A German-born governess paid $165 for a bare hillside above La Jolla Cove in 1894 and turned it into the artists' colony that helped define the village's creative identity.

Anna Held, who had worked for the family of Ulysses S. Grant Jr., son of former President Ulysses S. Grant, purchased the undeveloped land and began building. She gathered stones from the surrounding area and constructed a fireplace by hand. Then she enlisted Irving Gill, a young architect who had arrived in San Diego just a year earlier, to design a cottage around it. That cottage became The Green Dragon, the Times of San Diego reported Wednesday, Sept. 9.

More cottages followed, each with its own name and character. Musicians performed on the grounds. Visitors scrawled verses and musical notations on the cottage walls. Horticulturist Kate Sessions, known as the "Mother of Balboa Park," planted eucalyptus trees across the property. Ellen Browning Scripps spent evenings there listening to music, according to the Times of San Diego, citing city archives photo captions.

The colony drew artists, writers and actors from across the country. Historian Jean Stern, in an essay published by the San Diego History Center, described it as a place where creative people "gathered in kindred energy and exchanged ideas in an atmosphere of friendship and art."

The City of San Diego's digital archives call the colony "an extraordinary artistic center in the early days of La Jolla." Railroad service in the 1890s made the coastal village more accessible to visitors, and the Green Dragon helped cement that reputation. Held sold the property in 1912 for $30,000.

The colony's end came decades later. Four turn-of-the-century cottages still stood in 1991 when developers demolished them before a restraining order could take effect, the Los Angeles Times reported on July 12, 1991.

The preservation fight was lost.

One piece survived. The city of San Diego says the only intact remnant of the original Green Dragon Colony is Held's hand-built fireplace. A German inscription in her handwriting still reads: "Sacred to me is my hearth; sacred to me is my home."

La Jolla faces a similar preservation question closer to home. The Red Rest cottage faces possible demolition despite its landmark status, as we reported Sept. 8.