The Baron and Baroness of Sunland

Early morning in Paris and the cafés are full. The smell of freshly brewed coffee mingles with the yeasty aroma of baguettes and the sweet buttery scent of croissants. These were les années folles, or “the crazy years,” in France at the end of the roaring ’20s. Leaders from 15 nations gathered to sign a treaty outlawing aggressive war, aimed at promoting lasting peace. The young couple strolling at daybreak were newlyweds Woldemar and Ilona. It was August 1928.

I wouldn’t call Woldemar an average man – this was Woldemar Baron de Barkow, born in St. Petersburg in the Russian Empire, on April 10, 1896. His family could trace its Russian nobility back to the 11th century. Ilona had been born in Budapest, Hungary and had studied at both the Budapest and Vienna Academies of Art, and then later in Paris.

The Baron de Barkow had studied law at the Imperial School in St. Petersburg and then, as WWI loomed, he traveled to Kyiv in early 1914 to attend the Russian Imperial Army’s War College. 

It’s difficult to express his responsibilities during the first great war because there were many. For a sense, in 1916 he was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant into the Imperial Guard Infantry and was soon promoted to lieutenant. In 1917, he became a 2nd captain and chief of War Transport for the southwestern front. By the war’s end, he was tasked as a liaison between Russian forces and General Field Marshal Hermann von Eichhorn and, in 1919, he was promoted to captain and served as a liaison to French General Philippe d’Anselme. He would spend the majority of the 1920s in the service of Emperor Cyril I, the senior surviving male heir of the Romanov dynasty, declared head of the Imperial House of Russia.

During his time with the Emperor, Woldemar traveled to the United States as a delegate. After marrying Ilona von Marosy in Paris in 1928, the two headed west. They arrived first in New York but were soon off to Los Angeles. In 1936, the Baron was appointed director of the Andhra Research University in California. Here he worked tirelessly to establish collaboration between the United States and Latin American nations.

With so much behind him, the baron, with his baroness Ilona de Barkow, around 1946 purchased a quarter acre on the 11000 block of Scoville Avenue in Sunland. Surrounded by his wife’s many paintings and sculptures, and the serenity of their special home and gardens, the Baron de Barkow departed this earth on Nov. 15, 1953. Ilona continued living in their Sunland home until her passing in 1979 at the age of 86.

A visitor to Baroness Ilona’s home in April 1962 describes the experience: 

“When I stepped beyond the wrought iron gates, I entered another world. It was a world of beauty, culture and tradition. Once within the grounds, I was lost without a guide through a maze of stone pathways, fruit-bearing trees, blooming flowers, a forest of plants and beautiful sculptures. Once inside, in the company of the baroness, I was surrounded by a hundred or more paintings of every technique and color filling the walls – each done by Ilona’s hand and each with a personal story. Her art offered a view of her inner world, one of Eastern European heritage, combined with a life in Southern California.”

During his lifetime, the baron was honored by numerous countries for his work. Here is the shortlist: Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Greece, Haiti, India, Italy, Japan, Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Iran, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela.