The Lady of La Brea: Madame Ida Hancock Ross, Los Angeles' Forgotten Matriarch

I don't think there is anywhere I adore more than Hancock Park in Los Angeles. Home to the La Brea Tar Pits, the Page Museum and my beloved L.A .County Museum of Art, it bustles with a laid-back joy rarely seen in our spread-out, rather jaded city. Happy people of all ages are everywhere. They dance to the songs sung by the man in a cowboy hat, who has played the mandolin in front of the Page Museum as long as I can remember. They kiss under Chris Burden's iconic Urban Light exhibition at LACMA, and they peer into the pits where tar-stained archeologists painstakingly uncover ancient bones with brushes and picks. The smell of asphalt looms over this place of wonder, where you can see the skeleton of a Colombian Mammoth, view an actual Van Gogh and eat delicious treats from one of L.A.'s famed food trucks, all in one relatively chill afternoon.

A bust in the park commemorates George Allan Hancock, the man who donated the pits to the county. But it does not mention his mother -- the woman who extracted great wealth for him from these lands and was the first to allow scientific researchers free rein of the premises. She was a woman whose life, from beginning to end, reads like some-kind of Western fairy tale. But this is a revisionist tale -- where the woman constantly cleans up the messes that men in her life have left behind, and survives and thrives, becoming universally revered for her kindness and charity.

Sisters are doing it for themselves.

Royal Roots

From her birth in 1843, Ida Haraszthy was an anomaly -- a true American born pioneer with an impeccable European pedigree. Although she was born in Imperial, Illinois, her parents had been raised in the aristocracy of Hungary. Her mother, Eleonora Dedinsky, was a noblewoman of Polish descent whose family had lived in Hungary for centuries. Her father, Count Agoston Haraszthy, was a titled nobleman who had been exiled from Hungary for "efforts to obtain freedom from what he considered despotism."

After years apart from his family, the Count returned to Hungary in 1842, and brought his wife, children and parents to America. The family became the first Hungarians to become American citizens. They lived in Wisconsin for many years before moving to the promised land of California. According to the Los Angeles Times: 

The Count would become a member of the California State Assembly, a prominent California booster, prolific land owner, and the "father of modern winemaking in California."

Young Ida benefitted from the family's prosperity. She and her mother sailed around treacherous Cape Horn to reach Europe. They settled in Paris, where Ida received an excellent education. Decades later, she would secretly give scholarships to numerous young artists studying in her beloved Paris. She had returned to California by the early 1860s, when she was wooed by Major Henry Hancock, a native of New Hampshire who had also come to California during the Gold Rush, "hale, hearty and penniless." The Harvard trained lawyer was 21 years Ida's senior, and had great success as a surveyor for the government. The couple married in 1863, and settled in Los Angeles.

As a surveyor, Hancock had drawn the lines for and analyzed every bit of the sprawling Ranchos of old Los Angeles. During the 1860s, his brother John began acquiring deeds to portions of the massive 4,439-acre Rancho La Brea, which covered much of what is now Hancock Park, Hollywood, and West Hollywood. In 1870, Henry received a deed for approximately 2/3rds of the Rancho. His portion included what would become known as the La Brea tar pits.

That year, he and Ida built "a small frame house in a grove of eucalyptus, pepper and palm trees at the southerly portion of the rancho" very near the tar pits. Five years later, Ida gave birth to twin boys, George Allan and Harry -- the latter died shortly after birth. Two years later, she gave birth to another boy named Bertram.

Life on the Rancho was hard. Although Ida spent a lot of time in San Francisco, visiting with her northern relatives, she was actively involved with the business of the ranch. There were constant battles over who actually owned the land, and it was not until 1877, when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Hancocks, that the disputes were settled. John Hancock was formally granted 1,200 acres, and Henry ended up with 2,400 acres. Other men were given small portions of the Rancho.

Although the Hancocks farmed the land, their main income came from the asphalt and tar extracted from the strange, smelly lakes and streams that covered the southern end of their property. Since ancient times, Native Americans in the area had used asphaltum to cover their roofs and seal their jugs. The Hancocks continued this tradition of mining asphaltum. In the words of the L.A .Times:

Occasionally, workers discovered ancient bones -- like the tooth of a saber tooth tiger. These finds were presented to learned guests, but elicited little interest. In 1873, Major Henry Hancock died at the age of 61.

When the accounts were settled, it was clear that the ranch was deep in debt. 30-year-old Ida Haraszthy Hancock now had two children and 2,400 acres of land to nurture.

On Her Own

After Henry's death, Ida briefly moved to San Francisco to be close to her family. However, she soon discovered that running a vast estate from such a distance was too difficult. There was also the pressing issue of squatters on the ranch, living there illegally trying to establish legal claims. Without being there, Ida was unable to protect her vast holdings. She moved her two sons back to the little frame house near the pungent pits of tar, and set about trying to turn the fortunes of her little family around. According to Bruce T. Torrence:

No doubt Ida's childhood, spent on her father's vineyards, informed her careful cultivation of her land. She worked day after day, overseeing every aspect of the ranch's management, often performing menial tasks, which would have appalled her aristocratic forbearers. She slowly turned the ranch's fortunes around and proved to be the rock of her family.

When oil companies began courting Ida for permission to drill wells on her land, she held out until she could negotiate advantageous and fair terms. In 1885, she made her first leasing agreement with Lyman Stewart, Dan McFarland and Wallace Hardison. According to Torrence, "She stipulated 1/8th royalties, reserved agricultural rights and the privilege of continuing to mine the brea, which was still her chief source of income." Of the four wells the company drilled, only one resulted in a moderate flow. A few years later, she leased her Asphaltum Springs to another company, increasing her yearly revenue.

