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HomeMy WebLinkAbout03-22-2021 CHC Agenda Packet City of San Luis Obispo, Council Agenda, City Hall, 990 Palm Street, San Luis Obispo Agenda Cultural Heritage Committee Monday, March 22, 2021 Based on the threat of COVID-19 as reflected in the Proclamations of Emergency issued by both the Governor of the State of California, the San Luis Obispo County Emergency Services Director and the City Council of the City of San Luis Obispo as well as the Governor’s Executive Order N-29-20 issued on March 17, 2020, relating to the convening of public meetings in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the City of San Luis Obispo will be holding all public meetings via teleconference. There will be no physical location for the Public to view the meeting. Below are instructions on how to view the meeting remotely and how to leave public comment. Additionally, members of the Cultural Heritage Committee (CHC) are allowed to attend the meeting via teleconference and participate in the meeting to the same extent as if they were present. Using the most rapid means of communication available at this time, members of the public are encouraged to participate in CHC meetings in the following ways: 1. Remote Viewing - Members of the public who wish to watch the meeting can view: • View the Webinar (recommended for the best viewing quality): ➢ URL: https://slocity-org.zoom.us/j/97073143029?pwd=Rlp5elJsN0dqd2o4R0kvQjI1dVROdz09 ➢ Telephone Attendee: +1 (669) 900-6833 ➢ Webinar ID: 970 7314 3029; Passcode: 387522 Note: The City utilizes Zoom Webinar for remote meetings. All attendees will enter the meeting muted. An Attendee tutorial is available on YouTube; please test your audio settings. 2. Public Comment - The CHC will still be accepting public comment for items within their purview. Public comment can be submitted in the following ways: • Mail or Email Public Comment ➢ Received by 3:00 PM on the day of meeting - Can be submitted via email to advisorybodies@slocity.org or U.S. Mail to City Clerk at: 990 Palm St. San Luis Obispo, CA 93401. ➢ Emails sent after 3:00 PM – Can be submitted via email to advisorybodies@slocity.org and will be archived/distributed to members of the Advisory Body the day after the meeting. Emails will not be read aloud during the meeting. • Verbal Public Comment ➢ Received by 3:00 PM on the day of the meeting - Call (805) 781-7164; state and spell your name, the agenda item number you are calling about and leave your comment. The verbal comments must be limited to 3 minutes. All voicemails will be forwarded to Advisory Body Members and saved as Agenda Correspondence. Voicemails will not be played during the meeting. ➢ During the meeting – Join the webinar (instructions above). Once public comment for the item you would like to speak on is called, please raise your virtual hand, your name will be called, and your microphone will be unmuted. If you have questions, contact the office of the City Clerk at cityclerk@slocity.org or (805) 781-7100. All comments submitted will be placed into the administrative record of the meeting. City of San Luis Obispo, Council Agenda, City Hall, 990 Palm Street, San Luis Obispo Agenda Cultural Heritage Committee 5:30 PM REGULAR MEETING TELECONFERENCE Broadcasted via Webinar CALL TO ORDER: Chair Shannon Larrabee ROLL CALL: Committee Members Karen Edwards, Damon Haydu, Glen Matteson, Wendy McFarland, Vice Chair Eva Ulz, and Chair Shannon Larrabee PUBLIC COMMENT: At this time, people may address the Committee on items not on the agenda. Items raised are generally referred to staff and, if action by the Committee is necessary, may be scheduled for a future meeting. CONSIDERATION OF MINUTES 1. Approve the minutes of the February 22, 2021 Cultural Heritage Committee meeting. PUBLIC HEARING ITEMS NOTE: The action of the CHC is a recommendation to the Community Development Director, another advisory body or to City Council and, therefore, is not final and cannot be appealed. 2. Review of a request to include the property at 79 Benton Way in the City’s Inventory of Historic Resources as a Master List Resource (Elbert Earle Christopher House). This action is categorically exempt from CEQA environmental review.; Project Address: 79 Benton Way; Case #: HIST-0675-2020; Zone R-1; Susan and Mark Hoffman, owner/applicant. (Walter Oetzell) Recommendation: Make a recommendation to the City Council regarding the property’s qualification to be added to either the Master or Contributing List of Historic Properties. Cultural Heritage Committee Agenda of March 22, 2021 Page 3 COMMENT AND DISCUSSION 3. Agenda Forecast & Staff Updates (Brian Leveille) ADJOURNMENT The next Regular Cultural Heritage Committee Meeting will be on Monday, April 26, 2021 at 5:30 p.m., via teleconference. The City of San Luis Obispo wishes to make all of its public meetings accessible to the public. Upon request, this agenda will be made available in appropriate alternative formats to persons with disabilities. Any person with a disability who requires a modification or accommodation in order to participate in a meeting should direct such requests to the City Clerk’s Office at (805) 781-7100 at least 48 hours before the meeting, if possible. Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (805) 781-7410. Agenda related writings or documents provided to the Cultural Heritage Committee are available on the City’s website, http://www.slocity.org/government/advisory-bodies. You may also contact the Community Development Department, by phone, from 8 AM to 3 PM at (805) 781-7150. BLANK PAGE This page is intended to be blank so that you can print double-sided. Minutes – Cultural Heritage Committee Meeting of February 22, 2021 Page 1 Minutes CULTURAL HERITAGE COMMITTEE Wednesday, February 22, 2021 Regular Meeting of the Cultural Heritage Committee CALL TO ORDER A Regular Meeting of the San Luis Obispo Cultural Heritage Committee was called to order on Wednesday, February 22, 2021 at 5:30 p.m. via teleconference, by Chair Shannon Larrabee. ROLL CALL Present: Committee Members Karen Edwards, Damon Haydu, Glen Matteson, Vice Chair Eva Ulz, and Chair Shannon Larrabee Absent: Committee Member Wendy McFarland Staff: Senior Planner Brian Leveille, and City Clerk Teresa Purrington PUBLIC COMMENTS ON ITEMS NOT ON THE AGENDA None --End of Public Comment-- CONSIDERATION OF MINUTES 1. Approve the minutes of the December 2, 2020 Cultural Heritage Committee meeting. ACTION: UPON MOTION BY COMMITTEE MEMBER MATTESON, SECONDED BY COMMITTEE MEMBER EDWARDS, CARRIED 5-0-1 (Member McFarland absent), to approve the minutes of the December 2, 2020 Cultural Heritage Committee meeting. PUBLIC HEARING ITEMS 2. 1136 Iris Street. Review of a request to remove the property at 1136 Iris Street from the Contributing Properties List of Historic Resources in the City’s Inventory of Historic Resources (this action is not subject to environmental review); Project Address: 1136 Iris Street; Case #: HIST-0020-2021; Zone R-2; Robert and Michelle Braunschweig, owner/applicant. Senior Planner, Brian Leveille presented the staff report and responded to Committee inquiries. Applicant representative, Craig Smith, responded to Committee inquiries. Item 1 Packet Page 1 Minutes – Cultural Heritage Committee Meeting of February 22, 2020 Page 2 Public Comment None --End of Public Comment-- ACTION: UPON MOTION BY COMMITTEE MEMBER MATTESON, SECONDED BY VICE CHAIR ULZ, CARRIED 5-0-1 (Member McFarland absent) to remove the property from the Contributing Properties List of Historic Resources with the Finding that the building no longer has the integrity to qualify as a Contributing Historic Resource due to previous alterations. PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION 3. Evaluation of the Mills Act Program Planning Intern Chris Murphy provided a PowerPoint presentation and responded to Committee inquiries. COMMENT AND DISCUSSION Senior Planner Leveille provided an agenda forecast. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 6:42 p.m. The next Regular Cultural Heritage Committee meeting is scheduled for Monday, March 22, 2021 at 5:30 p.m., via teleconference. APPROVED BY THE CULTURAL HERITAGE COMMITTEE: XX/XX/2021 Item 1 Packet Page 2 Meeting Date: March 22, 2021 Item Number: 2 CULTURAL HERITAGE COMMITTEE AGENDA REPORT SUBJECT: A request to include the property at 79 Benton Way in the City’s Inventory of Historic Resources as a Master List Resource (Elbert Earle Christopher House) ADDRESS: 79 Benton Way BY: Walter Oetzell, Assistant Planner Phone: 781-7593 FILE #: HIST-0675-2021 E-mail: woetzell@slocity.org FROM: Brian Leveille, Senior Planner 1.0 BACKGROUND Susan and Mark Hoffman, represented by James Papp, have requested that the property at 79 Benton Way be designated as a Master List Resource in the City’s Inventory of Historic Resources, as The Elbert Earle Christopher House, and have provided an evaluation of the property and its eligibility for historic listing (Historical Evaluation, Attachment 1). As set out in § 14.01.060 of the City’s Historic Preservation Ordinance, the Committee will determine if property meets eligibility criteria for listing and forward a recommendation to City Council, for final action on the application. 