Bembridge House, Queen Anne Victorian residence in Long Beach, California.

Bembridge House is a Queen Anne Victorian house built in 1906 at 953 Park Circle Drive in Long Beach, California. It has 18 rooms and retains its original high ceilings, hand-carved woodwork, stained and leaded glass, and a tiled fireplace. The Los Angeles Times described it in 1981 as an arrangement of turrets, pillars, angles, beveled Tiffany glass windows, and white-on-blue scrollwork reminiscent of Wedgwood.

The house was built in 1906 for Stephen Green, who founded the City National Bank, at a time when Long Beach was growing quickly as a city. It stayed in family hands for many decades before being recognized as a historic property.

The original Tiffany glass windows and hand-crafted woodwork inside show how wealthy Southern Californians furnished their homes around 1900. The period furnishings that remain in place give a clear sense of how a prosperous household of that time looked and felt from day to day.

The house sits on Park Circle Drive across from Drake Park in Long Beach and is open to visitors through guided tours. It is worth checking tour availability before you go, as opening times can vary depending on the time of year.

Dorothy Bembridge, a musician and Long Beach school teacher, said the tower acted as a natural megaphone, and that piano concerts in the house produced sounds listeners had never heard before. She lived there from 1918 until she was strangled in the house in 1999, at age 89.