May 20, 2018 - Today we were in Santa Ana to visit the Heritage Museum of Orange County, a cultural and natural history center. The centerpiece of the museum, which covers nearly 12 acres in all, is an historic plaza featuring several buildings from the 1890s set amid extensive floral gardens and citrus groves. The facility is an event center and a wedding took place later in the afternoon.
The centerpiece of the plaza is the historic Kellogg House. Hiram Clay Kellogg was the first city engineer for city of Santa Ana and Orange County and he designed and built this home in 1898. During several sailings to Hawaii, Kellogg developed an interest in ship design and he incorporated many features of sailing ships into his house. The results are fascinating.
Upon entering, you see his elliptical staircase centered around an actual ship's mast.
The piano was custom made for the house and the space between the windows only left room for 80 keys.
The dining room is an oval, following the curved lines of a sailing ship. It's the most interesting room in the house, as explained by our guide Daniel.
The staircase landing is like a ship's bridge.
The wallpaper is a early 1900 French design that looks like draped fabric.
This view is from the "bridge" looking into the dining room and its original curved glass windows.
The third story was always used for storage. It's simply a finished and eloquent attic.
From the second floor you can see the vestibule and the dining room.
There's only one bathroom in the house, shared by the master and the girls' bedrooms.
These stairs lead to the third floor attic. Note the storage drawers under the staircase.
H. Clay Kellogg was a very accomplished engineer who laid out the plans for many cities in Southern California. He also gave us one very interesting house to ponder.
