Ramsay-Durfee Estate

Completed in 1908, the three-story, 42-room mansion was designed by Frederick Louis Roehrig. Roehrig also planned the landscape gardens and layout of the grounds. The Times also made note of the grand staircase describing it as "the stair builder's art in mahogany" lit by a large group of art glass windows. The third floor was almost entirely taken up by a by ballroom with a large brick fireplace and an open truss and exposed beam ceilings. ==History==

The house was built for a wealthy lumberman, William E. Ramsay, who died in 1909—shortly after the mansion was completed. In 1913 the house was featured across six pages in Homes and Gardens of the Pacific Coast Volume II, a picture book of Los Angeles mansions describing it as a "beautiful home of the English style of domestic architecture, designed by Mr. F. L. Roehrig ..." In the early 1920s, the property was purchased for the unheard of price of $105,000 by William G. and Nellie McGaughey Durfee. Mr. Durfee was a horse-racing devotee, and Mrs. Durfee was the sheltered daughter of a Figueroa Street millionaire. Their marriage had been a scandal reported on in the newspapers, as Mr. Durfee had divorced the mother of his two children in 1910 and married Nellie in 1911. In 1978, the Brothers of St. John of God bought the property from the Estate of Nellie Durfee for $470,000. In 1982, the house was opened to the public for the first time in its history for a benefit dinner to support KUSC radio. ==Historic designation==

In 1980 city's Cultural Heritage Commission designated the property, under the name "Villa Maria", as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, calling it, "a distinguished example of Tudor Revival architecture of the early 20th Century." It was also listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. ==See also==