Mountain Avenue Elementary Had Controversial Beginnings – Part 1

Mountain Avenue Elementary School is one of the gems of our valley. It’s a beautiful campus in a beautiful setting next to Pickens Canyon, with our magnificent mountains as a backdrop. But its transition from a grand private estate to an award-winning elementary school was a hard-fought battle that resulted in an eminent domain seizure.

Let’s go back in time to the beginnings of the property that would become Mountain Avenue School. As I have written before, early Crescenta Valley had a good share of wealthy landowners who built estates, many of them as weekend getaway residences while they conducted business in Los Angeles. Col. Thomas C. Thornton was just such a person.

Thornton was a very prominent lawyer in LA, and a big deal in the Democratic party. He was a “Southern Democrat” hailing from South Carolina, and was dangerously prejudiced. For instance, in 1907 under the newspaper headline “Police Watch Trains For Bad Negroes,” Thornton is quoted as having regret that the “public does not seem disposed to lynch” the so-called “Negro desperadoes.”

In 1917, Thornton bought five acres in La Crescenta, high in the valley, and next to Pickens Canyon. He began construction of a grand mansion, built to replicate his ancestral plantation, and in 1923 it was finished. A grand iron gate opened to a long straight drive heading up to a classic southern plantation-style structure with columns in front. Inside the entryway a winding staircase with mahogany railings rose to a big stained-glass window at the top, and leaded glass cabinets for the dishes and silverware were in the grand dining room. The second floor had eight rooms, some with fireplaces, and a third story had gabled windows. Big trees and landscaping completed the grounds along with a guesthouse.
As we know, Santa Ana winds were a big problem for the valley back then and several houses and buildings had actually been blown down during storms. Local legend has it that Thornton bound the house down with concealed steel cables anchored into the ground.

Thornton didn’t live here long, only until 1929. We don’t know why he left after putting so much into his mansion but perhaps the date is the clue: 1929, the year of the great stock market crash.

Thornton sold the property to Dwain and Hildegard Esper. The Espers were Hollywood types. Dwain Esper had become a millionaire as a developer, and switched careers to filmmaking. But the type of films he made were … how can I put it? … Not family-fare. Dwain Esper is considered the father of the exploitation film and, while living in La Crescenta, he cranked out an astounding array of “grind-house” films about sex and drugs. Some of his titles included “Sins of Love,” “Marijuana, the Weed With Roots in Hell,” “Sex Maniac” and “How To Take A Bath.” He was responsible for movies that have taken on cult status today, like “Freaks” and “Reefer Madness.” I will write an entire column about the Esper family in the future, as their story is dynamic to say the least.
Apparently Mrs. Esper tired of living in the quiet Crescenta Valley. She arranged with a Beverly Hills friend, Mrs. William Bishop, to trade homes. So in 1944, the Espers moved to Beverly Hills and the Bishops moved to the grand estate on Mountain Avenue in La Crescenta. The wealthy Mr. and Mrs. Bishop loved their new home high in the foothills with a spectacular view of the Los Angeles Basin and Catalina Island. The childless Bishops welcomed neighborhood kids to play on their grounds and swim in their pool. For two decades they enjoyed their quiet lifestyle, interspersed with travel. But around their peaceful oasis, the post-war population of the valley was booming with young families. Local elementary schools were packed out and portable classrooms filled their playgrounds. The Glendale school district was looking for new school sites and in 1964 it began seriously eyeing the Bishops’ five-acre paradise for a new school site.

Next week, after an epic court battle the Bishops are forced to sell.