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If 120-Year-Old Walls Could Talk
The Marstons: A California Family - Part 17
By Robin Lakin
March/April 2025
 The Marston House, nearing the end of construction in 1905. Note the construction refuse, barrels, etc. to the left of the porte cochere.
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Left Taken from what would become the south lawn, this photo shows the Marston House, newly completed in 1905. Initial plantings of trees and vegetation were a first step in transforming the barren site. Right George and Anna Lee Marston, surrounded by 17 children and grandchildren, in the formal garden on their 50th wedding anniversary in 1928. The elaborately redesigned garden was an anniversary gift from their children, led by daughter Mary. |
2025 marks the 120-year anniversary of the Marston House, one of the most important homes in San Diego. Architecturally significant, it is also renowned for the visionary, influential family that built it and lived there for generations. For decades, this warm, gracious home was central to discussions and decisions about developing Balboa Park and San Diego as a whole. If these walls could talk, imagine the stories this venerated Arts and Crafts era home could tell!
George and Anna Lee Marston began their marriage renting cottages in San Diego before building their first home at Third and Ash Streets in 1885. They lived in this stately Queen Anne-style house for 20 years before building their forever home in a barren, undeveloped area adjacent to what would become Balboa Park.
Designed by the leading San Diego firm of Hebbard & Gill, with Irving J. Gill as the primary architect, the Marston House was among the first “smart” houses built in San Diego. Completed in 1905, it featured advanced technology, such as gas lines and electric power, a plumbed kitchen and indoor bathrooms, creating a state-of-the-art environment when many local homes still relied on oil lamps and outhouses.
The 8,500-square-foot home boasts 23 rooms, among them nine bedrooms and seven bathrooms, one with a solar-heated shower, which is original and one of Gill’s many innovations. The architect was known for inventive and advanced designs.
 Renowned landscape architect John Nolen prepared this formal garden plan for George and Anna Lee Marston. A beautiful working drawing, it nonetheless has been marked up in red pencil. Much of this 1928 design remains today. |
Gill incorporated efficient built-in cabinets and bookcases within the old-growth redwood wainscotting, creating clean visual lines and freeing up floor space. Some of his experimental designs eased the workload of the domestic help.
The fitted kitchen included a durable countertop made of magnesite, a lightweight, concrete composite that Gill liked to use in kitchens and bathrooms. Adjacent to it, a walk-in, vented California cooler kept fruit and vegetables fresh.
The service porch off the kitchen was a work area, too, and home to the Marston's traditional insulated, oak-case ice box; water from the melting ice was directed into a basement receptacle to be recycled into the garden. The service porch provided a sink and restroom for the gardener and delivery personnel.
The domestic “call box” and speaking tube in the butler’s pantry still connect to the second floor, where the built-in laundry chute sent sheets, towels, and grandchildren’s toys plummeting to the basement washing operations. A few steps outside the basement, the brick-walled, lattice-covered drying yard provided privacy for hanging “unmentionable” linens and garments.
The Marston family, along with Anna Lee’s mother, Elizabeth Gunn, moved into 3501 Seventh Street (later Avenue) in October 1905 (the house number changed to 3525 in 1914). For the last year of her life, Elizabeth shared captivating stories of life in California's rugged mining towns—tales as vivid and enthralling as any adventure novel!
 William Templeton Johnson, a prominent San Diego architect, created this eucalyptus leaf and pod motif for the Marston garden in 1928. It appeared on the fountain corbels, the capitals of the tea house columns, and as decorative panels on a suite of garden furniture. All photos courtesy SOHO collection |
As chairman of the Building and Grounds Committee for the 1915 Pacific-Panama Exposition, George hosted planning meetings in his dining room, heralding this space as one of great importance to San Diego’s crown jewel, Balboa Park. Dinners with Theodore Roosevelt, in addition to San Diego pioneer families and movers and shakers, created rich conversations and consequential history through the years.
The formal garden, a gift from the Marston children for George and Anna Lee’s 50th wedding anniversary, provided a magnificent setting for fundraising events from then on. Family members dedicated their lives to dozens of worthy social justice and environmental conservation efforts, from founding Presidio Park and restoring the Mission San Diego de Alcalá to establishing and working at Neighborhood House to aid immigrants.
Their many good works resonate within this calm and peaceful home, occupied for 82 years by several generations of the family. These rooms witnessed many significant San Diego improvements, brainstorming sessions, and celebrations. In 1974, daughter Mary Gilman Marston arranged for the Marston House to be given to the City of San Diego and added to Balboa Park in homage to her father, George. The transfer was completed upon her death in 1987.
SOHO in turn pays homage to the collective civic-minded efforts of the entire Marston family, and the 120th anniversary provides the opportunity to do so.
Indeed, these walls do talk, providing a voice for the past and present and encouraging us to carry on the Marston legacy for the betterment of our city, the city George Marston loved beyond measure.
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Read the rest of the ongoing The Marstons: A California Story History Series.
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