The Austin Val Verde Foundation Mission...

A Mansion with Mission: Intent to Cultivate the Future:

California's great estates were designed as gathering places for people, ideas and discovery; The Austin Val Verde Foundation Promotes Education In A Dynamic "Cultural Landscape."

(Montecito, CA) Too often, "preserving" grand estates that were once alive with people, energy, and ideas makes them less vibrant than they once were. Austin Val Verde, "a mansion with a mission" in Montecito, California, enjoys a happier fate. The Austin Val Verde Foundation (AVVF) preserves not only the estate's majestic grounds, gardens and buildings, but its original design intent-a meeting place where people share ideas to shape our future-- a "cultural landscape." This is a new concept in historic preservation. Preserving "cultural landscapes" means encouraging people to use historic sites for learning, discovery, and discourse. Hosting vibrant, cutting-edge intellectual, artistic and technological exchange was the intent behind California's truly great estates. Through use of the most advanced multi media technology, the Austin Val Verde Foundation invites the public to participate in educational forums that integrate many features on the estate as teaching aids. Guided by a team of highly renowned education experts, participants from widely varied backgrounds are now encouraged to exchange ideas and contribute to our future culture by exploring Austin Val Verde's resources, from art and architecture to plants, technology and science.

"Here, it's not about just looking at buildings and grounds. Look at the original design intent of Austin Val Verde's architects and landscape architects. These designers specifically created beautiful spaces for people to meet and mix-intellectuals, artists, writers, scientists-these were technology-friendly people thinking about the future. The Austin Val Verde Foundation continues that legacy," says Gail Jansen, Executive Director of the Austin Val Verde Foundation and architectural historian. "Austin Val Verde is a hub that helps us to see a cultural landscape. It is a place unlike any other because of the way our foundation educational team members choose to develop it."

AVVF team members are intellectual leaders in their respective fields and in the community. Normally unrelated subjects such as education, social sciences, art, math, computer sciences, architecture and physics are mixed together to create new ways of educating people. "This place is incredible and has everything. Each idea can be developed here. All of Austin Val Verde is our classroom and, for transmitting programs, our studio," explains Olga Agapova, PhD, Educational Programs Producer at the AVVF and a distinguished expert in international education, curriculum and learning technology. She has specialized in the principles of active learning and use of technological advances that maximize learning for over 25 years. "The architectural and natural features here give us great advantages. They not only relax people but provide many small landscapes that can be used to informally teach chemistry, physics, botany, design or art."

For example, a corner of the gardens might be used as the laboratory in which to study the theory of light, photography, or both together. Besides being extraordinarily pleasant, these settings improve learning. Cues triggered by "location memory," help students remember not just words, as in the classroom, but whole ideas. When they want to recall light theory, they can recall the scene at Austin Val Verde where they learned it and-click! They remember more than they otherwise would. Questions from or observations by students with different backgrounds may inspire new approaches or applications of theories and techniques, thus creating the future.

The Austins, Val Verde's former owners hosted guests with fertile, creative minds. Now everyone who is intellectually curious is invited to participate in educational programs sponsored by the AVVF. From elementary school students to single working mothers to physicists, business people and professors, Austin Val Verde Foundation team members hope that AVVF programs will bring people from all parts of the global community together to exchange ideas. The foundation's ability to connect people is limitless. Team members use cutting edge technology to broadcast information from the grounds via new streaming video and audio equipment, some with features that are usually only used at the TV broadcast level. The Director of Information Technology for the Austin Val Verde Foundation, Bryce A. Flores, can barely contain his enthusiasm. He calls Val Verde, "An adventure in the making, a place where people with different visions compliment one another."

