When and What:  Just after turn of 20th Century. A poor scan of the flower gardens of Highcroft. I'm not sure where that is but it may be near Ferndale.

The following is a 1933 entry into the personal journal of a Mr. John Albright Mull who was an employee of Mr. Heffelfinger owner of Highcroft.

30 August 1933

I had quite a treat yesterday afternoon and evening. �Mr. HEFFELFINGER who is President of the Peavey Co., the owner of my Company (Van Dusen Harrington) as well as of several other large grain firms, invited the local managers out to an afternoon of golf at the Woodhill Country Club and then to dinner at Highcroft, his country home.

The estate comprises some hundred and fifty acres and the home is about as big as the Canyon Hotel at Yellowstone Park. �The Living Room was at least 50 feet by 100 feet with huge fireplaces at each end and filled with wonderful antique furniture and curios, mostly old English. �I should guess there were twenty or more huge vases filled with flowers and ferns scattered about the room and several larger comfortable overstuffed chairs and Davenports much larger than the one we have at home. �The rugs of course were fine and there were a number of fine paintings on the wall.

Two or three butlers were continually in evidence with offers of anything in the world one wanted to eat or drink. �At our end of the dining room on the mantle of another huge fireplace was the largest and most beautiful bunch of Glads and ferns I have ever seen set off by a huge silver vase or ____.

The center piece of the table was a mound about four feet long made up of all the fruits and vegetables grown on the place and just now at their perfection. �There were melons, corn, tomatoes, cauliflower, peppers, onions and a host of other things I can't now recall all very artistically blended to make a most effective decoration.

The service was for the most part solid silver altho some very beautiful china was used where necessary and the dinner was so bountiful that I had to refuse the most delicious looking peach short cake served with whipped cream and a large jug of natural cream so thick it could hardly be poured. �So you can readily imagine just how full I was.

Mr. HEFFELFINGER is an ideal host and treated us all as if we were bankers rather than employees. �At our end of the house the doors open onto a formal garden about an acre in extent and I cannot begin to tell the number of different flowers that were in bloom there all set off by a dozen or more varieties of foliage plants.

The house is by long odds the finest and most pretentious I have ever been in and we sure got an eyeful of how the rich live. �When all was over, however, and in spite of the fact that we had a wonderful time, my own little home looked pretty good to me.

John Albright Mull (1879-1975)