2.0 DISCUSSION 2.1 Site and Setting The property is on the west side of Benton Way, about 60 feet north of Murray Street, in a Low-Density Residential (R-1) Zone. It is within Mount Pleasanton Square, subdivided in 1923 and developed in the 1920s and 1930s.1 Predominant architectural styles are Mission Revival, Spanish Colonial revival, Tudor Revival, Craftsman, and California Bungalow, reflecting popular architectural styles of that time. The area's popularity was due, in part, to its proximity to Downtown and its sheltered location on the lee side of Cerro San Luis. Early residents included many prominent educators, business owners and professionals. It continues to be an attractive, recognizable neighborhood, exhibiting an apparent concentration of architecturally and historically important homes. The area is not within any historic district but was included in a late 1990’s Cultural Heritage Committee review of the larger Mt. Pleasanton Square / Anholm area, which resulted in the nomination of 84 properties for inclusion in the City’s 1 See Historical Evaluation (Attachment 1), from pg. 5, for additional discussion of the Mt. Pleasanton Square area, excerpts from the City’s Historical Context Statement (Attachment 3) for discussion of the historic context around early 20th-Century residential development Figure 1: 79 Benton Wy Item 2 Packet Page 3 HIST-0675-2020 (79 Benton) Page 2 Inventory of Historic Resources (see Attachment 2 for list of historical resources with the area) The property was developed with a single-family dwelling (see Figure 2), built in 1931-1932.2 2.2 Building Architecture As described in the applicant’s Historical Evaluation, the dwelling escapes easy architectural classification, suggesting Tudor, but departing from it with its low roof pitch, and in any event exhibiting the restraint in detailing associated with the Minimal Traditional style.3 The City’s Historic Context Statement describes the style as having its origins in the principles of the Modern movement, and reflecting a desire for greater efficiency and reduced costs to keep homes affordable to the middle class (see Attachment 3). It was built by Elbert Earle Christopher, a farmer from Oklahoma who emigrated to the area after World War II, and became active locally as a builder from the late 1920s.4 The architectural and historical characteristics of the building are more fully discussed in the Historical Evaluation submitted with this application, and summarized in the Evaluation section of this report, below. 3.0 EVALUATION To be eligible for listing as an historic resource, a building must exhibit a high level of historic integrity, be at least 50 years old, and meet one or more of the eligibility criteria described in § 14.01.070 of the Historic Preservation Ordinance (see Attachment 4). Those resources that maintain their original or attained historic and architectural character, and contribute either by themselves or in conjunction with other structures to the unique or historic character of a neighborhood, district, or to the City as a whole may be designated as a “Contributing List Resource” (HPO § 14.01.050). The most unique and important resources and properties in terms of age, architectural or historical significance, rarity, or association with important persons or events in the City’s past may be designated as “Master List Resources.” In support of this application, an evaluation of the architectural and historical characteristics of the property and the dwelling was prepared by James Papp, PhD, a Historian and Architectural Historian (Historical Evaluation, Attachment 1). 3.1 Architectural Criteria Character-defining features of the Minimal Traditional Style are described in the City’s Historic Context Statement (Attachment 5) to include: ▪ One-story 2 Papp, Historical Evaluation (Attachment 1), pg. 1 3 A description of the home’s architecture is provided from pg. 18 of the Historical Evaluation (Attachment 1). 4 See from pg. 17 of the Historical Evaluation (Attachment 1) for further biographical information about the builder. Figure 2: 79 Benton Way Item 2 Packet Page 4 HIST-0675-2020 (79 Benton) Page 3 ▪ Simple rectangular plan ▪ Medium or low-pitched hip or side-gable roof with shallow eaves ▪ Smooth stucco wall cladding, often with wood lap or stone veneer accents ▪ Shallow entry porch with slender wood supports ▪ Fixed wooden shutters ▪ Minimal decorative exterior detailing As described and depicted in pages 18-25 of the applicant’s Historical Evaluation, the dwelling exhibits many of these characteristic features: The Christopher house retains its character-defining overall design of two nested ells with mid-pitch roofs, displaying front and south-facing side gables, with the close-clipped rakes and eaves and spare use of windows of the Minimal Traditional and absence of surface decoration of the later and more abstracted Minimal Traditional. (pg. 23) This section of the Historical Evaluation also details notable interior features of the home: Christopher focused his attention on form: not just the exterior double-ell but a directional interior that the exterior expresses. The low barrel vault of the living room draws the visitor from vestibule to a fireplace pushout relieved by graduated niches that both echo the vault and are echoed by flanking windows with views of Cerro San Luis. French doors look grandly down to the street. Descent to the sunken dining room is at right. The tower bedroom is in itself a master touch, its swagged ceiling more so… (pp. 20-21) 3.2 Historic Criteria A timeline of the property, including a brief listing of its known occupants, is provided on page 2 of the Historical Evaluation. These occupants reflect the range of educators, business owners and professionals that populated the Mount Pleasanton neighborhood, but the evaluation does not indicate a relevant association with singular and important historical events and patterns or significance to the community rising to a level of significance that would satisfy Historic Criteria described in § 14.01.070 (B) of the Historic Preservation Ordinance. 3.3 Integrity The dwelling remains in its original location, and in the discussion of the integrity of its design5 the various character-defining elements of the home are discussed, concluding that it satisfies the criteria for Integrity set out in § 14.01.070 (C) of the Historic Preservation Ordinance: Overall, the house retains more than enough of its character to communicate its significance as an innovative, abstracted example of Minimal Traditional architecture with some extraordinary interior features. (pg. 24). 5 Historical Evaluation (Attachment 1), from pg. 23 Item 2 Packet Page 5 HIST-0675-2020 (79 Benton) Page 4 3.3 Conclusion The information in the Historical Evaluation prepared for this application, documenting the architectural character and integrity of the house, provides a basis for the Committee to find that the dwelling satisfies Evaluation Criteria for Architectural Style and Design described in §§ 14.01.070 (A) of the City’s Historic Preservation Ordinance (SLOMC Ch. 14.01). The Committee should whether, as described in the Historical Evaluation provided with the application, the innovative layout and features within the Minimal Traditional style, including the innovative “nested el” plan, dramatic directional interior layout, barreled living-room ceiling, tower bedroom with swagged ceiling, and rich interior features, make the dwelling one of the most unique and important resources in the City, in terms of age, architectural or historical significance, or rarity, to a degree that qualifies the property for designation as a Master List Historic Resource. 4.0 ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW This project is categorically exempt from the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Inclusion of the subject properties on the City’s Inventory of Historic Resources does not have the potential for causing a significant effect on the environment, and so is covered by the general rule described in § 15061 (b) (3) of the CEQA Guidelines. 5.0 ALTERNATIVES 1. Recommend to the City Council that the property be included in the City’s Inventory of Historic Resources as a Master List Resource, noting the elements of the property which satisfy Evaluation Criteria to a degree warranting such designation, as being among the most unique and important resources and properties in terms of age, architectural or historical significance, rarity, or association with important persons or events in the City’s past. 2. Recommend to the City Council that the property be included in the City’s Inventory of Historic Resources as a Contributing List Resource, having maintained its original or attained architectural character, and contributing either by itself or in conjunction with other structures to the unique or historic character of its neighborhood, and to the City as a whole. 3. Continue consideration of the request with direction to the applicant and staff on pertinent issues. 4. Recommend to the City Council that the property should not be included in the City’s Inventory of Historic Resources, based on finding that the property does not satisfy Evaluation Criteria for historic listing to a degree warranting designation as an historic resource. This alternative is not recommended because the applicant has provided an Historical Evaluation supporting a conclusion that the property meets the applicable Listing Criteria set out in the City’s Historic Preservation Ordinance. 