Moore, was much joked about because it was small and guests often
fell into the pool in its center. Una Hopkins, however, found the
room to be magical. Low marble seats held bronze velvet cushions.
The upper part of the wall was covered with elaborate surface
decorations in bronze, blue, and gold tones, and a large amber glass
globe suspended from the domed ceiling shed gold-toned light.
It was a place, she said, “wrought by Aladdin and the light of his
wonderful lamp.”
Gillespie collected artifacts from his extensive travels around
the world to furnish his villa. He brought back tiles, columns, bric-
a-brac and more. The front door came from the ancestral home of
the Marquesa de Castrillo of Antequera, Malaga, Spain. A fireplace
and other details of the home came from an earthquake-damaged
cathedral in Havana, Cuba, where Gillespie spent the winters at his
estate in Mariel.
A LOCAL REVIEW
O
ne of Gillespie’s Montecito neighbors, the artist Elizabeth Eaton
Burton, wrote in her memoir that all credit for the perfectly
designed residence with its beautiful architectural setting was due to J.
Waldron Gillespie. “Mr. Gillespie had the practical good sense in the
first place to secure a piece of land absolutely fitted to his needs as to its
topography, its outlook, and its planting, the latter consisting mostly of
palm and olive trees. He then held this property quite some years before
building, constantly enriching it with rare plants.”
Completed in 1906, “the house centers around a large patio with
MOGULS
&
MANSIONS
56
summer
|
fall