What does Austin Val Verde look like? "Beauty is at the core of Austin Val Verde," says Jansen. "Beauty has a value unto itself." Austin Val Verde includes 17.4 acres of majestically landscaped grounds with views of the mountains on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. Its landscape offers countless areas that naturally lend themselves as meeting and learning spaces. Its many features include dancing fountains, monumental columns and walls, and even a small pond. Mysterious pathways lead past ancient antiquities, exotic specimen trees, along a mountain stream and to mirror-like reflecting pools or meditative outdoor "rooms." Everywhere, one encounters vignettes of human imagination that changed the definition of beauty in the 20th century. The garden layout and architecture were originally designed in 1915 by American architect, Bertram Goodhue (1869-1924). The Austin Val Verde house is the prototype residential example of Goodhue's inventive aesthetic that came to be known as the California Style.

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.

In 1955, Florence "Bunny" Heath Horton (1915-1991), fiancée of Dr. Warren R. Austin (1911-1999), bought the property. During World War II, Dr. Austin was the personal physician of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor while the Duke was governor of the Bahamas. In 1947, another good friend of the Duke's, Beryl Markham (the first person to fly solo westward across the Atlantic Ocean), introduced the handsome doctor to Santa Barbara society. Dr. Austin was Montecito's first resident physician. Dr. and Mrs. Austin married and lived at Val Verde until their deaths. They created the Austin Val Verde Foundation to maintain the mission, spirit and beauty of the estate in perpetuity.

Despite its stunning appearance and diverse history, education is the key product of this unique environment. AVVF's Director of Education Ralph A. Cordova, Jr., PhD, Director of Research, Center for Teaching for Social Justice, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara, consultant with the National Writing Project and Instructor at Antioch University, points out that education is the hub of Austin Val Verde's co-genesis of ideas. He states, "It can be a place where a group of school children can view previously inaccessible and invisible things-'hidden histories'-- and go home with an entirely different perspective on their community."

"We take full advantage of the fascinating, beautiful and historic aspects of the AVVF site by providing scholars, children and families with learning experiences through the medium of the internet," says Alexey Ushakov, Director of Multi Media and Educational Content at AVVF. His talents make AVVF's rich resources available to students everywhere through virtual access. Since actual visits to the Austin Val Verde Foundation are on an invitational basis, its directors promote and encourage educational discourse over the internet and provide access to many of the foundation's valuable intellectual properties online. Many regular and motivated participants of AVVF virtual education will be invited to stay at Austin Val Verde to further explore their studies on the world-famous grounds. Besides chemistry, biology, horticulture and even physics projects, students can investigate many aesthetic arts such as architecture, landscape and fine art.

Discourse, or discussion, fuels discovery. "I have discovered that collaborative learning, like critical thinking, encourages all individuals in the class, develops skills, and better prepares them to be involved in the future," explains Dr. Agapova, who produces forum programs for the foundation. "We provide opportunities for students to learn in collaboration with teachers, other students, or leaders in particular fields." Some possible forum program topics in the near future include exploring the usefulness and perils of: genetically engineered food, hormone replacement, computer monitors, mobile phones, airport security checkpoints, alternative auto fuel, and many others.

Another AVVF project that will affect the future and inspire study projects is habitat restoration to aid conservation of the endangered steelhead trout. Steelheads live in Montecito Creek, a large length of which runs through the AVVF grounds. Ushakov's multi media mastery provides students with the use of high-technology aids such as the ability to monitor natural processes and make them visible online. Students can collect daily data for science projects this way.

AVVF team members hope to reach academics, intellectuals and whole groups of people who are entrepreneurial, highly creative and intellectually curious and believe that this is how people can create a beautiful society and a meaningful future.

"Meaning comes from individuals interacting with each other. Austin Val Verde has a history of this; it comes together and happens," says Jansen energetically. "It is important to give people this. We have to make time for it. It doesn't happen by accident; it's a commitment."

The Austin Val Verde Foundation Board is pleased to keep the Austin's' commitment to share with the public. The Foundation is a 501c non-profit organization that exists primarily on public donations and government grants. For more information about the Austin Val Verde Foundation, call 805-969-9852, visit www.austinvalverdefoundation.com.