Geocache Info
Welcome to the Pinney House, it was built in 1887 as one of the original railroad hotels. This geocache is in front of the old hotel. The cache is a green/aluminum tin that has the Geocaching logo on it. It requires no climbing or digging. A pencil is inside for logging. Please put the geocache in the same spot you found it in.
History
In August of 1887, Dr. Elbert Pinney, a retired civil war surgeon, farmer, rancher, merchant, and developer arrived in the new town of Sierra Madre. He bought 35 acres of land at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains and moved his family at the age of 70. His tract sloped gently from the base of Mt. Wilson with views towards Los Angeles fifteen miles away.
Pinney hired renowned architects Samuel and Joseph Cather Newsom to design his new hotel. The Newsom brothers created this dramatic Queen Anne style hotel with its signature oriel tower and sweeping front veranda. The Hotel Sierra Madre opened with its 24 plus rooms.
Throughout its 125+ year life, the Hotel that Pinney built has been one of the treasures of Sierra Madre. Over the years, the house has accommodated a variety of uses: as a sanatorium; as a boarding house “Hotel Sierra Madre” (the conservatory was added in 1910 to accommodate ballroom dancing lessons) and as apartments. A popular filming venue in the 40s and 50s, Barbara Stanwyck’s The Great Man’s Lady and Bob Hope’s Seven Little Foyes was filmed here.
The current owners, Greg and Judy Asbury bought the house in 2003 and began a decade long restoration project of the heart. As the Asbury family worked to refurbish the house, the walls literally spoke. They found an old letter dated July 28, 1888, from an Ohio State Senator staying at the Hotel Green to a lady friend presumably residing here. They also found a wooden sign with gold letters: "Dr. Adele Howland, Brain and Nerve Specialist", circa 1920. Dr. Howland, most likely serving patients when the hotel was a sanitorium, also wrote a book that is online today on her ideas about Mental Spiritualism.