The Ludington estate, also known as Val Verde, Dias Felices, the Henry Dater house, and the Dr. Warren Austin home was designed by the architect Bertram Grovenor Goodhue, constructed in 1918 and then purchased by Charles H. Ludington in 1924. His son, Wright Saltus Ludington (who inherited the estate in 1927 or 1930), engaged the landscape architect Lockwood de Forest to design the gardens in 1925. Retaining the geometry of Goodhue's design and much of the wilderness, Lockwood transformed the gardens over a period of twenty-three years.
View of the Lansdowne Hermes (a Roman, marble statue from the Hadrianic period, now in the Santa Barbara Museum of Art), against a backdrop of alternating columns and hedges. On top of each column is a sculpted basket of flowers.
The Ludington estate, also known as Val Verde, Dias Felices, the Henry Dater house, and the Dr. Warren Austin home, was designed by the architect Bertram Grovenor Goodhue, constructed in 1918 and then purchased by Charles H. Ludington in 1924. His son, Wright Saltus Ludington (who inherited the estate in 1927 or 1930), engaged the landscape architect Lockwood de Forest to design the gardens in 1925. Retaining the geometry of Goodhue's design and much of the wilderness, Lockwood transformed the gardens over a period of twenty-three years.