Notes:
Notes:
"In 1927, the property passed to Wright S. Ludington from his father Charles (founder of what later became American Airlines) who had bought it from the original owner, New York coffee trader, Henry Dater. Wright S. Ludington had a keen eye for art and the heart of a connoisseur. He studied studio art at Yale, drew every day, collected antiquities from the touchstones of Western civilization and used his own fortune to support living artists. Ludington reinvented Goodhue's Mexican villa into his own Greek-Roman ruin-inspired creation named Val Verde. His designer was childhood friend and fellow artist, American landscape architect, Lockwood de Forest, Jr. (1896-1949). The Val Verde commission lasted the rest of de Forest's life and became his masterpiece." See http://www.austinvalverdefoundation.com/mission/ accessed 02/12/2007.