Browse Items (856 total)

This Italian Renaissance Revival mansion was designed by Myron Hunt for Senator Thomas Bard, who was an early land developer and founder of the Union Oil Company. The Bard family owned the house until 1944 when it was acquired by the United States…

The Leo Berger house in Los Angeles has a Monterey style facade, with second story balcony and tile roof.

Parking garages were a new type of building in the 1920s, with the recent invention of the motorized vehicle. Garages of this time period catered to the wealthy, with valet services, fuel stations, and service bays which would work on your car while…

Myron Hunt attended Northwestern University in Evanston, then studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, traveled in Europe for a few years, and finally returned to Evanston to work for the Boston-based firm Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge. In…

This Buick garage and possibly dealership, is an example of the Art Deco style from the 1920s.

Throop Polytechnic Institute was founded in 1891 and changed its name to California Polytechnic Institute in 1920. Throop Hall was damaged in a 1971 earthquake and was demolished in 1973. Some of the decorative elements of the original building were…

The buildings for the California Junior Republic, an all-boys school for troubled youth, were designed by Myron Hunt in 1911, with additional buildings by Chambers and Hibbard in 1950. Originally named George Junior Republic, the facility changed…

These renderings for the Cafeteria and Boys Physical Education building at Canoga Park High School were designs by Chambers and Hibbard, the architects who continued the firm after Myron Hunt's death in 1952.

Myron Hunt designed this large house for Martha Chapoton, widow of a prominent Detroit doctor, in the gated community of Fremont Place.

This house for Guy Cochran was designed in the American Bungalow style, and written about in the Craftsman magazine. It featured large windows overlooking a manicured terrace for indoor/outdoor living.

George Watson Cole was the librarian for the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery from 1915 to 1924. Previously, Cole had studied with Melvil Dewey, and worked at the Newberry Library in Chicago and public libraries on the East Coast. The…

The Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks (Lodge #672) has been the headquarters of the Elks in Pasadena since 1911. The Colonial Revival style building has been the site of many television and film shoots, as well as a prominent place during…

This estate for Katherine Sinclair Emery (widow of Frank Emery, who at the time of his death was considered one of the richest men in California) sits on 9 acres in San Marino. The Tudor style house is now known as Thornton Gardens. Hunt worked with…

This church is in the Spanish Colonial style, with a Churrigueresque style steeple. The building is in the shape of a Latin cross, with two-foot-thick walls which are made of reinforced concrete, and a red tile roof that highlights the Spanish…

The hotel was built for Senator Frank Putnam Flint, who later sold the hotel to the Bowman-Biltmore Hotels company. In 1931, the building and 30 acre grounds were sold to form the Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, a Catholic school for grades k-12.

The Flintridge Country Club was built with thick walls, to block out the hot summer air and retain heat in the winter. The Club maintained separate spaces for women and men-- locker rooms, lounges-- but the center of the main building featured the…

This house for Margaret Fowler was adjacent to the Boys Republic property she purchased for the organization. After her death in 1936, the organization donated the home to a polio treatment center, which was named Casa Colina Convalescent Home for…

This large beach house was sited directly on the sand. With large balconies facing the water, the house allowed for indoor/outdoor living on the beach. The house sat on a corner lot, and included a long wooden boardwalk through the loose sand dunes…

Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey were the supervising architects for the design of the James Waldron Gillespie House, for the originating architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. Gillespie took Goodhue on a seven month around-the-world tour as inspiration for…

Howard Hawks was a director, screen writer, and producer from the 1920s until the 1950s. The house in Benedict Canyon was built with stucco and stone, with a vaguely Colonial style and early California ranch influences.

This hotel for Lewis Bradbury was one of many hotels designed by Myron Hunt. This one is located in the resort town of Mazatlan, Mexico.

This Neoclassical style building was home to the Hueneme Bank, later served as the Port Hueneme city hall, and is now the Port Hueneme Historical Society Museum. It was named a Ventura County Historic Landmark in 1977.

The house for Myron Hunt's family, on Wesley Avenue in Evanston, Illinois, is a vaguely Prairie-style, with some Craftsman and Bungalow influences.

