Pancho Flies!
Florence Leontine Lowe — “Pancho Barnes”
(1901–1975)
Unlike the other Greeters in the porte-cochére area of The Raymond, Pancho Barnes greets visitors from on high, standing in a life-sized landscape inside a 9’ x 20’ tile mural. The scene portrays her life’s love and noted accomplishments as a pioneering aviatrix. She stands on the brink of the Arroyo Seco with the Colorado Street Bridge spanning it and her friend and stunt pilot Art Goebel’s flying his biplane by with two wing-walkers aboard. A monoplane roars under the bridge - was that Pancho doing a stunt, or one of the members of the Stunt Pilot's Union?
Pancho launched the Stunt Pilots Union to protect her flying friends from her wealthy movie mogul friend Howard Hughes. Born into fantastic wealth, she grew up in a 35-room mansion in South Pasadena. Her grandfather was Professor Thaddeus Lowe, a famous balloonist credited with founding the United States Air Force for Abraham Lincoln. Money came from her mother's side as well. The bell tower of the St. James Episcopal Church was built with funds by her grandmother, Caroline Dobbins. Pancho’s husband for a time was its preacher, until she buzzed his Sunday sermons to demand a divorce. She boarded a banana boat for Mexico where she picked up her nickname. When she returned, she bought a Travel Air Mystery Ship monoplane with which she beat Amelia Earhart for the title of “Fastest Woman on Earth” in 1930.
Pancho lost all her money in the Great Depression, but famously went on to found the Happy Bottom Riding Club, a dude ranch adjacent to Edwards Air Force Base. She rebuilt her life, raised her only son Billy, held court with test pilots who were ushering in the Space Age and entertained her Hollywood friends when they flew in for wild weekends.
Under Pancho's feet on the mural is the original scene of little Florence and her grandfather attending the 1910 Dominguez Hills International Air Show, capturing the moment when he instilled in her a fascination with flying.
The legacy of Pancho Barnes can be read in her biographies and seen on the silver screen. She had an amazing spirit, and a catch phrase that reveals her lifelong optimism: “If you do have a choice, choose happy!”