California House Built in 1860 with its English Landscape Still Stands

Recently I visited the town called Grass Valley in northern California

The car ride over the mountains scarred me at times because I don’t handle heights well.  Let’s just say I was happy when we arrived.

To my surprise I found that Edward Coleman’s house was still standing, and  its English landscape still recognizable.  Coleman who owned the North Star and Idaho mines as well as the Mohawk Lumber Company  built this home in the 1860s.

I saw the lawn with shrubs and the pine trees that have grown quite tall,  two urns at the start of the front walk, and the fence.  You can also see these distinquishing elements in the black and white drawing of the house [below] from the nineteenth century.

The Coleman residence is an example of how far  English garden design traveled in this country in the nineteenth century.

It was the garden style from California to Maine, with no small thanks to the seed and nursery catalogs which often featured it on their covers.

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