The house that Myron Hunt designed for himself and his family on North Grand Avenue in Pasadena, California, bears a small resemblance to his previous house in Illinois. The gardens, loggia, and other outdoor areas highlight the difference in climate…

Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey worked for railroad magnate and real estate mogul Henry Huntington to design buildings to house Huntington's extensive library and art collections. The Mediterranean revival style building formed the basis for the Huntington…

The original buildings are almost completely subsumed and surrounded by new medical facilities, but these original hospital buildings can still be seen from aerial views.

The Russel Taylor house in Los Angeles is an example of a traditional house, with a Colonial style front facade and a center stair hall. The public rooms at the front of the house lead out to a back terrace, which faces an expansive flat year.…

This rendering of the east elevation of the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics shows the sloping tile roof, vine covered trellises, and stucco exterior mimics the Spanish Revival nature of Santa Barbara architecture.

This is an early floor plan of the original building for Kohn Hall, designed by Michael Graves.

The Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics is a world-renown research facility where physicists meet to collaborate on cutting edge research and…

This early photograph of Irving Gill, from circa 1898, shows him soon after he moved to the San Diego area from Chicago. Gill is dressed in a suit with a bow tie and is looking away from the camera. It is one of a series of posed studio portraits…

Alice Lee (a San Diego socialite and second cousin of Theodore Roosevelt’s first wife) and Katherine Teats commissioned two distinct house groups from Gill. In 1905 Gill designed a house for Lee and Teats on Seventh Avenue, with adjacent rental…

Frank Mead worked in the Hebbard and Gill office beginning about 1904. He and Gill formed a seven-month partnership in 1907, when the H & G partnership ended. Before joining the office, Mead, though trained as an architect, worked actively, and…

Gill used simplicity, symmetry and strategic asymmetry in his landscapes and buildings. Garden walls extend the building volume across the site, while also enclosing gardens and terraces.

In this series of drawings of graphite and gouache on board…

Bishop Johnson lived in Pasadena and the Episcopal Church originally planned to build a preparatory school in Sierra Madre. When Ellen Scripps and her sister Elizabeth Virginia Scripps offered to be benefactors, the decision was made to build a day…

In the Woman’s Club, the La Jolla Playground Community House, and here in the Bishop’s School, Gill used an arcaded screen wall as a unifying element, and to articulate his austere geometry with rhythmic voids. Scripps Hall was built in 1910,…

Built on 60 acres of orange groves, the Clarke estate was Gill’s last major residential project. Constructed of poured in place reinforced concrete, the house measures 8,000 square feet. Gill’s drawings note that Gill and Pearson built the house…

The designs from the Hebbard and Gill partnership were eclectic, leaning toward English cottages with Arts and Crafts influence, but included Neo-classical, Gothic, Queen Anne, Mission Revival, and Prairie School styles.

In this drawing of a…

In the last year of his life, with the Depression still strong, Gill designed at least four buildings, of which only the Blade-Tribune newspaper building and a beauty parlor in Redondo Beach were built. In 1936 he was working on a theater with Zara…

Gill designed two identical buildings bisected by a walkway from the street to the rear of the property. The floor plan for both buildings shows the mirror image of the first and second floors. Each building contained two two-bedroom apartments, with…

The Dodge house was located on Kings Road, just north of the future site of Schindler’s own 1921 house. Considered Gill’s masterpiece, the design was widely praised for, as historian Leland Roth wrote," revealing a functional asymmetry whose…

A book could be written about Gill’s women clients, and Ellen Scripps would be a significant chapter. She helped her brothers build a successful newspaper business and moved to La Jolla in 1897, when the town had “cow paths in lieu of streets.”…

Gill designed approximately eight cottages for parcels of land he purchased in San Diego. There is little documentation for these, but all or most of the houses seem to have been built on Albatross, Front, Robinson Mews, and Hawthorne streets.Gill…

The photograph in the reception area of the office depicts the Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcalá, the first Franciscan mission in New Spain. William Hebbard and Irving Gill (Hebbard and Gill partnership, 1896-1907) stabilized the building in…

Gill’s intention was to make his buildings as efficient as possible, and that is certainly true for this hospital, funded by Joseph Sefton and built on the grounds of the Children’s Home. The hospital was built of concrete to make it easy to keep…

Gill helped Schindler and Claude Chase form and raise the tilt-slab walls for the Schindler house on Kings Road, 1921. Invoices in the Schindler archive show that Schindler rented some of Gill’s equipment for the concrete work. Chase assisted Gill…

