San Diego Haciendas
Casas and Casitas
Spanish and Mediterranean Style Homes
Gordon D. Fleury
|
|
|
|
Search the MLS
The intent of this website is to bring together residents of San Diego who share an interest in, and a passion for homes built before 1950 in the Spanish and Mediterranean Style of Architecture.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
.
April 13 & 14
Annual Historic Home Tour Weekend
This year's Annual Historic Home Tour Weekend features six major homes of early 20th-century Mission Hills. On Saturday, April 13, guests can enjoy their choice of walking and biking architecture tours while the main home tour will take place on Sunday, April 14.
The Annual Historic Home Tour Weekend is SOHO's biggest fundraiser of the year. Funds generated will further our cause of promoting preservation of the architectural, cultural, and historical links and landmarks that contribute to the community identity, depth and character of the San Diego area.
Historic Home Tour
Sunday only · 10am-4pm
SOHO Members $30 · Non-members $40
Bicycle Tour
Saturday · April 13
9am | 12 noon
SOHO Members and Non-members $15
Walking Tour
Saturday · April 13
10am | 1pm
SOHO Members and Non-members $15
May 12: Coronado Historic Home Tour
May 12: Coronado Historic Home Tour, 11:00 - 4 :00 - p.m. The Coronado Historical Association presents their 2013 Historic Home Tour including 7 historical homes.
Annual Home Tour
Mission Hills
Articles from The Journal Of San Diego History
Four Men and Their Visual
Imprints on San Diego
By Frank Cavignac
Photographs courtesy of the San Diego Historical Society Photograph Collection, http://www.sandiegohistory.org
The typical resident of San Diego
and the typical visitor to San Diego will
not know the names of Gill, Requa,
Johnson or Goodhue, nor may they have
much knowledge of the structures designed
by these men, but both the resident
and the visitor have in their minds a
feeling about San Diego, and part of this
subconscious picture of our city has to
do with the impact of visual experiences
created by these men and others who
have followed them.
Architecture, like painting, sculpture,
and music, has for the typical person
more to do with feelings than understanding.
Many years ago a haughty potential
buyer of artist Paul Gauguin’s
paintings approached the artist during a
showing of his work and said to
Gauguin that he would not be buying
any of his paintings because he, the potential
buyer, did not understand
Gauguin’s work. Gauguin looked at the
man and said, “It has nothing to do with
understanding; it has to do with feeling.”
It is probably accurate to say that
every memorable city has some memorable
structures and that the positive
memory or feeling that people have of
these cities is somewhat influenced by
the impact of the man-made structures
that they have seen. The Parthenon in
Athens, the Empire State Building in New
York and the Serra Museum in San Diego
are just a few examples of structures that
say something about their cities.
Four men who practiced architecture
in San Diego and who have left a lasting
mark on our city are Irving J. Gill, Richard
S. Requa, William Templeton Johnson
and Bertram Goodhue. All of them
are deceased, but their work continues to
provide visual enjoyment for us. In this
article we want to refresh our memories
about their contributions.
Irving J. Gill
(1870-1936)
Gill was a farmer’s son who had no
formal education. He studied and learned
architecture by working for architects,
one of the firms being Adler and Sullivan
of Chicago, where Gill worked
alongside Frank Lloyd Wright. He was influenced
by the Arts and Crafts philosophy and designed the
buildings in the Green
Dragon in La Jolla. He also
designed George W. Marston’s
Craftsman home and
several other houses on Marston’s
block. His fountain in
Horton Plaza was built in
1909, and while it endures
today, it may not be representative
of his best work.
He designed buildings for the
Bishop’s School in La Jolla
and the First Church of Christ Scientist at Second
and Laurel.
Gill did not limit his work to prominent clients
such as Ellen Browning Scripps; he also did design
work on low cost housing in the Sherman Heights
and Hillcrest areas, as well as in sites outside of
San Diego County.
In a 1916 essay, “The New Architecture of the
West,” Gill discussed his ideal of simplicity in design.
He felt that the source of all architectural
strength emerged from the straight line, the arch,
the cube and the circle in combination.
Irving Gill left bachelorhood at age 58 and after
an unsuccessful marriage he died alone on October
7, 1936 in Carlsbad, California.
Richard S. Requa
(1881 — 1941)
Requa, who was born in Rock Island, Illinois,
studied electrical engineering at Norfolk College,
but learned his architecture in the office of Irving
Gill. He ultimately left Gill’s firm and established a
partnership with Frank L. Mead. The two of them
became interested in the Colonial Style of Mexico,
the Pueblos in the southwest United States and
Moorish design from Spain and North Africa.
In 1920 Frank Mead left the firm and Requa obtained
a new partner, Herbert L. Jackson. Requa made
trips to Spain and the Mediterranean area in the
1920’s and wrote a book Architectural Details: Spain and the Mediterranean. A second book was titled Old World Inspiration for American Architecture.
Requa described his architectural style as“Southern California Architecture.” This style featured
white stucco buildings, heavily tiled roofs,
wrought iron ornamentation and interesting chimney
designs. He felt it was important that the design
of a building, the landscaping and the terrain should
be compatible and should compliment each other.
Landscape Architect Milton Sessions, Kate Session’s
nephew, collaborated with him on major
projects.
Two homes that Requa built for himself are
good examples of his work – his first home is located
at 4346 Valle Vista in Mission Hills and the
second home can be seen at 2906 Locust Street in
Loma Portal. Other structures he designed are: the
Torrey Pines Lodge (now
the State Park Ranger Station),
the Del Mar Castle at
544 Avenida Primavera in
Del Mar, the Mt. Helix
Theater, the William A.