During the 1890s, Ida also began to subdivide potions of her land with great success. The Ida Hancock Tract, surveyed in 1893, was bounded by "Prospect Avenue on the north, Highland Avenue on the west, Sunset Blvd. on the south, and Seward Street on the east."

According to historian Bruce Torrence, by 1894, lots on this tract were selling for around $300 per acre. Many developers who bought northern portions of the ranch would subdivide them into neighborhoods that became the backbone of golden age Hollywood. Ida hired her son George Allan to manage the La Brea estate, paying him $100 a month.

Despite her family's steadily increasing prosperity, the 1890s were also filled with personal tragedy. In 1892, her brother-in-law John killed himself. Ida, the administrator of the estate, was left to help pay off his creditors and sort out his tangled finances. A year later, her 16-year-old son Bertram died of typhoid fever while they were in San Francisco for the World's Fair.

Ida continued to have a close personal and working relationship with her beloved son George Allan, a charming cello prodigy, and the two often vacationed together at the Metropole Hotel on Catalina Island. By 1895, Ida was wealthy enough to take an extended trip to Europe.

But Ida's greatest wealth was yet to come. In 1900, she secured a 24-year drilling lease with the Salt Lake Company. The first well was such a success that the stream of oil blew out the casing. George Allan began to work for the company, learning everything he could about the industry. By 1911, Salt Lake had drilled 258 wells on the property.

George Allan would eventually start his own oil company, the La Brea Oil Company, with funding supplied by his mother. By 1907, he had his own well on the family property, producing 200-300 barrels of oil a day. Soon, it was claimed that his mother made $1,000 a day from oil revenues alone. She was now known as "the wealthiest woman in Los Angeles."

 Madame Ida

In 1901, Ida built a ten-room, $8,000 frame residence on Carondelet Street in ultra-fashionable Westlake. She began to spend half of the year in Europe, but was always in Los Angeles for important events. In 1901, she also watched as the apple of her eye said I do: 

Ida's generosity took many different forms. Often called "Madame" as an honorific, the deeply Catholic Ida was frequently written about in the society pages, not for throwing lavish parties, but rather for her charming events for friends and relations.

In 1908, to celebrate Mr. and Mrs. Hancock Banning's upcoming tour through Europe, she held a dinner party where, "An automobile, made of pink roses and decorated with tiny flags of European nations, formed the table centerpiece and places were marked with cards and ornamented with hand painted machines." (L.A. Times, 1908) A few years earlier, she hosted a thoughtful event for teenage girls:

But Ida's true love was philanthropy. She had a secret bank account, from which she anonymously contributed large sums of money to different charities. She was a prominent booster and backer of both the Fine Arts Building, the Hollywood Southern Pacific line, and the campaign to place bells all along the El Camino Real. Ida was very active in Catholic charities, and could often be found running a booth at the fair in aid of the L.A. Orphan Society, or participating in a charitable sewing circle. "Twice a year, every orphan she could find in Los Angeles was treated to all the ice cream, cake and candy he could want," a reporter recounted. "One of these happy occasions was her birthday and the other Christmas or Easter."

She also opened the La Brea tar pits to scientific excavation, closing it to poachers and granting university researchers exclusive rights to uncover the treasure trove of ancient skeletons smothered in the thick "brea."

Her wealth growing exponentially, Ida finally built a home worthy of the European royal she was. In 1908, she began construction on a magnificent mansion that many considered the finest home in L.A.: 

The pure Italian renaissance style has been chosen by architect John C. Austin for the residence planned for Mme. Ida Hancock on the northeast corner of Vermont Avenue and Wilshire Blvd. It will be one of the handsomest dwellings in this city of fine homes. With the graceful observation towers reaching toward as fair a sky as any under which the style of architecture grew, the view of the house given herewith brings up visions of sunny Italy, and the beautiful villas of the Medici and the Borghese...Formal gardens and terraces will surround the house and there will be a porte cochere entrance ... To the six main rooms on the first floor, entrance will be gained over a large porch and through an elaborate vestibule, opening into a huge reception hall...This room will be furnished in old oak in the fourteenth century Gothic style...The music room will be another remarkable feature of the beautiful house. It will be...a veritable hall-finished in the beautiful style of the Georgian period in white and gold. Here will be placed the 10,000 pipe organ which Mrs. Hancock has just purchased... (L.A. Times, 1908)

A year later, the infinitely proper and correct Ida surprised Los Angeles when, after years as a hard-working, chaste widow, she married respected U.S. Circuit Court Judge Erskine Mayo Ross. This "accomplished and delightful" couple were married in an afternoon ceremony in the parlor of the Cathedral of St. Vibiana. "Mrs. Ross wore a handsome going away suit in two shades of French gray, and a waist of cream point lace over ashes of roses silk, with hat to match," the Los Angeles Times reported.

After her surprise marriage, Ida finally slowed down, increasingly leaving business to her able son. She and Ross spent three months on honeymoon, and moved into her brilliant new home.

 But sadly, her newfound semi-retired happiness was short-lived. In 1913, Ida passed away from a lingering stomach ailment in her home, surround by her family. In the words of one reporter:

Ida left behind a fortune of several million dollars and a legacy of good works. Today, her father, husband and son all have Wikipedia entries. Ida does not.

Further reading: "Rancho La Brea," by Bruce T. Torrence