6.0 ATTACHMENTS 1. Master List Application (Historical Evaluation, James Papp) 2. Historical Resources within Mt. Pleasanton/ Anholm area 3. Early 20th-Century Residential Development (Context Statement) 4. Evaluation Criteria (Historic Preservation Ordinance) 5. Minimal Traditional Style (excerpt from Historic Context Statement) Item 2 Packet Page 6 1 Master List Application • Elbert Earle Christopher House • 79 Benton Way 1.Summary of Eligibility 1 2.Timeline 2 3.Historic Context: Suburbanism, Racism, and Mount Pleasanton Square 3 4.Minimal Traditional: Historiography 7 5. Minimal Traditional: History 10 6. Examples of Minimal Traditional in San Luis Obispo 16 6.The Builder: Elbert Earle Christopher 17 7.Significance of the Elbert Earle Christopher House 18 8.Integrity 23 9.Conclusion 26 1.Summary of Eligibility Under Master List Criteria The Christopher House at 79 Benton Way, part of the second phase of Mt. Pleasanton Square, is a historically key example of the Minimal Traditional style in its transition from revival aesthetics to greater abstraction. Built 1931–32 by E. E. Christopher, one of an array of local contractors who engaged in a small amount of speculative development, the house • “embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type … of construction” that helps define the Mt. Pleasanton Square and Anholm Additions: Minimal Traditional • “possesses high artistic values” in the “purity of a traditional style” and “traditional … influences that represent a particular social milieu and period of the community” • exhibits “notable attractiveness with aesthetic appeal because of its artistic merit” and expresses “interesting details … among carpenter-builders” (Historic Preservation Ordinance: 14.01.070.A., 14.01.070.A.1.a. and c., 14.01.070.A.2.a., and 14.01.070.A.2.b.) Its high degree of integrity in location, design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling, and association is sufficient to communicate its significance Submitted for Susan Hoffman, MD and Mark Hoffman by James Papp, PhD, Historian and Architectural Historian, SOI Professional Qualification Standards, 23 December 2020 ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 7 2 2. Timeline 1923 Al Nevins of Santa Barbara and Dr. Robert Turner of Santa Maria open Mt. Pleasanton Square as a “highly restricted tract.” 1927 Dec. 27 Attorney Fred Shaeffer of Santa Maria files map for five-acre extension of Mt. Pleasanton Square from Murray Avenue to future Foothill Boulevard. 1931 Oct 20 E. E. Christopher takes out a $2,900 promissory note to purchase and presumably build on lot 37, Mt. Pleasanton Square (79 Benton Way). 1931 Nov 28 Application by E. E. Christopher as owner to build a 27’ x 40’ 1½-story frame and stucco house at 79 Benton at an estimated cost of $4,000. 1934 Feb 20 Santa Barbara Mutual Building and Loan Association forecloses on the property, its buildings, and fixtures and appliances, against Christopher, more than three months in arrears, to satisfy $2,585.39 in principal and $59.32 in interest. 1934 Sep 8 79 Benton is auctioned on the County Courthouse steps for $2,000 to the County National Bank and Trust Company of Santa Barbara. 1938—1939 City directory lists William A. House, an agent of Standard Oil, and Valera House as renters of 79 Benton. 1942 Augustus L. and Wanda Castro are living at 79 Benton. A. L. Castro was partner with Albert H. Nelson in Nelson & Castro, attorneys, in the Johnson Block at Chorro and Higuera. 1950–1953 City directory lists A. Norman Cruikshanks, instructor at Cal Poly, and his wife Helen as residents. The Cruikshank family were renters, according to their son Randall, who suggests that Fred Gist owned it at this time. Gist had numerous property dealings with the Castros. 1954 James J. Thompson, clerk at Cal Poly, and Catherine E. Thompson are at 79 Benton, according to the City Directory. 1957 Vacant 1958 City Directory lists as resident Mrs Joan Geannot, operator of the Helen Jackson Beauty Salon at 778 Marsh, where Wallflower is now. 1960 Angela P. Morabito, Southern Pacific foreman, and Joan Morabito are listed. 1961 July 12 R. E. an Ellen N. Vaden purchase 79 Benton from Joan Morabito. 1961 Vacant 1963 Jan 8 George J. and Mary I. Munslow purchase 79 Benton from the Vadens. 1967–70 City directory lists George Munslow, retired, and Mary Munslow as residents. 1968 June 20 Edwin and Margaret Fischer purchase the house from the Munslows. 1970 July 24 Barry J. Frantz, instructor at Cuesta College, and Barbara C. Frantz purchase 79 Benton from Edwin and Margaret Fischer. ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 8 3 3. Historic Context Mt. Pleasanton Square exists in an intersection of race and urban planning in the history of San Luis Obispo. It was subdivided from county land that was later annexed to the city, the first phase in 1923 and the second, where Benton Way is located, at the end of 1927 (“New Industries, More Planting in San Luis Obispo,” Los Angeles Times, 1 Jan. 1924; “Fred Shaeffer Interested in San Luis Tract,” Santa Maria Times, 29 Dec. 1927). Cholame rancher Edward Henry Meinecke platted the second phase of Mt. Pleasanton Square from five acres of land, the map being filed by Santa Maria attorney Fred Shaeffer, presumably acting on behalf of A. L. Nevins and Dr. Robert Turner (“Pismo Beach Developer Will Lead Saturday’s Clam Festival Parade,” Five Cities Times Press recorder, 5 Feb. 1970). In 1928, the 40-acre Anholm Tract, to the south of Mount Pleasanton’s first phase, was marketed from ranchland purchased from Judge McDowell Reid Venable’s widow Alice in 1918 by the dairy farming Anholm brothers, ethnic Danes who had emigrated from Schleswig Holstein to escape German rule. The Venables had rented it to Chinese truck farmers, hence it had been known as Chinese Gardens. There were at least eight Chinese gardeners and two Chinese teamsters living there in 1900 (US Census, San Luis Obispo Township, 2,32, 1A). Ah Louis appears also to have rented land from Venable for his brickyard. Ironically, both the Anholm Tract and both phases of Mt. Pleasanton Square would be restricted against Asians, as well as Blacks, though in Anholm, according to deeds, they were allowed as servants. The earliest known litigation in the United States regarding racial covenants appeared in 1892 in California, regarding an 1886 covenant in Ventura against renting to Chinese, (the California Supreme Court struck it down because of a US treaty with China). Litigation in the Deep South (1904) and border states (1905) followed, with the North and Midwest not till the 1920s (Michael Jones- Correa, “The Origins and Diffusion of Racial Restrictive Covenants,” Political Science Quarterly, pp. 544, 548, 550, and table 1). 18 August 1928 Daily Telegram advertisement of “reasonable restrictions” in Mount Pleasanton Square. From 1919 to the early 1930s, the California Supreme Court consistently upheld racial covenants. The US Supreme Court ruled against government racial zoning in 1917’s Buchanan v. Warely but allowed private covenants 1926’s Corrigan v. Buckley, making the 1920s a boom time for restricted neighborhoods (Jones-Correa, pp. 544 and 548). After the US Supreme Court invalidated mandatory racial covenants in 1948 and voluntary ones in 1953, Young and Stella Louis moved to the Anholm, near where Young’s father’s brickyard had been. Coincidentally, the same year that Nevins and Turner started the first phase of Mount Pleasanton Square, 1923, Yoroku Watanabe began to develop San Luis Obispo’s Japantown ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 9 4 on a single acre belonging to the daughters of Joseph Müller at the southwest corner of town across from the Pacific Coast Railway depot and warehouses. (Under California’s 1913 Alien Land Law, Asian immigrants were barred from owning land, until the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Sei Fujii v. State of California in 1952.) Mount Pleasanton Square, circa 1932–45. Foothill at top, Murray Avenue at bottom, with Broad, Benton, and Mt. Pleasanton Drive (Chorro)running north and south. 79 is first house on left side of Benton, center. Courtesy Cal Poly Special Collections. Former Japantown, 1951, remaining Pacific Coast Railway buildings across Higuera to the right, South Street crossing at top and French Street (Madonna) branching below, Eto/Brook Street at left. Courtesy History Center of San Luis Obispo County. Japantown consisted of a hotel, rooming houses, and shops crowded together, until in 1931 a further acre was subdivided by Osos Valley farmer Tameji Eto as the Nippon Tract, with thirty-two lots for single-family homes. Only a half a dozen houses had been moved to or built in the tract by 1942, when all ethnic Japanese in the state were interned or expelled. At that point the 100 block of Higuera and Eto Street—which the San Luis Obispo City Council, five days after President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, changed ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 10 5 to Brook Street—became San Luis Obispo’s Black business, cultural, and residential center (James Papp, “The Brief Life of San Luis Obispo’s Japantown,” La Vista, forthcoming 2021). Racial restrictions were deemed necessary by Whites because of the boom in suburbanization, heavily promoted in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At the end of the road or line lay a new, semi-rural paradise—unless the wrong people bought or rented next door, people who had already been sorted out in the cities. (California was unusual for its high rate home ownership among Blacks: in 1910 over 36 percent in Los Angeles, the highest in the country, with almost 30 percent in Oakland, compared to 11 percent in New Orleans and 2.4 percent in New York City [Ryan Reft, “How Prop. 14 Shaped California’s Racial Covenants,” KCET, 20 Sep. 2017, accessed 9 Dec. 2020].) But at that destination also lay a new, ideal design for living. In the naughts and teens that design was led throughout the country by the rustic, nature-embracing California Bungalow, invented by the Bay Area’s Bernard Maybeck and Pasadena’s Charles and Henry Greene. In the 1920s and ’30s, it was led by the nostalgia-embracing Minimal Traditional, a modernization of the life of the gentry and the miniaturization of the country house aesthetic of English architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. In the 1920s it was still common to buy a tract