Anna May Wong's Moongate
May 26, 2025
3 min read
Anna May Wong’s home was “just as I dreamed it”: modern Chinese furniture, traditional moon gates, and a blue roof like the ones she had seen in Peking.
After spending years traveling between Europe and the U.S., in 1938 the Chinese-American actress purchased a Santa Monica estate on San Vicente Boulevard within walking distance of the beach.
Inspired by her recent first-ever trip to China, Wong commissioned architect R. M. Schindler to remodel the Spanish ranch known as “Mater Dolorosa” (Mother of Sorrows) into “Moongate,” a multi-family compound for her widowed father and younger siblings.
