Filson home known for artistic sensibility, sunken garden and statuary Arriving permanently in La Jolla in 1918, Charles and Mary Estella Filson built a home for themselves at 7750 Sierra Mar Drive. The home was renowned for its artistic sensibility, panoramic view and secretive features that included a sunken garden at the back of the house, replete with a great variety of floral life and statuary. (Previously they had resided in the Boca Raton Court on Prospect Place.) Charles Filson had come to La Jolla to retire. He had achieved fame as a portrait painter in Ohio, portraying many leading public officials of the late 19th century. But as the Filsons settled into daily life in their picturesque Southern California home by the Pacific, they built a growing reputation in their new community for a bohemian and intellectual lifestyle. They outfitted a luxurious little coupe for overnight camping trips, often taking friends for spins into the countryside — one participant remarking that the coupe had “arrangements for sleeping as commodious and comfortable as a Pullman.” Charles continued to paint — but his subjects were more often surf than people, although he did complete a formal study of early La Jolla’s most famous citizen — Ellen Browning Scripps. Estella became known for her decorative and sophisticated dinner parties. And, their house on Sierra Mar became widely-known for its architectural detail and beauty, written about in a variety of journals. One scribe described it so: “The house … has window frames and awnings of deep blue, and about it lie groups of native brush and wild flowers, mingled with the cultivated plants and shrubs. This garden contains a small redwood, the only one I know of in La Jolla and vicinity.” The same scribe described a sunken garden “that one could contemplate for hours.” It had a small grass plot surrounded by bright flowers and ferns on either side leading up to a brick wall and a statuary of a stag and its mate cast in bronze. Charles and Estella shared their La Jolla idyll for many years. He died in 1937 at age 76 at Scripps Memorial Hospital. Remaining at the Sierra Mar address, she died about 20 years later. Their house no longer remains on Sierra Mar. It was demolished shortly after Mrs. Filson’s death and a new structure was built. Part of the sunken garden remains, however, deeply embedded in an ocean canyon. But the panoramic view — “the sea, it was all there below us, ruffled in the soft wind, and blue in the strong sunshine” — has been obscured by hillside development, especially in recent years. Their first home in Boca Raton Court, also known for its garden and landscape, also was demolished years ago. Ironically, some of Filson’s art work remains as part of the La Jolla heritage, including a significant portrait he painted of Ellen Browning Scripps before her death in 1932. It has a prominent place in the La Jolla Woman’s Club. — Carol Olten is the historian at the La Jolla Historical Society. Her Reflections column runs monthly in La Jolla Village News.