lot and contract one’s own house, or buy an individual house someone had built there on spec. (The Anholm brothers moved from house to house as they gradually peopled their tract.) The age of the mass development was only just beginning in more urban areas. The Gellert brothers (father and uncle of Joan Gellert Sargen) started mass-building San Francisco’s Sunset District in 1922, joined by Henry Doelger in 1926). This trend would not reach San Luis Obispo till well after World War II. So it was up to a lot owner and architect, or builder with a purchased plan or pattern book, to construct the ideal—an ideal that was to be separate and unequal. Mount Pleasanton Square Al (Arthur L.) Nevins, owner of the N. & H. Chocolate Shop in Santa Maria and Santa Barbara, and Dr. Robert E. Turner of Santa Maria launched Mount Pleasanton Square in 1923. Earlier in the year Nevins’ wife Gladys, 25, had committed suicide at her sister-in-law’s house while babysitting her infant niece and while her husband was at a Rotary luncheon: “The deceased, it is thought, was seized by a fit of temporary melancholia,” and placed her niece in the kitchen before gassing herself in a bedroom (Santa Maria Times, 14 Apr. 1923). It was Nevins and Turner’s first development; later ones included Pismo Heights in Pismo Beach (1924), Taft View Terraces in Bakersfield, and the vacation development of Twain Harte outside Yosemite (1926). The name Mount Pleasanton Square may have been a mashup of the various Mount Pleasants in the United States (the Mount Pleasants in England were generally urban neighborhoods ironically christened after local dungheaps) and Pleasanton, California, made chic by Phoebe Hearst’s legendary Hacienda del Pozo de Verona, designed by A. C. Schweinfurth and adapted by Julia Morgan. There seems to have been a concerted effort to give the subdivision, built at the interface of a farming valley and small town, an air of gentility. The Telegram’s social coverage, which referred to people’s addresses in other parts of the city, invariably generalized to “in Mount Pleasanton Square” for residents of this tract, who equally invariably held a “delightful affair” or “delightful afternoon tea.” ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 11 6 The original phase of Mt. Pleasanton Square was Murray Avenue. Just after Christmas 1927, Fred Shaeffer—who as Mount Pleasanton Square’s attorney was listed as the party of the first part in the sale of most of the first phase’s deeds—filed the second phase, consisting of Meinecke, Benton, Rougeot, and the curve of Chorro, then Mount Pleasanton Drive. Both the first and second phases of the subdivision were racially restricted, and this was novel enough in San Luis Obispo to be specifically noted in newspapers: “The conclusion of the sale of lots in San Luis Obispo’s new restricted residence tract, Mt. Pleasanton Square, was marked Friday evening by a banquet at the Mid-Way Cafeteria” (“Will Open New Tract After First of Year,” San Luis Obispo Tribune, 28 Dec. 1928), and, “Several new residence tracts have been opened on the outskirts of the city during the year, including one highly restricted tract, Mt. Pleasanton Square” (“New Industries, More Planting in San Luis Obispo”). I have not been able to establish if Nevins and Turner’s other developments were also racially restricted, but it appears likely. As of the 2010 US Census, Twain Harte was 91% White and 0.2% Black. The US Supreme Court invalidated mandatory racial covenants in 1948 and voluntary ones in 1953. In 1963 the California legislature passed the Rumford Fair Housing Act, prohibiting discrimination in rental properties with four or more units, but in 1964 Californians passed, by a 2-1 margin, Proposition 14, enshrining the right of owners to refuse to rent or sell based on race, religion, or ethnicity and campaigned for by Ronald Reagan (Reft, op. cit.). Proposition 14 was struck down by the California Supreme Court in 1966. The federal Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968 by Lyndon Johnson, whom a majority of Californians had voted for even as they voted for continued discrimination in housing. There is growing awareness that the racial covenants are still included in deeds, if legally unenforceable. They may be removed at property owners’ request, but 2009 legislation to require the provision of Restrictive Covenant Modification form along with deeds (AB 985, De la Torre) was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. In August 2020 a group of White, African American, and Chinese American assemblymembers promised to introduce a bill to remove racial covenants from real estate documents in California (Marisa Kendall, “‘Whites Only’ No More: California Bill Would Remove Racist Real Estate Language,” Orange County Register, 7 Aug. 2020). ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 12 7 4. Minimal Traditional: Historiography Popular and specialist scholarship on the Minimal Traditional style is virtually nonexistent, perhaps because the term was introduced to the wider public in opprobrium. In 1985 Paul Gapp, Pulitzer Prize–winning architectural critic of the Chicago Tribune, wrote, “The suburban style gamut begins with Minimal Traditional, invented in the 1930s but carried over until about 1950 and built in vast numbers. Such a house is essentially a bland little box with a low-pitched roof, a gable at the front, and often a large chimney. It may be of brick, wood, stone or even all three” (“A Matter of Taste: How the Single-Family American House Lost Its Basement and Gained a Family Room,” Chicago Tribune Magazine, 28 Apr. 1985, pp. 20–23). Gapp’s was a pejorative rewording of the description in Virginia and Lee McAlester’s 1984 A Field Guide to American Houses; he cited the McAlesters, Lester Walker, and Gwendolyn Wright as “serious writers who have explored” the houses of suburbia. Gapp’s use of the term is the earliest in the databases of more than 30,000 newspapers in newspapers.com, genealogybank.com, and the Callifornia Digital Newspaper Collection. (According to the database of the New York Times, the Grey Lady has never written “Minimal Traditional.”) Paul Gapp’s essay on suburban architecture was reprinted in big and little city dailies throughout the country over the ensuing year (e.g., the Stamford Advocate, Baltimore Sun, Atlanta Constitution, Columbus Dispatch, Des Moines Register, and Tucson Citizen). After that the term does not crop up in newspaper databases till six years later, when Robert Yapp, Jr. of the Des Moines Register wrote a column describing modern Iowa house styles (“Contemporary Homes: New Houses Feature a Medley of Styles,” 30 June 1991), and the accompanying graphic guide by Mark Marturello (without Yapp’s article) was reprinted in other dailies absent commentary. Yapp’s description of Minimal Traditional was also the McAlesters’ but without Gapp’s negative spin. A small wave of taxonomic articles referencing the Minimal Traditional came in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as more people turned their attention toward suburban and post– World War II domestic architecture through surveys (Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp, “Historic Homes: Boom Generation Housing,” Indianapolis Star, 15 Feb. 1998), ephemera (Carol Loretz, “Brochures Highlight Historic RI Neighborhoods,” Dispatch and Rock Island Argus, 1 Feb. 2002), and house tours (Nancy Deville, “Whitland Opens Its Doors,” Tennessean, 22 Sep. 2010). Some articles mentioned the style in passing, some defined it, one article even focused on it (though, confusingly, using a photograph of a house that isn’t Minimal Traditional [Nzong Xiong, “Minimal Traditional,” Fresno Bee, 5 Feb. 2005]). There seems, however, to have been no serious critical assessment in the press—possibly because no architecture critics were interested, possibly because architecture critics had disappeared from newspaper staffs. The articles that were published were written by, and quoted, non-specialists, and they tended toward glibness. Knight Ridder columnist Cindy Hoedel recounted her disappointment at discovering, from the McAlesters’ guide, that her house was Minimal Traditional rather than Ranch—“The main difference between Minimal Traditional and Ranch homes is that Ranch roofs have a moderate to wide eave overhang, and Minimal Traditional roofs do not” (“Think You Know Your Abode? Don’t Bet the Ranch,” Palm Springs Desert Sun and others, 18 Sep. 2004). Scripps Howard News Service journalist Linda Moore quoted an industry member: “It’s a ‘box with a porch,’ says Ralph Jones of Ralph Jones Home Plans. … ‘They were cheap to build and they were simple and ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 13 8 things were simple back then” ( “House Detail: Style Is What Draws In Buyers,” 20 May 2006, San Francisco Examiner). By the 2010s, Minimal Traditional had become a recurring reference in the creation of historic districts and sufficiently part of cultural vocabulary (except to New York Times writers and readers) that it was no longer thought to need explanation—or maybe it was assumed by then that people could Google it. It had even moved—as often as not inaccurately—into real estate advertisements. It is unclear who invented the concept and term “Minimal Traditional.” The McAlesters used it in their 1984 Field Guide but did not lay claim to it as a neologism. In the JSTOR archive of scholarship, the earliest article (of only three) to use the term—Ingolf Vogeler’s “The Character of Place: Building Materials and Architectural Characteristics in Eau Claire, Wisconsin” in Material Culture (spring 1990)—felt compelled to cite the McAlesters, either for explanation or the existence of the term itself. Carole