Los Angeles Times: Sierra Madre home once doubled as a presidential retreat (Is it true?)

We originally posted about the Hoover House last Friday, but since then there has been a development. More on that in a minute. Usually when a house in Sierra Madre goes on the market for $3.75 million big ones, and it is located on a lot over an acre in size, it is more about the land than what sits on it. Even if the house is 5,810 square feet, and boasts of seven bedrooms and six bathrooms. No matter who used to occasionally visit there. Here is the Los Angeles Times take on this.

Sierra Madre home once doubled as a presidential retreat (Los Angeles Times link): Herbert Hoover Jr., the son of the 31st President, owned this Hacienda-style home in Sierra Madre for more than a decade starting in the early 1930s. His parents visited often enough that the residence became known as the Winter White House. The Hoovers added a child’s playroom with a built-in slide in homage to family friend and “Winnie the Pooh” author A.A. Milne. 500 N. Michillinda Ave., Sierra Madre 91024. Price: $3.75 million Built: 1928

All well and good, right? If you want to keep a large property in Sierra Madre from turning into four smaller properties, each with a new house on it, you establish the historic significance of the stately old home there originally. And in this particular case there is a kind of history involved. After all, it is not every city in America that can boast of having once been the host of a "Winter White House."

However, there is possibly a problem with all of this. I have been in touch with someone from out of state claiming to be a close relative of the Hoovers. So close that she refers to the 31st President of the United States as "Uncle Bert." This communication happened after our post on the Hoover House last Friday. And it is her contention that all of this "Winter White House" stuff is a bunch of malarkey, likely cooked up by the listing Realtor so they can get $3.75 million for the place. In other words, this entire media blitz could all be a lot of hype, orchestrated by some crafty Sierra Madre real estate agents bent on moving an otherwise pedestrian, though quite pleasant to look at, property.

This home did belong to Herbert Hoover Jr. He moved into the place in 1928, not in the "early 1930s" as the above article contends. However, his dad, Herbert Hoover, only visited the place as president one time. And rather than a west coast White House, which suggests that he spent a lot of time out here in California like Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan did, the truth is he apparently only visited Sierra Madre once.

Which can make sense. This was an era when presidents didn't have an Air Force One to shuttle them back and forth across the country whenever they felt the need for some warm sunshine. And as you can see from the photo at the top of this post, Herbert Hoover did travel here by train. It was the preferred mode of transportation at a time when air travel was still in its relative infancy.

Going by train would take a considerable amount of time, especially when you are traveling cross country. It is not the kind of journey you'd really want to take all that often. Especially when you are a president tasked with trying to drag the country out of a calamity such as the Great Depression. There could have been security problems. Think of all the flying tomatoes.

So is this "Winter White House" thing mostly a cooked up invention of Podley Properties? A slender slice of history heavily embellished upon so they and their client can make some major bank on an interesting old house located on a far more valuable 50,133 square foot lot?

I just don't know what to say.

Organic Life Care: Sierra Madre's first cannibus shop?

Speaking of things that might or might not be, here is the screen shot of a business I stumbled across last night on-line when I was looking for something else. Linkhere.


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