The Huntington Library was founded in 1919 by the businessman Henry E. Huntington and his wife, Arabella Huntington. Located in San Marino, California, the Huntington institution supports education and research through its library, art collections, and extensive gardens. The library collections contain rare books and manuscripts in the fields of British and American history, literature, art, and science. The rare items in the collection include one of 11 existing copies of the Gutenburg Bible, the first two quartos of Hamlet, and drafts of Thoreau's Walden and Audubon's Birds of America. The art collections at the Huntington are strong in the areas of 18th and 19th century European paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts, as well as 17th to mid 20th century American paintings, prints, sculpture, and photographs. The botanical gardens cover 120 acres and are divided into over a dozen themes.
When Henry Huntington died in 1927, Max Farrand became the first director of the institution. Max and Beatrix Farrand moved to California where Max served as Director of Research from 1927 to 1941. Beatrix took on the task of remodeling and landscaping the Director's House. Beatrix Farrand did establish a small office in San Marino, which was attached to the Director's House, but her practice never flourished in California. Instead, she traveled east frequently to continue working with clients like Yale, Princeton, and Dumbarton Oaks. Often Beatrix Farrand's correspondence from 1927 to 1941 references the handful of projects she carried out in California, including work at Caltech, Occidental College, the Hale Observatory, Casa Dorinda, and other points in Santa Barbara.
References:
"About the Huntington." The Huntington. Accessed June 9, 2014. http://www.huntington.org/WebAssets/Templates/content.aspx?id=56
"Huntington Library." Wikipedia. Last modified July 20, 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntington_Library
Scheid, Ann. "Beatrix Farrand in Southern California." Eden: Journal of the California Garden & Landscape History Society. Vol. 14, No. 2. Spring 2011. 1-13. http://www.cglhs.org/files/eden_vol14_no2.pdf