Avalon From On High The Love of His Life

On the Island of Santa Catalina off the southern coast of California in Los Angeles County lies the Queen Anne styled Holly Hill House. The house is visible in this photo at the bottom right hand corner during a restoration project in 2013.

Originally built by Peter Gano, a transplanted Ohioan and civil engineer, the house sits up the hill on the south side of Avalon overlooking the harbor. Gano built the entire house by himself as the story goes, with the help of a trustworthy friend, an old retired circus horse named Mercury. Mercury was tireless in his daily task of hauling supplies and building materials from the bottom of the hill up to the house via a rope and pulley system devised by Gano. Only the finest materials were used for construction. The house had alternating light and dark pine floors, redwood kitchen counters, burled redwood fireplaces, a 22 foot diameter, 40 foot high cone-shaped cupola and a sun porch surrounding the main floor. The average annual precipitation on Catalina is only 11.88 inches and being an engineer he had also built a groundwater and rainwater collection system that included a cistern under the house.

Once construction was completed in 1890, he asked the love of his life to marry him and move to the island to live out their lives together. She was reluctant to move to the island and be isolated from the mainland. As months went by, Gano still held out hope she would change her mind and make a commitment to him and the house he had built for her on Catalina. During this time of waiting for her, he named the house "Lookout Cottage" and he waited, and waited. As the years went by, she finally married someone else and he realized he was destined to live in this beautiful house alone. The story is that in his later years, never having married, he posted signs all around his property proclaiming "No Women Allowed". Visible beyond, on the north side of the harbor on what was formerly known as Sugarloaf Point is the Catalina Casino. No longer a casino at all, it is now a theatre, ballroom, and museum.