Gunn house at 1127 F Avenue
in Coronado and a
number of projects for the
1935 California Pacific International
Exposition:
Spanish Village, Ford
Building, Automotive Museum, Alcazar Garden
and others.
Requa was very active in community affairs
including the Chamber of Commerce and San Diego
Symphony Board. Following his death in his
office in June of 1941, the San Diego Symphony
dedicated its opening summer season concert in
his honor.
William Templeton Johnson
(1877 — 1957)
Johnson was born in Staten Island, New York,
and pursued an interest in architecture at Columbia
University in New York and the Ecole des Beaux-
Arts in Paris. In 1905 he married Clara Sturges,
whom he later divorced. She can be remembered as
the founder of the Francis W. Parker School, a
school which he designed and where his children
received their elementary schooling.
Some of Johnson’s style can be characterized
as Spanish Mission and Spanish Revival.
The La Jolla Athenaeum is a notable early building
in the Revival style. Other work which can be seen
in San Diego: the Fine Art Gallery and the Museum
of Natural History in Balboa Park, The San
Diego Trust and Savings
Building at 6th and
Broadway (now a hotel),
and the former Lion
Clothing building directly
across from the
San Diego Trust building
on the southwest corner
of 6th and Broadway.
Undoubtedly his most
memorable building is
the Junipero Serra Museum
at the top of Presidio
Park.
Johnson died in 1957 at the age of eighty. He
was a leader in his community and his official posts
included: President of the Fine Art Society and the
San Diego Chapter of AIA, member of the City
Planning Commission, Park Commission, Library
Commission and a number of other organizations.
Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue
(1869 — 1924)
Born in Connecticut, Goodhue was not college
trained; he studied for six years under James Renwick,
the architect of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in
New York. He came to California partly to improve
his health because he suffered from neurasthenia, a
disorder that left him fatigued, irritable and in pain.
As the result of a friendship that he established
with John Olmstead, master planner of the San Diego
Panama-California Exposition he became the
project architect for the Exposition and was responsible
for the key Exposition buildings which he designed
in a Spanish Colonial Revival style. Part of
the inspiration for this style resulted from a trip that
he took to Mexico in 1895 where he became intrigued
with the use of domes, towers, ornate facades
and plain walls. One contemporary observer
of his work said that the buildings he created in the
Revival style created a craze for Spanish Colonial
Revival structures which included red tile roofs,
stucco walls and indoor-outdoor living as a part of
their ambiance.
The buildings that Goodhue designed for the
1915 Exposition were temporary structures which
lasted far beyond their expected lifetimes – into the
1990’s when their disrepair finally required their
demolition. Perhaps the finest tribute to Goodhue’s
work is the fact that when
the buildings were rebuilt,
they were rebuilt to conform
with his original design,
thus preserving the
aura of the Park experience
for future generations.
Goodhue, who died in
1924, did important work
outside of San Diego. Included
in his repertoire are
the Los Angeles Public Library,
the National Academy
of Sciences Building and the Nebraska State
Capitol building.
Conclusion
Architects (and their fellow design professionals)
have a fortunate position among those who
work in the professions or in business for their daily
bread. The work that most people do does not live
after them, but the work that design professionals perform lives on and delivers enjoyment for others.
Cavignac & Associates
www.cavignac.com
“California is influenced, and rightly so, by the Spanish Missions… The Missions are a part of the history that should be preserved and in their long, low lines, graceful arcades, tile roofs, bell towers, arched doorways and walled gardens, we find a most expressive medium for retaining tradition, history and romance”. Irving Gill Spanish Style Revival |
An enchanting bouquet of flowery Spanish ingredients: textured walls, tiled roofs and porches, arched doors and windows, balconies, walled patios and gardens, wrought-iron trim and the occasional turret. Originally built 1915-1940. San Diego architect Richard Requa triggered a second wave after he visited Spain and copied Spanish and Mediterranian buildings and details for the 1935-36 exposition in Balboa Park. Found throughout the county and most highly concentrated in San Diego's Kensington.
It's something of a secret that a national housing craze virtually began in San Diego. Romantic, sparkling white Spanish Revival-style homes fringed in terra-cotta tile, wrought iron and bougainvillea first appeared in San Diego around 1915, then elsewhere in California, Florida and other states.
In San Diego,William Templeton Johnson was surrounded by other architects who drew upon mission references, most notably Irving Gill, with his stripped-down modern style, and Richard S. Requa and Frank Mead, with their more traditional Mediterranean and Spanish buildings. Early in their careers before becoming partners, both Requa and Mead worked in Gill's office, where Requa learned about Gill's "experimental style" and use of materials such as concrete and Mead took lessons from Gill's "simple, unadorned architecture whose cubed masses, broad surfaces, and recessed openings took advantage of the brilliant California sun." Mead's interest in Spanish architecture was bolstered early in his career by a trip to Sicily, Spain, and southern Italy; he was fascinated by Moorish architecture, and the journey instilled in him the Arts and Crafts belief that architecture should spring from the land on which it is built. Requa took his own trip south in 1914, studying Spanish Colonial buildings in Cuba, Panama, and South America. Mead and Requa's work, like Johnson's, "smoothly integrated interior rooms with outdoor living spaces" in the Arts and Crafts fashion.
|
Gordon D Fleury
MBA, Broker Associate, REALTOR, Notary Public
Member of The San Diego Historical Society, Save Our Heritage Organisation,
N.A.R., C.A.R., S.D.A.R., DRE #01178116
gordon@sdhaciendas.com
gdfrealtor@san.rr.com
(858) 692-7047
