Hubbell's Ilan-Lael joins national network of historic artist homes

Ilan-Lael, the hand-built mountain compound of the late San Diego artist James Hubbell, has been admitted as a full member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Historic Artists' Homes and Studios program.

The site near Julian was one of 13 added to the coalition this year, the program announced in May during National Preservation Month. The additions brought the total number of member sites to 93 across 32 states.

Six new sites joined as full members and seven as affiliates. Ilan-Lael was among the full members, a status reserved for sites with an established record of public operation and preservation stewardship.

The National Trust is a privately funded nonprofit, not a government agency, though Congress chartered it in 1949. It describes itself as dedicated to helping communities maintain historic places.

The trust is also currently in court against the Trump administration. In December, it sued the National Park Service and other federal agencies to halt construction of a ballroom at the White House, a roughly $400 million project the administration began after demolishing the East Wing in October.

A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction in March, finding no statute gave the president authority to build the ballroom. The case is now before a federal appeals court. The trust declined a Justice Department request to drop the suit after an April shooting at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

For Ilan-Lael, the designation arrives two years after its creator's death. Hubbell, born in Mineola, New York, in 1931, died in Chula Vista on May 17, 2024, at 92.

He was known for organic architecture, mosaics, stained glass, and ironwork. His work appears in hundreds of homes, churches, and public spaces across Southern California. The foundation that stewards his estate describes Pacific Rim Park, a series of waterfront parks he designed in cities around the Pacific, as his most ambitious project.

Hubbell began building at the site in 1958. He and his wife, Anne, expanded it over the following decades. The program describes the property as thirteen structures on ten acres of oak woodland in the mountains east of San Diego.

The name Ilan-Lael translates from Hebrew as "a tree that belongs to God." The Ilan-Lael Foundation says the property received historic designation in 2008.

Hubbell and his wife founded the foundation in 1982, records show. It operates the property as an arts education and nature center, offering tours and programs, and is led by executive director Marianne Gerdes and a board that includes several members of the Hubbell family.

Tax records show the foundation reported about $1.6 million in revenue in 2024 and about $3.6 million in net assets at year's end. Those figures include a single residential real estate contribution the foundation valued at $1.125 million.

The Historic Artists' Homes and Studios program, founded in 2000, is a peer-to-peer coalition of museums preserving the homes and working studios of significant American artists.

It created its affiliate category in 2022 to include sites in earlier phases of operation or with nontraditional preservation and visitation models. The directory lists the program as supported by the Wyeth Foundation for American Art and the Henry Luce Foundation.

The 2026 full-member class also includes Bonnet House in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms in Morris Plains, New Jersey; the Charles & Ray Eames Foundation in Los Angeles; Opus 40 in Saugerties, New York; and the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts in Ojai, California.

The seven affiliates include the John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove in Audubon, Pennsylvania; the Thomas Day Historic Site in Milton, North Carolina; and the Randall Davey Audubon Center and Sanctuary in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The wider coalition includes Georgia O'Keeffe's Abiquiú home, Donald Judd's spaces in New York and Marfa, Texas, the Pollock-Krasner House in East Hampton, New York, and the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, New York.

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