Irving J. Gill: Lewis- Bella Vista Terrace court (Sierra Madre, Calif.)

Gill’s site planning was especially successful in this project. He pushed the cottages to the outside edge of the plot to leave a large public area for shared gardens and a loggia. He also placed each L-shaped cottage so that its arcaded porch and small garden had privacy from its neighbors. Though the cottages appear to be made of concrete, the walls are plastered hollow clay blocks.
Fred B. Lewis was a jeweler from Cleveland. On a 1910 trip to California, he spent a vacation at the Cypress Court in Sierra Madre (owned by Frank Fraiburg, also a jeweler from Cleveland), located just north of where Lewis would decide to build his own house court for tourists such as himself. Gill planned 12 cottages for Lewis but only eight were built. In 1913 the Sierra Madre News announced that Lewis had purchased three acres, adjacent to Bella Vista Terrace, for a hotel being designed by Gill. The hotel was not built; Lewis sold Bella Vista Terrace in 1914 and moved to Long Beach, Calif.

Irving J. Gill, architect

Irving John Gill papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara

1910

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