Many affluent Northern California residents commissioned Carleton Watkins to photograph their properties. Among these residents was Milton S. Latham, a former California governor and United States senator who purchased Thurlow Lodge in 1872 as a home for his new bride. After photographing the lavish Menlo Park estate that was originally built for one of the owners of the New Almaden quicksilver mine, Watkins prepared a pair of sumptuous presentation albums, each containing sixty-three mammoth views of the house and grounds.