Nestled in Highland Park, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the the 110 (Pasadena) Freeway and Figueroa Avenue, the Charles F. Lummis Home and Garden provides the community a peaceful sanctuary within a world of concrete and deadlines.

Built between 1898 and 1910 the Lummis Home was built by Charles Fletcher Lummis which he said he built "to last a thousand years." Its architecture, Lummis had written, "is part of my life and my brains and my love and my hands." The Lummis Home stands on the west bank of the Arroyo Seco, the usually-dry riverbed that begins in the San Gabriel Mountains and extends south to join the Los Angeles river on the water's path to the Pacific Ocean. Once, the Arroyo Seco trickled through the water-smoothed stones lining the property to the east, fluctuating between periods of heavy flow and utter dryness. Today, the Arroyo Seco--like the Los Angeles River--is but a concrete bed built to tame turbulent waters during the rainy season. However, the stones that once lay beneath the sycamore trees and native plants now form the structure that is the Lummis Home today. The south-facing facade of the home is comprised of intricately-placed stones acquired from this nearby stream-bed, built largely by the energy and discipline of Charles Lummis.

Booster, Native American rights activist, writer, City Librarian, translator, and ethnographer, Charles Lummis was a man of many talents. An eclectic man in many respects, the home represents Lummis' love of the American Southwest and wood-hewn household furnishings. In many respects the Lummis Home represents the beginning of the Arts & Crafts aesthetic that was to soon take the architectural world by storm--only to peak with Greene and Greene homes such as the Gamble House. A warm, intimate connecting with the outdoors is brought into the interior of the house with concrete floors, wood furniture, railroad pole supporting beams for the ceiling and delicate decorative carved woods.