San Diego History Center

The Journal of San Diego History
Anna Held and a young U.S. Grant III outside the Green Dragon cottage in La Jolla, 1894. Ellen B. Scripps often
spent the evening at the Green Dragon Colony listening to music. ©SDHC OP #12423-297-1.
Anton Reif and John Stannard to draw up plans for a large cottage on Prospect
Street overlooking the ocean. 85 While in Chicago, she had viewed a number of
“modern” houses in Rogers Park, referring
to the Queen Anne and Italianate
styles popular in the late-Victorian
period. She decided, however, that she
preferred a simpler, “colonial style, if
it can be suited…to the cottage size.”
She told E.W., “I like its simplicity and
unpretentiousness while it can be made
as ornate as one chooses.” 86 The architects
worked with Will Scripps to design
a two-story house with a south front in
the Colonial Revival style and a north
front in a modified Queen Anne style. 87
The side of the house facing Prospect
Street was rectangular with a lowpitched,
hipped roof topped by a railed
rooftop platform and two chimneys. A
wide entry porch with classical columns
covered the front door. The north façade,
meanwhile, was far more dramatic. A
round tower jutted out from the northeast
corner while a circular, columned
A sketch of South Moulton Villa from Ellen B.
Scripps’ Guest Book, 1897-1915. It reads: “Ellen B.
Scripps, Owner; Wm. A. Scripps, Designer; A. Reif,
Architect. Building began March 1897. Building
completed August 1st 1897. Occupied Sept 1897.”
Courtesy of Ella Strong Denison Library, Scripps
College.
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