By Annlia Hill
Originally, mail was not delivered to homes but to post offices. Although free home delivery in the U.S. began in 1863 in 49 cities, home delivery in Laguna did not begin until soon after the second woman to become a Laguna postmaster, Ada E. Purpus, took office in 1934.
Home delivery of mail required streets to be named, houses to be numbered, and addresses to be added to envelopes and mailboxes. In 1928, the City Council had passed an ordinance requiring houses to be designated by number rather than name (and what imaginative names they were: Snugglein, Lifted Latch, El Shacko). After 10 years of trying to convince Washington to permit home delivery, Postmaster Purpus received word from the Postal Service that “city delivery will be installed in Laguna Beach Oct. 1, 1935, this contingent upon patrons providing house numbers and mailboxes” (South Coast News, Sept. 6, 1935). Delivery began that day with three carriers. By 1941, five carriers (including Lloyd Babcock, the Painting Postman of Laguna, Indy June, 23, 2023) and three substitute carriers were employed.
One of the carriers, Charles Masters, delivered mail to 758 Manzanita, the 17-room estate built by Claude Bronner (the original owner of the White House Café) and later the monastery at Laguna Beach of the Royal Order of Tibet and home of ufologist George Admaski and today Anneliese School (Indy, June 16, 2023). Here, romance blossomed. The Maharaja Yeshwant Rao Holkar of the princely state of Indore, India, was reputedly the richest man in the world. After the death of his young wife in 1937, he traveled widely with his five-year-old daughter, Usha. While in Los Angeles, he had an acute asthma attack and was hospitalized and nursed by Marguerite Lawler. Usha became very fond of Marguerite, and after the Maharaja recovered, he hired Marguerite as Usha’s governess. In 1938, Marguerite married the prince, who built his 18th house, a 25-room Streamline Moderne house in the Floral Park area of Santa Ana.
A year later, the Maharaja with the Maharanee returned to India to serve his country. After several years, Marguerite returned to California, and a year later, in 1943, the Maharaja established residency in Reno, and the two divorced. Marguerite was given the Santa Ana and Laguna homes and custody of Princess Usha. Since the divorce, Marguerite had been living at their Laguna Beach estate. Marguerite joined the WAVES, and after being discharged in 1945, she married Laguna mail carrier Charles Masters. But the bloom died, and the marriage ended within a year.
The imagination, creativity and artistry of Lagunans brought a unique aspect to home delivery – mailboxes ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime, humorous to staid, simple and unadorned to widely decorated and embellished, shiny and new to dilapidated and old. Walk the streets of Laguna and see.
Over time, many more of Laguna’s more distant addresses gained home delivery. With post-war growth and new neighborhoods, more delivery routes were established. By 1947, under postmaster Baird B. Coffin, delivery was extended to Bluebird Canyon and Temple Hills, although houses on streets running off the main roads had to group their mailboxes at the street entrance. By 1949, the number of mail routes grew from five to 11.
Postmaster Ada Purpus, whose commission expired in 1945, also oversaw the move in 1941 to the new Laguna Beach Post Office (funded by the U.S. government) at Beach and Broadway. “The small, Mediterranean building served as a post office for only a few years due to a bad location and access problems for locals.” (Epting, The New Deal in Orange County, 2014). Ada also served as president of the Women’s Club, the Business and Professional Women’s Club, and the local Chamber of Commerce. Ada and her husband Roy were owners of many small rental cottages in the eucalyptus groves of downtown Laguna. In 1923, they started construction on The Villa, a group of cottages with an aviary, aquarium, and play area in the area now occupied by the Glenneyre parking structure. What happened to the cottages is another story for another time, but it leads to Hidden Valley.
Annlia is a 50-year resident of Laguna Beach and married to a fourth-generation Lagunan. Having walked nearly every street and alley in town, she has observed firsthand the artistic charm and imagination of residents.
