Looking at the other end of New York Ave, the opposite end from the Verdugo Lodge stone arch, there is a very nice stone barn:
flickr
It seems a Georges Louis Mesnager (Mes-song-jay) immigrated here from the town of Mayenne in the Loire Valley in 1866. He returned to France to fight in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and was devastated at the disastrous French loss:
uscdl
Returning to Los Angeles he married a lady from Spain, Conception Deolara, and had four children. After first working for French immigrant winemakers, Vache Freres, Mesnager and a partner, Pierre Durancette, invested in vineyards, a wholesale wine and liquor business and eventually opened Sunny Side Winery at W 2nd and Los Angeles Streets, one of dozens in Los Angeles. Vache Freres moved to Redlands. The new partners advertised themselves as the Vache's successors with an establishment date of 1860.
In 1886 the partners bought land in Dunsmore Canyon, at the top of New York Avenue, for a vineyard.
In 1892 Conception died suddenly leaving Georges with four children. !893 brought further disaster. Mesnager and Durancette's liquor license had lapsed and they may have been using illegal tax stamps. As punishment their entire stock from both the wholesale business and the winery was confiscated. All but wiped out, the partnership was dissolved. Mesnager carried on alone, leasing the Dunsmore Canyon property to another French vintner and concentrating on his other interests. He was a notary, a multilingual court translator, mortgage lender, editor of a French-language newspaper, "Le Progres" and had a French grocery at Los Angeles and Commercial Streets. He also married again, this time to a French woman, Marie du Grey, and had one more child. Mesnager eventually regained his liquor license and opened a new winery, the Old Hermitage, at 1623 N Main at Mesnager Street, on land he owned near the family home, with a store on the corner. It was two blocks south of the Cornfield and two blocks west of the river:
Baist 1910historicmapworks
googlebooks
Bottling and sales were contracted out to
Hans Jevne, the Norwegian-born, high-class grocer:
googlebooks
In 1898 Mesnager bought Anacapa Island for $8K as a place to raise sheep.
By 1900, Dunsmore Canyon was back under family control. Eldest son Louis had returned from being educated in Switzerland (Mesnager sent his sons to Switzerland to be educated and his daughters to the Marlborough School) and set about improving Dunsmore Canyon. One project was to build a stone barn to store and sort the grapes. Planned in 1904, the second floor was finished in 1918. Louis also reorganized the G.L. Mesnager Company and managed the winery and other interests.
At the outbreak of WWI, Georges transferred ownership of the company to his wife and charged Louis with looking after the business before leaving to fight for France, hoping to avenge the loss of the Franco-Prussian War. He was 64 years old. Too aged to be an officer, he enlisted as a private, famously the oldest soldier in the French army. He was wounded five times, once, it is said, when an explosive shell threw him 50 feet. He was sent home to Los Angeles in 1917 to recover, but was then called back to be the French army's liaison to General Pershing's command, the perfect job for the doubly loyal dual-national.
Lieutenant Mesnager returned to the United States in 1919 aboard
La Lorraine, covered in glory and medals, including the
Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor:
googlebooks
The stone barn as it looked on Georges' return:
glendale.gov
Prohibition changed the G.L. Mesnager Company's focus to growing table grapes and making non-alcoholic drinks. The winery equipment was taken to Dunsmore Canyon for storage.
Georges suffered strokes in 1921. He and his wife returned to the family home in Mayenne, for his recovery, but he never saw California again. Georges died, in the house where he was born, in 1923. Glowing obits were written on both sides of the Atlantic. (Note: Mayenne was heavily bombed by Allied planes on June 9, 1944 to dislodge its German army occupiers)
The end of Prohibition coincided with the massive fires which swept the San Gabriels in 1933 (and made the 1934 flood so much worse). The losses in Dunsmore Canyon were catastrophic, the barn reduced to a shell. The first post-Repeal harvest had been processed in the winery, now set up in the barn. 20,000 gallons of wine and 1,500 gallons of brandy stain the ground:
googlebooks
Louis made a good living leasing the water rights he owned in Dunsmore and Cook canyons, as well as from other interests. He repaired the stone barn, changing the roofline, and, after remodeling the second floor into a residence, moved his family in in 1937. They stayed until 1960:
architectural resources group
The property was next leased to a private equestrian center and then stood empty:
glendale pl
After a close call with developers, the City of Glendale bought the property for a wilderness park (with a huge assist from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy). The barn almost burned again during the 2009 Station Fire, but was saved by firefighters. There's a wine-making museum planned for the stone barn. An amphitheater and other amenities are now on the grounds:
photosnyth
architectural resources group
A flood control dam and debris basin are now adjacent to the site. Access has been changed from New York Ave to Markridge Rd. The barn is not listed.
Vines have again been planted and small amounts of wine are produced on site:
flickr
stone barn vineyard conservancy
There's nothing left of the Mesnager Los Angeles holdings. Mesnager(s) Street still exists, but no longer intersects with Main:
google maps