Category Timeline Stories

The Gavits hire local architect George Washington Smith to construct a perimeter wall, pavilion, stable, swimming pool, bathhouse and several other outbuildings.

The first half of Ganna Walska’s 13-city U.S. concert tour is cancelled when McCormick undergoes an emergency appendectomy. She completes the tour with a performance at Carnegie Hall and returns to America for other concert tours in 1925, 1928, and…

Ganna Walska’s divorce in May from Cochran is the subject of much speculation in the press. In August, her marriage to Harold McCormick brings additional scrutiny into her private life. Madame Walska acquires a majority of shares of the Théatre…

Ganna Walska is devastated when Dr. Fraenkel dies of a stomach ailment. Three months later, aboard the Aquitania en route to Paris, she meets Alexander Smith Cochran, the sole heir of Smith Carpet Manufacturing. He proposes two days later and…

In February, Ganna Walska makes her New York concert debut at the Biltmore’s Morning Musicale, sharing the bill with famed tenor Enrico Caruso. Her debut in Cuba is not considered a success. In the hopes of securing future singing opportunities,…

Madame Walska moves to New York to avoid World War I and learns that Baron d’Eingorn has died in battle.

New Yorkers E. Palmer and Marie Gavit purchase the property, naming it Cuesta Linda. Pasadena based architect Reginald Johnson completes the main house in 1920. Ganna Walska is a singer at the Century, a French theater in New York. A…

Hanna adopts the stage name Madame Ganna Walska and studies singing in Paris with Polish tenor Jean de Reszke.

Stevens’ widow sells the property to neighbor George Owen Knapp.

Stevens dies. His struggling widow operates the property as a guest ranch, leases it to a school and eventually rents it out to winter visitors until selling it seventeen years later.