In 1924, Brown and his wife Hélène Hooper Brown, who at age 15 in 1910, inherited $10,000,000 and became an orphan at the same time, visited
Big Sur, California, seeking some wild land on which they might build a house. They bought the Saddle Rock Ranch totaling 1,600 acres from pioneer
homesteader Christopher McWay, after which Julia Pfieffer Burns leased some land for cattle. Hélène became a good friend of Julia until the latter died in 1928.
Build Waterfall House on coast The Browns first built a redwood cabin on the cliffs across from McWay Falls, which at the time fell directly into the ocean. It was located where the Waterfall Overlook is today, but the location then and now is often shrouded by a marine layer of cold fog. The
Carmel-San Simeon Highway was completed in 1937, and in 1940 the Browns constructed "Waterfall House" to replace the cabin. The multi-story house had a 16 foot wide marble staircase at its base and fine furnishings. An ornamental brass fish, a large gold octopus with long tentacles, and a compass rose were inlaid in the entryway. They decorated the home with art by
Degas,
Dufy and
Gauguin. Very large windows overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Hélène Brown's bedroom was the only room with a direct view of the waterfall. The small room was painted entirely black and had gold stars on the ceiling. One large window looked out on the falls. The bathroom adjacent to her bedroom was finished in a deep blue tile inlaid with gold, and mirrors were mounted and positioned to create endless reflections. Behind the house were terraced gardens and a caretaker's cottage. The house was sited about halfway down the cliff from the newly completed highway. To reach it, visitors boarded a short
Funicular railway. It was a beautiful contemporary building, But the house experienced the same weather conditions as the cabin before it. The Browns wanted a home out of the fog's reach.
First electricity on coast Hans Ewoldsen, the Saddle Rock Ranch foreman, built a
Pelton wheel on
McWay Creek in 1932. He worked in the machine shop of the highway construction crew, using hand-split redwood from the canyon and other materials he bought. The undershot wheel ran a 32-volt generator and was the first electric power in the Big Sur area. It supplied power to three residences, a blacksmith shop, and the Funicular railway.
Construct Tin House inland In 1944, during World War II, they decided to build a house three miles inland on a ridge high above the fog. War-time rationing of vital supplies - included building materials - meant some ingenuity was required for the project. A side impact of the rationing was that gasoline was in short supply, forcing some gas stations out of business. The Browns saw opportunity in adversity and bought two abandoned gas station buildings. They selected a site on a ridge 1,960 ft (597m) above the coast, built a road, hired a crew to haul the deconstructed tin gas stations up the steep road, and paid an architect to assemble a home using those various parts. Brown was elected to the sheriff's
posse of
Monterey County in 1947. A story exists that Tin House was built as a vacation getaway for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In actuality, Lathrop Brown and Franklin Roosevelt were childhood friends and each other's best man when they married. But FDR never visited the Tin House. Lathrop and Hélène left Big Sur for Florida in 1956, where Lathrop died in 1959. In 1961, Hélène Hooper Brown donated the entire property to the state, stipulating that it be used as a park and named for her good friend, Julia Pfeiffer Burns, a "true pioneer." She included the requirement that Waterfall House be converted into a museum within five years to house Big Sur history, otherwise that it be razed. For several reasons this was not accomplished and the mansion was demolished in 1966. The Waterfall Overlook of
McWay Falls was built on that spot. Visitors to the site today can view the remnants of the home's landscaping, including palm trees. The Pelton wheel is on display as well. == Later life and legacy ==