Charles Frederick Eaton

[1] He moved his wife, Helen Justice Mitchell, and his daughter Elizabeth to the south of France, where he changed trades, becoming a furniture restorer and creator of furnishings like lamps, candlesticks, and bookends in such media as metal, glass, and leather.

[1] Elizabeth suffered from health issues, so when she was around 17 the family emigrated to the west coast of the United States, settling down in then-semi-rural Montecito near Santa Barbara, California.

[4] In Montecito, Eaton—a lifelong amateur gardener—developed into a landscape architect and horticulturalist, and the house he built for his family, Riso Rivo, featured a lotus pond with a floating Japanese teahouse that gained him national attention.

[1][5][6] He planted an enormous variety of both native and non-native trees at Riso Rivo, including live oak, camphor, cinnamon, avocado, Abyssinian banana, candlenut, and many species of citrus and palms.

[1] Besides trees, Eaton and Franceschi grew many kinds of seeds at Riso Rivo in an attempt to determine which were suitable for southern California's Mediterranean climate.

Postcard of the Montecito, California, estate of Riso Rivo's lotus garden and floating Japanese teahouse, designed by Charles Frederick Eaton, ca. 1890–1910.
"Solana," Frederick Forrest Peabody house, Eucalyptus Hill Road, Montecito, by Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1917. Architect: Francis Townsend Underhill (1913–1914). Landscape: Charles Frederick Eaton, from 1906