds may seem confusing, but it was actually pretty popular at the time. Motion pictures were extremely popular in the twenties, and many of them (though not all, since this was still before the Hayes Code) showed couples sleeping in separate beds.
There was a second bathroom with green tiles that I believe was for their son Gordon, which sadly I did not get a photo of. My guide told me an entertaining story about it. There's a local legend, apparently, that the door in that bedroom was stolen from Mrs. Winchester's estate!
I looked at the door and was like "that door? No way." The door in question was way too Art Deco for Mrs. Winchester's tastes, and did not match any of the 2,000 doors in her mansion. The style of it would not have fit anywhere in her mansion, not even her niece's more modern room or the servant's quarters!
My tour guide laughed and told me he didn't believe it either, having worked at the Winchester House as well. He doesn't know how the legend started but he thinks it's a load of shit. I'm paraphrasing, of course, but essentially that's what he meant. Entertaining story, though.
These photos are from daughter Dorothy's room, I think. That or a guest bedroom, I can't remember. I do love the little closet with a sink in it. I don't know why, I just think that is the cutest shit, and if I ever get rich I am so including one of those in my future Victorian revival mansion.
Also, the Ainsley House still has Dorothy Ainsley's wedding dress:
My twenties-loving ass was drooling over that dress. It looks just like my dream wedding dress. If I had a dress like that, I'd feel like the flapper bride of my dreams, and if I ever do get married I'm gonna have one custom made to look just like that, albeit with a red sash rather than an ivory one. God, look how beautiful that is, I'm swooning just from the photo!
...um. Sorry about that. Anyway. Moving on.
Actually, you can have weddings in the garden of Ainsley House, which I photographed from the second story. I think it would be perfect for either a Renaissance theme wedding, or a twenties/Gatsby inspired wedding, though the photos in the link show a typical wedding and that's fine too. It is a very sweet, romantic local spot.
They also sometimes host cocktail parties where people dress as if it were the 1920s and sometimes historical lecturers come and people get to drink and learn about history. They call it "History Happy Hour". I'd love to go to one of these sometime, but I doubt I'll ever be able to.
Overall, I really love the Ainsley House and I'm really happy I got to see it and say good bye to it. If you ever find yourself in Campbell, I highly recommend checking it out if it's open. Admission is cheap (It costs $8, less than a Hamilton) and it's typically not very crowded. Both times I've taken the tour, I've been the only one on tour, and that's always nice because guides tend to focus on what you want to hear when you're the only one on tour. (Which I totally get because I do that on my Winchester tours too if it's only one or two people.)
~N~
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