Pack Rat Is One Key to Placentia’s History

No matter what--or how much--you collect, you are a piker, compared to the late George Gilman Key.

Key was the torchbearer of one of Orange County’s pioneering citrus-growing families, and he had a keen eye for the local history of his hometown of Placentia. Before he died Jan. 31, Key used that talent to convert a good portion of his manor-like turn-of-the-century house just off Bastanchury Road into a sort of eclectic museum, a rambling kind of remembrance of the days when his father, George Benn Key, grew Valencia oranges on and around the little 2.2-acre knoll on which the house sits.

Today Key’s house sits unoccupied (he was the last resident) and the house and surrounding orange grove and garden are administered by the Orange County Environmental Management Agency as a historical site. However, Key’s penchant for collecting and displaying nearly everything he could get his hands on that was of any sort of historic value is much in evidence.

Key, born in 1896, was the second son of George Benn Key, who came to Placentia from Canada in 1893 to establish a citrus ranch and a local growers association. He built the house off Bastanchury Road in 1898 and 10 years later remodeled it, adding a south wing, porch, trellis and balconies.

George G. Key worked in the oil industry in Los Angeles County for 22 years after serving in World War I before he returned to Placentia with his wife, Hannah, to live in the family house.

And he began amassing a collection of nearly everything. County park ranger Linda Lorenzi said that Key was particularly fond of local children and spoke frequently at Placentia schools on the early history of the area, bringing along such lecture props as tools and household items dating from the early part of the century.

“And from what started out to be simple, innocent collecting turned into about 8,000 items,” Lorenzi said. “Some people thought he was eccentric for keeping so many things, but he was far, far from eccentric. He knew what he was doing.”

And he knew where to put it all. Next to the house is a garage containing collections of blacksmithing and kitchen equipment, behind which is a small yard filled with antique farming implements such as wagons, plows, water pump machinery, scales, a wine press and mowing machines and cultivators.

A few steps away are two sheds with hundreds of tools and such esoterica as kerosene lanterns, a World War II-vintage Civil Defense helmet and a machine for stamping trademarks on oranges.

It is the house itself, however, that is most characteristic of George Key’s selective acquisitiveness. Throughout the second-floor rooms are displayed dozens of old photographs of the Key family and other local residents, examples of early 20th-Century clothing, pocket watches, eyeglasses, citrus crate labels, dishes, marbles, a spinning wheel, and even such rarities as a shotgun shell loading block and a small collection of rare bird eggs. And all of it is arranged--much of it labeled--in precisely the way George Key left it upon his death.

The house, said Lorenzi, eventually will be repaired, restored and likely filled with furniture particular to the period between 1908 and 1916.

The house and its lush grounds (a garden next to the house is dotted by markers displaying verses from inspirational poems written by Key) are like an island, a true anachronism in a neighborhood of modern tract homes. And there are still 135 producing Valencia orange trees, Lorenzi said. Three of them might even be considered part of Key’s esoteric collecting. They are original plantings, dating from 1893.

THE GEORGE KEY RANCH AT A GLANCE

Where: 625 W. Bastanchury Road, Placentia.

Hours: 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Entrance to grounds: By appointment and guided tour only. Tours scheduled based on demand and limited to 30 people. Appointments should be made at least 3 weeks in advance.

Admission: $1 per person per hour (1- and 2-hour tours are offered).

Parking: On adjacent streets only. No parking on grounds.

Information and tour appointments: (714) 528-4260.