Los Angeles-San Francisco-Statewide County CA Archives Biographies.....VanNuys, Isaac Newton. November 20, 1835 - February 12, 1912
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com July 11, 2010, 8:17 pm

Source: California and Californians, Vol. IV, Published 1932, Pages 62 - 63
Author: The Lewis Publishing Company

     ISAAC NEWTON VAN NUYS had the inheritance of a sturdy American farm boy, 
was himself primarily a farmer, and he came to California with a vision of 
better possibilities for agricultural production. He was born at West Sparta, 
New York, November 20, 1835, son of Peter and Harriet (Kerr) VanNuys. In that 
locality he grew up, attending public schools, and the Academy of Lima, New 
York, where he pursued his studies one year. While in school he assisted his 
father on the borne farm. Up to the age of thirty his time and energies were 
devoted to farming in New York State.

     Mr. VanNuys came to California in 1865, partly in search of health, 
partly in search of new opportunities, and also seeking an ideal agricultural 
region. After a brief sojourn at Napa, he located at Monticello, and there 
developed a large country store. After several years he again turned his 
attention to farming and in 1868 became associated with another pioneer figure 
of Southern California, Isaac Lankershim. He and Mr. Lankershim and others 
purchased an enormous tract of approximately 60,000 acres in the San Fernando 
Valley, including what became the VanNuys and Lankershim ranches. This land 
for several years was devoted to stock raising, especially sheep. In 1873 Mr. 
VanNuys turned his attention to grain raising. He had sold his store at 
Monticello in 1871, and removed to Los Angeles, and thereafter to the end of 
his life his energies and his public spirit counted heavily in the progress 
and development of the city. Mr. VanNuys among other achievements was the 
first to demonstrate the possibility of growing wheat on a commercial scale in 
the vicinity of Los Angeles. In 1888 Mr. VanNuys and associates produced 
510,000 bushels of wheat from their land. A considerable part of the VanNuys 
fortune resulted from wheat raising and the milling business.

     Mr. VanNuys as an exporter early became interested in the development of 
harbor facilities at San Pedro. In 1876 he set forth the first two vessels 
loaded with wheat to clear from San Pedro (Los Angeles) Harbor. Mr. VanNuys 
and Mr. Isaac Lankershim, in 1880, organized the Los Angeles Farming and 
Milling Company, primarily to mill their own wheat. However, these mills 
eventually consumed most of the wheat grown in the Southwest, including 
Arizona and New Mexico. The business in time became one of the most 
substantial manufacturing institutions of Los Angeles.

     The VanNuys Hotel, which achieved an international reputation, was 
erected by Mr. VanNuys in 1896, and for several years was one of the three 
most noted hotels in Los Angeles. The hotel property is still owned by his 
heirs. Up to the spring of 1910 Mr. VanNuys controlled the VanNuys and 
Lankershims ranches. At that date this vast property was sold to a syndicate 
which subdivided the land into small country estates and began the 
development, including the construction of boulevards, which has resulted in 
one of the most noted farming and residential subdivisions around Los Angeles. 
The transfer of this property from the VanNuys and Lankershim interests to the 
syndicate constituted one of the largest realty transactions recorded up to 
that time in the Southwest.

     Mr. VanNuys, in 1911, in the closing years of his life, started the 
erection at the corner of Seventh and Spring streets, of one of the finest and 
largest office buildings in the West, known as the VanNuys Building, an office 
structure still one of the best in Los Angeles. This building covers the 
ground formerly occupied by the VanNuys homestead. When Mr. VanNuys bought it 
in 1879, it is said that he paid approximately $7,000 for the grounds.

     Mr.VanNuys continued active in his business until his later years, though 
more and more he shifted the management and responsibility of his vast 
interests to his son, J. Benton VanNuys. Isaac N. VanNuys passed away February 
12, 1912, at the age of seventy-seven. The final details in the completion of 
the VanNuys Building were directly supervised by his son. The late Mr. VanNuys 
was vice president of the Farmers and Merchants National Bank of Los Angeles 
and a director in the Union Bank of Savings, was a director in the Los Angeles 
Pressed Brick Company, and all together his business interests constituted one 
of the largest individual groups in the city. His business associates held him 
in the highest esteem for his integrity and high sense of honor. He was a man 
of physical and moral courage, standing up for his rights and willing to fight 
to the last ditch for a principle that he regarded essential.

     While his business interests were vast and consumed most of his time, he 
also interested himself in fraternal and social affairs, being a member of 
Pentalpha Lodge of Masons, Signet Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, Los Angeles 
Commandery of the Knights Templar, Al Malaikah Temple of the Mystic Shrine, 
the California Club and the Crags Country Club.

     Isaac Newton VanNuys married, in 1880, Miss Susanna H. Lankershim, 
daughter of his business partner and associate, Isaac Lankershim. Mrs. VanNuys 
at the time of her death, May 3, 1923, was one of the few surviving pioneer 
women of California, whose memory ran back to the period before the Civil war. 
She was born at Charleston, Missouri, in 1846, and in 1858, as a young girl of 
fourteen, she joined her father, Isaac Lankershim, in San Francisco, having 
made the trip with her family by way of Panama. About ten years later she 
moved with the family to Los Angeles, where she was married to Mr. VanNuys. 
She had been a resident of Southern California over forty years. Mrs. VanNuys 
is survived by three children, J. Benton VanNuvs, Mrs. Richard J. Schweppe and 
Mrs. James R. Page, all of whom were born in California.

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