This house had a simplified exterior form, with a slight Japanese flavor in the tilt of the roof, and a warm Arts and Crafts interior.
Melville Klauber was from San Diego’s growing merchant class, and married to the sister of Julius Wangenheim.…

Gill’s notes about the concrete work for the Club and the sequential construction photographs provide unusual detail for one of Gill’s significant civic designs.
Robert H. Aiken is usually credited as the tilt-up pioneer in the U.S; he…

This is the first Los Angeles building that Gill designed on his own. The house has a classic center hall plan and an enclosed outdoor court. He typically oriented his plans so that one was drawn toward the light and landscape at the back of the…

The Los Angeles Herald published several articles announcing the luxury housing development at Laughlin Park. A 1912 article announced that Gill was in charge of all planning for this Hollywood Hills development on a site of three acres. Another…

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…

The austere Miltmore house is generously “ornamented by nature.” Gill sited the house to preserve the many trees on the sprawling lot and placed long loggias alongside the front and rear elevations. The interior is gracious though simple,…

The architect and planner Frederick Gutheim worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the 1930s. His letters to architectural critic Esther McCoy and to Louis Gill describe his friendship with Irving Gill and the Barona Resettlement project they…

Gill’s austere clarity was especially suited to pragmatic building programs, such as the concrete Biological Station. Ellen Scripps funded the building, now part of the University of California, in honor of her brother George.

Gill designed a number of schools. A 1913 article about his concrete public school for the City of Fontana praised the large outdoor playground and quoted Gill as saying that the basement playroom is “the most glaring evil in school room…

This 18-room house built for the steel manufacturer, Henry Timken, was Gill’s largest to date. Gill placed the house close to the street, leaving room for enclosed courts and a large garden. Eloise Roorbach’s contemporary article noted that the…

Hebbard and Gill designed an English cottage for Wangenheim, a civic leader, owner of a grocery store business, and the father-in-law of Melville Klauber, another Gill client. San Diego was a small town and Hebbard and Gill worked with most of its…

Photographs of the exterior entrance, bar, and lunch counter of the Golden Lion Inn. The facade echoed tavern aesthetics, yet the inside was incredibly spacious and well lit.

Photographs of the interior and a floor plan of the Rabinowitz House. The design featured a panoramic view of Bel Air from its secluded position on a hill.

Photographs of the entrance and interior of the Haberdashery (a men's clothing store). This business replaced the earlier Schilling's Flowers.

Originally designed in Berlin, Davidson brought this drawing with him to America. The slightly curved armrests are reminiscent of Bruno Paul's own armchair designs.

Photographs of the exterior and interior of the Bilicke-Satyr Bookstore, featuring special strip lights. Many of Davidson's early commercial projects incorporate Art Deco elements, calculating geometric shapes, sleek forms, and straight lines.

Sketches of the vacation house designed for Blake g Smith. The house was situated on the top of the cliffs, with a staircase leading down to a "natural sea pool".

Davidson was asked to design a family home for Richard Bransten, son of a wealthy coffee manufacturer from San Francisco. The window design reflects De-Stijl sensibilities, focusing on large geometric shapes. The three story residence was built on a…

Davidson's design for the cover of California Sport Magazine.

Davidson's furniture and restaurant supply designs expressed both Art Deco and modernist sensibilities. His "cellarette" concept for a pullout bar on wheels echoes the same simple, functional design of his patent for an easy open cigarette container.

Watercolor sketch of a church steeple when Davidson probably still lived in Posen, Poland.

Photographs of the interior of the coconut grove courtyard and lamp details. Davidson emphasized unique lighting designs, with the lamps here incorporating vegetal or "oriental" star elements.

Photographs of the former servants' quarters that Davidson retrofitted into his five-bedroom apartment in Berlin.

The plan of the Floyd D. Crosby Residence is actually the same floor plan Davidson used for the design of his own home, though the interior design choices of the homes differed widely.

Floor plan and photographs of the residence Davidson designed for himself and his wife on South Barrington Avenue in Los Angeles.

Renderings and floor plan of the Drive-in Curb Market. Designs like this clearly anticipated the increasing importance of automobiles in the modern age.

These photographs document the narrow medical building that housed the practices of Dr. B.F. Feingold and and Dr. J.M. Harris. The spaces were designed to be modern and expansive, with scattered lighting and noise insulation.

Built in the single-story"ranch style", the Walter Foster House project was one of Davidson's new designs bearing a departure from the International Style in favor of Soft Modernism. The house's plan incorporated local building styles and materials,…

Photographs of the exterior of the apartments. The plans reflected the Bauhaus concept of utilizing limited space. Each of the four apartments has an exterior space such as a patio or sundeck to provide private outside access- a luxury usually only…

Photographs of the interior of the Hi-Hat restaurant. The owner originally requested an English style tavern, to which Davidson created a design that reflected his wishes but through a modernist's sensibilities.

Photographs of the remodeled bar and tavern of the Hotel Knickerbocker. The resulting shape of the space results from the combination of "several existing odd rooms".

After supposedly being turned down by Richard Neutra to design their home, clients Joseph and Lore Kingsley commissioned Davidson to design a unique home to fit their needs. This design was then mirrored next door in the house built for Joseph…

Schematics of lamp designs. Davidson was inspired by Bauhaus furniture, which were streamlined, stainless steel constructions.

Davidson retrofitted this Georgian home to better house the owner's modern art collection. He replaced wall space with larger windows and a glass enclosed porch to allow more light in and open up the space.

Photos and plan of the entrance to Davidson's office in Los Angeles. The facade echoes the stylistic influences of Rudolph Schindler and Frank Lloyd Wright.

A portrait of J.R. Davidson in his later years.

Davidson designed a whole line of outdoor furniture crafted from rattan and bamboo materials, which are flexible and durable enough to withstand the elements. He was inspired by Asian modes of craft-making, classic wooden furniture, and the designs…

Davidson was commissioned to refurbish Sardi's Restaurant, which originally had interior design work done by Rudolph Schindler. Davidson reorganized the inside and added new features, opening up the space by cleverly incorporating partitions and…

Photograph of the interior and front entrance of the Schilling's Flower Store. It was later replaced by Bachelor's Haberdashery Shop.

Watercolor sketch from one of Davidson's sketchbooks.

An early sketchbook of Davidson's studies of furniture and other objects from a decorative arts and design museum in Paris. Note the attention to detail and pattern.

Photographs of the exterior of the Stothart House; one of the driveway entrance and one of the side patio. The design emphasis on horizontal and flat forms, along with uniform windows and parapets echoed the International Style.

This house was designed not unlike the Crosby residence and Davidson's own home, although in the Taylor house the kitchen plan is more open and a glass vitrine provides views into the living room.

Concept for the Tierney and Co. Restaurant. Note the bold Art Deco inspired interior.

Watercolor sketch of Davidson's hometown of Berlin.

Exterior photograph of the Vigeveno #1 House, a ranch-style vacation home for art dealer James Vigeveno and his family. Another design was made for Vigeveno alongside the first, although this second house featured a completely different architectural…

These undated portraits of Peters highlight his personal style and attitude in line with his interior designs.

The Bullocks Wilshire department store was one of the first to cater to customers in automobiles. The large Art Deco edifice was easily recognizable, and customers were able to drive up, have a valet securely park their car at the rear of the…

This two-story modern house for the cinematographer Alfred Gilks is in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, just a short distance from Griffith Park. The house features multiple decks, an outdoor fireplace on the patio, and a mural in one of…

Jock Peters worked with Eleanor LeMaire on the interiors of the women's clothing store. The architectural firm who designed the building was Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, and it is located on East 57th Street in Manhattan. The store was laid out 'boutique…

After working for the movie industry for a few years, in 1927 Peters began working with his brother George as Peters by Jock, Brothers Modern American Design Office. They designed furniture and other interior pieces.

The renderings for a proposed Jock Peters residence along College View Avenue in the Eagle Rock section of Los Angeles show a very modern house, sited on a hill, with a studio and garage at street level. As with his other residential works, this…

After working with an architect in Germany, Peters emigrated to the United States in 1922 and settled in Los Angeles. By 1924 he was working with Famous Players- Lasky Corporation, one of the largest silent film production companies in the city.…

This house for L.E. Shepard in the Los Angeles suburb of San Marino is one of the few houses designed by Peters. The style is a Streamline Moderne, with some hints of International Style and Art Deco. The images highlight the indoor-outdoor living,…

The rendering for the Frederick Laue restaurant is an example of Byers' commercial work. While known specifically for residences, he did design a few commercial and civic buildings. A Laue Restaurant was located near the corner of Santa Monica…