Rifkind never mentioned the term in her 1980 Field Guide to American Architecture, although she intuited better than the McAlesters what it was, noting that “Period Revival dwellings of the period from 1910 to 1930” tended to be “quaint and informal although carefully disciplined” and adding that in the 1930s they had “simpler massing, less lavish use of materials, cruder detailing, and more economical scale” ([New York: New American Library], p. 101). The McAlesters described Minimal Traditional as “a simplified form loosely based on the previously dominant Tudor style of the 1920s and ’30s” whose houses “generally have a dominant front gable and massive chimneys” but whose “steep Tudor roof pitch is lowered and the façade simplified by omitting most of the traditional detailing” (477). In addition, “eaves and rake are close, rather than overhanging as in the succeeding Ranch style” (478). But narrow eaves and rakes, with decluttered facades and dynamic massing, had been applied since at least the nineteen-teens in the United States to a wide variety of traditional architectures, not just Tudor. The Macelesters—and Lester Walker in his 1981 American Shelter: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the American Home, as well as John J-G. Blumenson in his 1977 Identifying American Architecture—focused on the connection of each revival style to its referent in the past rather than its contemporary parallels. But when considering how to categorize Frank Lloyd Wright’s Tudor-influenced buildings—the Robert Roloson Houses (1894) in Chicago; Harley Bradley House and Warren Hickox House (both 1900) in Kankakee; Nathan Moore House (1895 and redesign 1922), Peter Beachy House (1906), and Wright’s own house and studio (1889–1898) in Oak Park—it’s clear they’re Wrightian and Revival, and their Wrightianness more usefully defines their place in a history of modern architecture. As Sir Nikolaus Pevsner wrote in his counter-protesting foreword to Blumenson, “I have in my writings always tried to measure the importance of an architect according to the originality of his style. This book does the opposite” ([New York: Norton], p. vi). ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 14 9 Wright’s Nathan Moore House, Oak Park, early in the twentieth century Moore House after Wright’s 1922 redesign, following partial destruction by fire Tudor was indeed the original source of Minimal Traditional, but that was because its pioneer was the British architect Sir Edwyn Lutyens, who sought farmhouse and manor models in his native Surrey in the late 1880s and early 1890s and rationalized, smoothed, and streamlined—in other words, minimalized—them. He employed ideas similar to those in Philip Webb’s 1860 Red House for William Morris but executed them with more economy and restraint. It took twenty years for Lutyens’ vision to take hold in America domestic architecture, after the 1913 publication of Sir Lawrence Weaver’s copiously illustrated The Houses and Gardens of E. L. Lutyens. Suddenly minimalization—one might say Lutyensization—was applied to Tudor, Georgian, Neoclassical, Spanish, French Provincial, Early American, American Colonial, Dutch Colonial, Federal, Greek Revival, and other revived styles. ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 15 10 5. Minimal Tradition: History Munstead Wood is the ur-house for Minimal Traditional, begun in 1889, completed in 1897 for Gertrude Jekyll, the garden designer who embarked on a lifelong collaboration with Lutyens. Munstead has not only the close-clipped rakes by which Minimal Traditional is commonly identified but also its minimizing of windows, decluttering of walls, broad expanses of steeply pitched roofs, prominent chimneys, curvilinear features, and smooth transitions. Compactness was the one addition when Lutyens’ country house architecture was adapted by others to suburban lots. Actual Tudor architecture in Surrey (Losely Hall above left and farmhouse near Charlwood at right): busier, more angular, less sweeping than Lutyens’ work. At Munstead (below) he regularized bays, integrated them into walls and roof, reduced windows, flared eaves, and used the chimney as a vertical plane to interact with horizontal ones. It was a smoother modernization than Wright’s. Minimal rakes (in grand houses like Losely, parapets) were a Tudor feature fitting well in Lutyens’ streamlined vision, while Wright used wide rakes and jettied upper floors of other Tudor houses in both Tudor Revival and some Prairie structures like the Meyer May (1908–09) and Emil Bach (1915) Houses. (Photograph of Munstead Wood from Sir Lawrence Weaver’s Lutyens Houses and Gardens [London: Country Life, 1921].) ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 16 11 The American press had covered Lutyens’ 1900 Royal Pavilion for the Paris Exposition, a replica of a Tudor manor; his 1912 reproduction of Shakespearean London at Earl’s Court and creation of a garden village at Knebworth; and his 1914 designs for the new Indian capital at New Delhi. He was also featured in international journals like The Studio. But what exposed Lutyens’ architecture in depth to Americans was the 1913 publication in London of Sir Lawrence Weaver’s folio Houses and Gardens by E. L. Lutyens, with almost 600 photographs and architectural drawings, and its 1914 republication in London and New York. By this time Lutyens had branched into Neoclassical, Georgian, and Queen Anne. His was so appealing an aesthetic to the 1920s that it virtually wiped the rough-hewn, nature-embracing American Craftsman from the map. The California Bungalow—American Craftsman’s dominant subset—had promoted a simple lifestyle by connecting indoors and outdoors with wide eaves, covered verandas, sleeping porches, pergolas, large twin and triplet windows. It melded a Japanese and rural Swiss aesthetic into something muscular, cultured, informal, and quintessentially American. Bernard Maybeck in the Bay Area and Charles and Henry Greene in Pasadena had invented the California Bungalow circa 1900– 1903, and though it flourished for fifteen years, it had never been suitable for colder and darker climates. Nor would Minimal Traditional be suitable for climates that were brighter and hotter than Lutyens’ England. But fashion is fashion—and relentless. Real estate section masthead, Ardmore, Oklahoma, 1918, flanked by California Bungalows The moment of displacement was captured in the press, because illustrated real estate sections were becoming common in the United States in the mid nineteen-teens. They were dominated by Craftsman houses. In Canton, Ohio the Sunday Repository, in late 1917 and early 1918, ran a Home Builders’ Plan series: an ink and wash perspective drawing, almost always of an American Craftsman house and almost always signed by Charles Sumner Sedgwick—a prominent Minneapolis architect—with a floorplan, some commentary, and an invitation to send inquiries to the Home Builders’ Department, The Repository. After No. 48 these suddenly vanished—the building section appears to be missing from microfilm of the March and April papers—and May 5 showed a new series at No. 4, with a delicate line drawing in ink of a Tudor revival house with parapet gables like Lutyens’ Abbotswood (1901) and New Place (1904–06), flared wall, and moon gate (which Lutyens and Jekyll used elsewhere). It had the submitter’s name on it; Nos. 6 and 15 were inscribed “Suburban House Competition” (19 May and 21 July 1918); some had prices, cubage, and other useful architectural notes; and they were all in the style of architectural competitions of the time. They were printed without commentary, source, or a way to send for plans— intended, apparently, to be edifying in themselves. The 27 plans printed from May 5 to October 27 were all revival styles; all but one—a hipped-roof Greek Revival with unusually wide eaves—with the compositional streamlining and dynamic massing of the Minimal Traditional. Even the heading typeface was lighter and more elegant. ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 17 12 Revolution: California Bungalow to Minimal Traditional in the Canton Repository Integrated exterior space, 23 Dec. 1917 Knee braces, rafter tails, 6 Jan. 1918 Eaves, wide window frames, 3 March 1918 Tudor Revival with parapets, 5 May 1918 30 June (Federal revival with arches, side porch) and 19 May (dramatic Lutyensesque massing, fewer windows, ovoid porthole) ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 18 13 Gambrel Roof Designs Before and After the Minimal Traditional Revolution Treatment of gambrel roof before and after the Minimal Traditional revolution: in the Repository on 27 January 1918, 2½-story with wide rakes, integrated front porch and sun room, full-width back porch, numerous single, twin, and triplet windows with wide surrounds, and rambling floorplan with pushouts; on 3 November 1918, 1½-story, close-clipped rakes; extended front porch; virtually no back porch, focused window arrangements, and rectangular floorplan. ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 19 14 Who sponsored the Suburban House Competition is unclear; there’s evidence of the Ladies’ Home Journal having a competition by that name thirteen years earlier (“Boston Architect Wins,” Boston Globe, 3 May 1905), but by 1918 it could have been anyone. These national competitions tended to norm architectural practice in hundreds of small practices across the country. A representative one was the National Small House Competition of the Own Your Home Campaign, an early-twentieth-century national promotion adopted by local real estate boards and exchanges. Own Your Home was written up in relation to bungalows in the Portland Oregonian in 1911, with Portland asserted to be second in bungalows only to Los Angeles (“Bungalows Here Are Many,” 21 May 1911). It was combined with a cottage giveaway in Huntsville, Alabama the same year (“Intense Interest Already Aroused,” Huntsville Daily Times, 11 Sep. 1911). In 1915 in Spokane, “Eighty-Five Dollars in Gold Is Award Offered for the Best Three-Hundred Words in Own- Your Home Campaign” (Spokane Daily Chronicle, 23 Mar. 1915). The campaign made it to the oil boomtown of Okmulgee in 1916 (“Own a Home in Okmulgee Is the Slogan,” Okmulgee Daily Democrat, 28 Jan. 1916). In 1917 San Antonio students from grades 3 to 11 were offered the topic “Why My Parents Should Own Their Own Home”; there was also a photography contest to show “the ideals, pleasures, and advantages of home life” (“Twenty-Four Children Win Prizes in Own Home Essay Contest,” San Antonio Light, 17 May 1917). A congressman from Oregon spoke to Denver’s Civic and Commercial Association against bringing up children in apartments (“parental authority ceases to be respected”); Denver also had an essay and a bread-making contest (“Continued Growth Seen for Denver by Oregon Solon,” Denver Post, 8 May 1917). The New York Times presented the campaign as “the creation of a desire for suburban home ownership by educating the reading public regarding the desirable features of suburban life” (“’Own Your Home,’” 16 Dec. 1917). Seattle launched an “Own Your Home” exposition in 1918 (“US Housing Chief to Have Aide at Exhibit,” Seattle Daily Times, 8 Mar. 1918). In 1919 another opened in Philadelphia (“Want City Dwellers to Own Their Home,” Evening Public Ledger, 10 Jan. 1919), followed by two in New York, where a traditional house that was extremely minimal was awarded in a drawing (“Versatility of Design To Be Seen at Housing Show,” New York Sun, 31 Aug. 1919). ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 20 15 The Own Your Home Expositions; National Small House Competition; Home Builders Plan Book; and Building Plan Holding Corporation, which sold complete building plans for $25, formed an interconnected web in the early 1920s, and all of their prizewinners and plans were Minimal Traditional. ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 21 16 6. Examples of Minimal Traditional in San Luis Obispo Master List Graves House, Tudor Revival, 1929. High pitch, flared eave, leaded oriel window, and Tudor arches of pass-through and garage. Currently listed as “Swiss.” Runston House, 1931, Benton. Cottage Style with arched doorway (like Tudors) but lower pitch roof with faux thatch. A variety of Min Trad styles share the arched picture window. Selina Sharpe House, 1923, Johnson. Lot- filling Colonial with three subtle pushouts, the one at right an arched entrance porch on Pismo Street with capitals and sidelights. Tudor Revival, between 1937 and 1941, Anholm. Typical front gables and arched porch but lower pitch, atypically large windows, and no Tudor decorative features. El Rey Hotel, 1928, Osos and Mill. Tile roof with low-pitched gables, triple-pipe gable vents, open window arch to vestibule, and troweled stucco bespeak Spanish Revival. By 1926, possible later alterations, Toro and Higuera. Little beyond pitch and bas-relief double arch at left suggest Spanish. Atypically large windows for Min Trad. ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 22 17 7. The Builder: Elbert Earle Christopher Born in Kansas in 1890 of a laborer father from Iowa and housewife mother from Indiana, E. E. Christopher was, according his orld War I draft registration, a blue-eyed, brown-haired farmer in Oklahoma, claiming exemption for “a weak Hart.” Nevertheless, he served in the Motor Transport Corps during the war, and having learned a new skill, he posthaste finished his family’s western trek (his father’s parents were from Tennessee and Indiana, his mother’s from Ohio and Pennsylvania) and worked as a mechanic in San Bernardino, Los Angeles, and Arroyo Grande from 1920 till 1927 (US Census and Arroyo Grande Herald Recorder, 7 Apr. 1927). He was a radio enthusiast: he is reported as having received 33 stations in one night in 1927 from as far away as Vancouver, Chicago, and Boston (Herald Recorder, 17 Feb.). Also in 1927 he was mentioned as listening to a New York broadcast with his wife (“Pismo Beach Gardens,” Arroyo Grande Herald Recorder, 29 Sep.). In 1928 he began to be documented as a builder in San Luis Obispo and South County. The 1930 census listed the 39-year-old house carpenter as single and living on his father and mother’s poultry and berry farm, whose property they owned, in Pismo Garden Farms. In 1930–32 we have records of E. E. Christopher acquiring two residential lots in Mount Pleasanton Square and one in Monterey Heights and building his own projects, including a small shop on High Street. But his move into small-scale development was ill timed. People held onto their property for the first couple of years after the stock market crash, then foreclosures in Anholm and Mount Pleasanton Square escalated. By 1934 the lender for 79 Benton Way foreclosed on E. E. Christopher, more than three months in arrears. He built 79 Benton either for himself or more likely on spec and was unable to sell. According to the 1938 city directory, none of the nine householders on Benton Way were owners. By 1935 (according to the 1940 census) Christopher had moved to Oakland. In 1940 he was plying his trade as a construction carpenter in the Bay Area, living in a hillside cottage he owned in Oakland, unmarried. In 1948 he purchased a deed in Cotati (Santa Rosa Press Democrat, 27 Oct.). He died in Glenn, north of Sacramento, in 1971. There’s no indication Fred Shaeffer, the attorney for Mount Pleasanton Square and a year older than Christopher, suffered financially: in the 1930 and 1940 censuses, the Shaeffer household occupied the same house in Santa Maria, in both decades with a live-in servant. Fred died of a heart attack at a trailer park he operated at Avila Beach in 1956 (“Heart Attack Is Fatal to Fred A. Shaeffer, 67,” Herald Recorder, 7 Sep. 1956). Neither did Al Nevins suffer financially. Between 1926 and 1961 he developed Twain Harte, building a school, dam, and lake and making 2,000 sales. In 1961 he retired to Pismo Beach, became secretary-treasurer of the Chamber of Commerce, and was named grand marshal of the Clam Festival (“Pismo Beach Developer Will Lead Saturday’s Clam Festival Parade,” Five Cities Times Press Recorder, 5 Feb. 1970). The race restrictions of Nevins’ and Shaeffer’s early developing were not brought up in later coverage. It’s worth remembering the small carpenter-builders in association with their houses in the large subdivisions—houses that represent a distinct personality and leave a legacy of shelter, use, and inspiration. It’s especially worth delving into a carpenter-builder who worked so creatively with his style as E. E. Christopher did with Minimal Traditional on Benton Way, even if we’ll never understand how he came up with the Christopher House. ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 23 18 8. The E. E. Christopher House: Significance Despite Christopher’s dilatory move into construction and no evidence of architectural training, the Christopher House is one of the most sophisticated examples of Minimal Traditional architecture in the United States. Minimal Traditional emphasized cost-consciousness in its suburban setting and hence tended toward the rectangular, to which Georgian, Regency, and Colonial Revival were well suited. Tudor and Spanish Revival were exceptions, often taking the form of an ell, and Tudor was wont to add front-facing gables as entry vestibules, dormers, or other devices. As viewed from the street, however, the Christopher House consists of two nested ells—a lower one of living room and entry wings and an upper one of staircase and main bedroom suite, giving a height progression at 45 degrees from left front to right back. There is also a progression laterally of essentially two two-story structures joined at the upper floor of the left-hand one and lower floor of the right-hand one by a one-story entry. Looking through over a thousand American Minimal Traditional houses in plans and photographs from the late 1910s through the early 1930s, I have not found any with this degree of geometric innovation or one that isolated a single suite on the top floor like a tower room. The pattern book and competition houses were invariably designed for flat lots. The California hillside house was, in contrast, its own challenge, experimented with by renowned architects from Willis Polk to Maybeck, Morgan, and Rudolph Schindler. E. E. Christopher—a carpenter-builder—came up with an efficient form (a one-bedroom cottage with vertical extensions in two directions) that matched their works for dramatic effect. ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 24 19 The interior of the house equally combines efficiency and drama. The vestibule is on the same level as the living room (to the left) and base of the stairs (also to the left) for the second floor. But it steps down to the hallway (straight ahead) to the second bedroom (at hallway level on the right) and kitchen (at hallway level in back). The kitchen is safely level with the dining room on the left (no climbing or descending or tripping between them), but the dining room is sunken from the perspective of its descent from the living room. Sunken rooms were the conversation pits of the 1930s—except for catching on more. The sweeping view and descent into them had the requisite hallmarks of Hollywood. Here is all the drama that the thirties sought in sinking rooms, plus the efficiency of a second-floor bedroom on top of a lowered first-floor bedroom, with less of a climb. “A House in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts,” Gordon Allen, architect, in The Smaller American Houses: Fifty-Five Houses of the Less Expensive Type Selected from the Recent Work of Architects in All Parts of the Country (Ethel B. Power; Boston: Little, Brown, 1927) “Extras—And How They May Be Eliminated,” design 4-B-20, in Small Homes of Architectural Distinction: A Book of Suggested Plans Designed by the Architects Small House Service Bureau, Inc. (Robert T. Jones, ed; New York: Harper, 1929) Though its ells and front gabling suggest Tudor, the low pitch of the roof does not. This is the lowering of pitch that the McAlesters attribute to the late 1930s and postwar era, accompanied by omission of surface detail, but in fact it was happening by the mid 1920s. Small Homes of Architectural Distinction, 1929, has a number of these gabled cottages with medium-pitched roofs and no decorative reference, and it is hard-pressed what to call them: “a house of many gables” (71); “qualities of the English style” (199). The eschewal of twee historicist pastiche such as half-timbering (which was rarely carried off convincingly), patterned brick veneer, and wasteful high-pitched roofs is much of the attraction of this more minimalist Minimal Traditional. It doesn’t give in to the flat-roofed International Style, yet its arrangement of prisms on a plane has more in common with the California hillside architecture of modernists like Schindler, Richard Neutra, and Gregory Ain than with the Minimal Traditional school. ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 25 20 Gregory Ain’s Dunsmuir Flats, Los Angeles, 1937. Photograph by Julius Shulman. Christopher focused his attention on form: not just the exterior double-ell but a directional interior that the exterior expresses. The low barrel vault of the living room draws the visitor from vestibule to a fireplace pushout relieved by graduated niches that both echo the vault and are echoed by flanking windows with views of Cerro San Luis. French doors look grandly down to the street. Descent to the sunken dining room is at right. The living room seen from the vestibule and … from the sunken dining room ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 26 21 The tower bedroom is in itself a master touch, its swagged ceiling more so. I have seen it only one other time, at the Royal Pavilion at Brighton—a byword for the Prince Regent’s extravagance—in the Banqueting Room (and then only on the end walls) and ovoid dome of the Music Room. (I visited the Royal Pavilion once almost forty years ago; fortunately the internet confirms my memory as accurate rather than a hallucinatory.) Approached by a drop-ceiling hall, the bedroom combines cosiness with a sense of the extravagant. “Octangular Tent Room” (above left) from George Smith’s Cabinetmaker’s and Upholsterer’s Guide (London: Jones, 1828): the walls are plaster and the ceiling calico. Louis-Martin Berthault’s bedroom (above right) for ex-empress Josephine at the Chateau de Malmaison (ca. 1805–1814) used, instead, cloth walls and a plaster ceiling, but the ceiling panels didn’t swag (watercolor by Henri-Charles Loeillot-Hartwig). John Nash, at the Royal Pavilion (ca. 1815– 1822) created the swagged ceiling in plaster (below left, far wall). E. E. Christopher created a four-sided swagged ceiling (below right) at 79 Benton Way. ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 27 22 That this sophisticated interior and exterior were planned and fashioned by someone who moved from farming to auto repair to building does credit to the carpenter-builder, which is why the owners choose the name the E. E. Christopher House. Corner and keystone art tiles with acanthus leaf motif in the sunburst fireplace surround in the living room, the only example of surface decoration apart from manufactured hardware and a bathroom tilework stripe. The tiles are from one of the then-thriving Los Angeles workshops, Artcraft. The surround was uncovered by one of the present owners. ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 28 23 9. Integrity Christopher built the house ca. 1931–32, the period of significance. Location The Christopher House remains in its original location. Design The Christopher house retains its character-defining overall design of two nested ells with mid-pitch roofs, displaying front and south-facing side gables, with the close-clipped rakes and eaves and spare use of windows of the Minimal Traditional and absence of surface decoration of the later and more abstracted Minimal Traditional. 79 Benton, lower center 79 Benton, second from lower left corner The entry porch is certainly on the house by 1968, visible in an aerial photograph (Cal Poly Special Collections). A circa 1932–45 aerial photograph (also from Cal Poly Special Collections) seems to show a structure jutting too far forward to be the vestibule alone. The stucco is consistent with the apparently original 1930s-style stucco of the rest of the house, and entry porches were a common enough feature of Minimal Traditional. Living room obscured by fenced deck Entry porch corbel arch ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 29 24 The corbel arch present when the house was purchased by one of the present owners was certainly anachronistic and has been replaced by a true arch. A true arch was typical of Minimal Tradition entry porches, particularly in Tudor Revival and its descendants (see second photograph, page 17). The front door, its grille, and the mail slot and grille next to it are all original. Four wood sash windows on the street and north façade have been replaced by similar sash windows in modern materials because of weather damage, but the two ten-light French doors are original, as are the two plate glass picture windows on the south façade and two closet windows on the vestibule’s south wall and bedroom tower’s north wall. The shutters are not original but were typical (see, again, second photograph, p. 17). The stuccoed chimney on the south wall is original. The vents on the street façade are original. The garage doors and front garage wall are not. Logic and the 1968 aerial photograph, which seems to show a slight additional shadow (within a tree shadow) at the base of the northern French window and possibly the south one, suggest separate, modest Juliet balconies in front of one or both French doors (the south one is not designed to open). When one of the current owners purchased the house, there was a large fenced deck in front of the French windows, subsequently removed. The current wrought iron faux balcony is, like a number of safety features associated with Master List resource porches, neither original nor period, but it is reversible. Inside, the character-defining living room barrel vault (visible from the street through the French doors) and tower bedroom swag ceiling (also visible) are original, as are the stairs traversing different levels (not visible). One of the current owners uncovered the original Artcraft art tile fireplace surround. Original lighting fixtures, door hardware, doors, tilework, hallway telephone niche, oak strip floors, and lintels remain. Chandeliers have been added to the tower bedroom and living room but are reversible; other light fixtures are original. Original wood sash windows remain on the back of the house, where they were less damaged by sun. Overall, the house retains more than enough of its character to communicate its significance as an innovative, abstracted example of Minimal Traditional architecture with some extraordinary interior features. Lutyens and the early and higher end Minimal Traditionalists were all about creating interiors that matched exteriors in historicist detail. As Christopher abstracted the exterior style, he also abstracted the interior, but he made it no less rich. Setting The suburban addition of Mt. Pleasanton Square has filled in since E. E. Christopher built this house in late 1931 or early 1932, but the modest predominately one- story and occasionally two-story houses surrounding it—in predominantly Spanish, Moorish, Tudor, and Cottage versions of Minimal Traditional, with a sprinkling of late Craftsman, postwar Ranch, and Early Nothing—retain the intended twee and “delightful” style and scale of the neighborhood with the mountain backdrop of Cerro San Luis and Bishop Peak. Materials Original materials have been enumerated under Design. Of chief significance for the abstracted Minimal Traditional is the apparently original stucco. ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 30 25 Workmanship The major exterior workmanship is of the stuccadores and window framers, which (absent eight sashes) remains. The visible and character-defining workmanship of the stuccadores on the living room barrel vault and bedroom swag ceilings also continues to communicate its significance. Feeling The Christopher House retains the combination of physical features that convey its historic character, allowing the viewer to perceive the simple and elegant design intentions of its builder. Though he might notice the new sashes and certainly the wrought iron faux balcony, E. E. Christopher would unquestionably recognize his work and appreciate its preservation. Association Application for Master List status is not being sought on the basis of historic association, but given the emphasis on the carpenter-builder who designed and constructed it, and the retention of the highly innovative layout and features within the Minimal Traditional style, the association with builder Elbert Earle Christopher is exceptionally strong. ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 31 26 10. Conclusion The Elbert Earle Christopher House uniquely embodies the distinctive characteristics of Minimal Traditional—a style dominant in Mount Pleasanton Square—in an important phase of abstraction. It possesses high artistic values and some of the most interesting details conceived or achieved by carpenter-builders of the period, in San Luis Obispo and beyond. Its high degree of integrity in location, design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling, and association is sufficient to communicate its rare significance. The Christopher House is therefore eligible for the Master List and a fitting tribute to its creator and the unsung carpenter-builders of the era. Writing the history of Mount Pleasanton Square, the Anholm Tract, and Monterey Heights, we are also now writing the history of institutionalized racism in San Luis Obispo housing. Archaeology is often done because a development is being built that will destroy a site and its artifacts. That history can be done while we make the case to preserve buildings through which we shall it remember is the more affirmative path. ATTACHMENT 1Item 2 Packet Page 32 Historical Resources (Listed) in Mt. Pleasanton/ Anholm Area 48 Benton 785 Lincoln 59 Benton (Master List)795 Lincoln 156 Broad 412 Marsh 207 Broad 704 Meinecke 236 Broad 706 Meinecke 282 Broad 724 Meinecke 301 Broad 732 Meinecke 368 Broad 770 Meinecke 381 Broad 780 Meinecke 397 Broad 794 Meinecke 453 Broad 804 Meinecke 456 Broad 728 Mission 457 Broad 734 Mission 464 Broad 752 Mission 472 Broad 249 Mission 742 Center 501 Mt. View 755 Center 764 Murray 30 Chorro 807 Murray 45 Chorro 814 Murray 59 Chorro 815 Murray 63 Chorro 822 Murray 69 Chorro 823 Murray 115 Chorro 829 Murray 128 Chorro 836 Murray 158 Chorro 851 Murray 173 Chorro 854 Murray 183 Chorro 859 Murray 190 Chorro 869 Murray 211 Chorro 871 Murray 360 Chorro 883 Murray 368 Chorro 884 Murray 369 Chorro 894 Murray 375 Chorro 747 Rougeot 395 Chorro 750 Rougeot 398 Chorro 762 Rougeot 431 Chorro 783 Rougeot 453 Chorro 476 Chorro 482 Chorro 487 Chorro 491 Hill 754 Lincoln 755 Lincoln ATTACHMENT 2Item 2 Packet Page 33 762 Lincoln ATTACHMENT 2Item 2 Packet Page 34 City of San Luis Obispo Historic Context: Early 20th Century Citywide Historic Context Statement HISTORIC RESOURCES GROUP 80 Pacific Ready Cut Homes, Style #85. THEME: EARLY 20TH CENTURY RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT San Luis Obispo’s population continued to grow in the early 20th century. Residences from this period range from small, vernacular cottages to more elaborate two-story residences. There are few examples of multi-family residential development in the City. Toward the end of this period there was an increasing accommodation for the automobile. A prominent example of this is the J.J. Dunne House on Benton Way, which was constructed in 1927 when the area was considered suburban. Dunne was a local car dealer, and he had his house and garage constructed to accommodate several automobiles. During this period, residential architecture began to shift from the Victorian-era styles imported from the east and new regional styles began to emerge. In California, the most notable new residential architecture was inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement and the development of the California bungalow, which was a simple, garden-oriented house uniquely suited for the climate and lifestyle of the region. ATTACHMENT 3Item 2 Packet Page 35 City of San Luis Obispo Historic Context: Early 20th Century Citywide Historic Context Statement HISTORIC RESOURCES GROUP 81 Designs for the bungalow were promulgated throughout the country through popular magazines like House Beautiful, Good Housekeeping, and Ladies Home Journal. Pattern books with a wide variety of bungalow designs and complete mail order house kits soon followed, allowing the style to spread quickly across the country. The three largest manufacturers of kit homes in the United States were Aladdin, Sears, and Pacific Ready Cut Homes, which was based in Los Angeles. Kit homes were sold from 1908 until 1940. Shipped by boxcar, each kit contained framing members and all architectural details. Architectural styles during this period are more eclectic than those represented in the late 19th century. Residential architecture from this period in San Luis Obispo includes American Colonial Revival, Mediterranean Revival, Craftsman, Spanish Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, and Storybook. The dominant type of single-family residence in the early 20th century is the one-story bungalow. Some Craftsman houses in San Luis Obispo feature clinker brick. Named for the distinctive sound they make when banged together, clinker bricks are the result of wet bricks placed too close to the fire. Overbaking produced rich, warm colors as well that ran the gamut from reds, yellows, and oranges to deep, flash-burned browns, purples, and blacks. In the early 20th century clinkers became popular when avant-garde architects started building houses with them precisely because they were so unusual. During the Arts & Crafts era, clinker bricks were used to create visual interest in focal points such as chimneys, porch supports, and garden walls. There are examples of clinker brick in Monterey Heights and near Broad and Chorro. A prominent example is the 1928 Faulstich House, constructed for Paul and Mary Faulstich of the Faulstich Brothers brickyard. Dunne House, 59 Benton Way, 1927. Photo 2013; source City of San Luis Obispo. ATTACHMENT 3Item 2 Packet Page 36 City of San Luis Obispo Historic Context: Early 20th Century Citywide Historic Context Statement HISTORIC RESOURCES GROUP 82 There are intact residential neighborhoods that developed during this period. While some are located in proximity to downtown, during this period neighborhoods also developed in what was considered the outskirts at that time, in areas newly accessible by the automobile. One example is found along Murray Street. Murray Street is a wide street with a center median with mature landscaping. Houses in the neighborhood were constructed in the 1920s and are primarily one-story; architectural styles include several Period Revival styles and some Minimal Traditional examples. Architects whose work is represented in San Luis Obispo during this period include: Abrahms & Simms, Santa Barbara; E.D. Bray; John Chapek; Orville Clark; W.H. Crias, W.E. Erkes, San Francisco; G.A. Meuss-Dorffer, San Francisco; G.M. Eastman; Thorton Fitzhugh; John Davis Hatch; Alfred and Arthur Heineman, Los Angeles; J.P. Kremple; Fred Logan; Charles McKenzie, San Francisco; Parkinson & Bergstrom; Righetti & Headman, San Francisco; William H. Weeks; James Wetmore; and K.C. Wilson. Context View, Murray Street. Photo 2013; source Historic Resources Group. ATTACHMENT 3Item 2 Packet Page 37 City of San Luis Obispo Historic Context: Early 20th Century Citywide Historic Context Statement HISTORIC RESOURCES GROUP 83 Early 20th Century Residential Development: Associated Property Types, Integrity Considerations & Eligibility Standards Property Types Single-family Residence; Multi-family Residence; Historic District A residential property from this period may be significant:  As an excellent example of turn-of-the-20th-century residential development in San Luis Obispo – Criterion A/1/B.2 (Event).  As a rare example of multi-family residential development or an excellent example of a particular multi-family residential property type from the period – Criterion A/1/B.2 (Event); C/3/A.1,A.2 (Design/Construction).  For its association with a significant person in local history – Criterion B/2/B.1 (Person).  As an excellent or rare local example of particular architectural style – Criterion C/3/A.1,A.2 (Design/Construction). Houses with a proven association to a specific kit home model may also be eligible under this criterion.  A collection of residences from this period that are linked geographically may be eligible as a historic district. Integrity Considerations In order to be eligible for listing at the federal, state, or local levels, a property must retain sufficient integrity to convey its historic significance under the Early 20th Century Residential Development theme. There are numerous extant residential properties from this period, so potentially eligible resources should have a high level of integrity.  Residential properties from this period eligible under Criteria A/1/B.2 (Event) should retain integrity of location, design, feeling, and association.  A residential property significant under Criterion B/2/B.1 (Person) should retain integrity of design, feeling, and association, at a minimum, in order to convey the historic association with a significant person.  Residential properties significant under Criterion C/3/A.1,A.2 (Design/Construction) should retain integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, and feeling. Eligibility Standards To be eligible, a property must:  date from the period of significance;  display the significant character-defining features of the property type or architectural style; and  retain the essential aspects of integrity. ATTACHMENT 3Item 2 Packet Page 38 City of San Luis Obispo Historic Context: Early 20th Century Citywide Historic Context Statement HISTORIC RESOURCES GROUP 84 Extant Examples Muscio House, 1330 Mill Street, 1909. Photo 2013; source Historic Resources Group. Crossett House, 896 Buchon, 1914. Photo 2013; source City of San Luis Obispo. Sandercock House, 535 Islay Street, 1910. Photo 2013; source City of San Luis Obispo. Payne House, 1144 Palm Street, 1911. Photo 2013; source City of San Luis Obispo. Righetti Apartments, 1305 Palm Street, 1929. Photo 2013; source City of San Luis Obispo. Faulstich House, 2243 Santa Ynez, 1928. Photo 2013; source City of San Luis Obispo. ATTACHMENT 3Item 2 Packet Page 39 City of San Luis Obispo Historic Context: Great Depression & WWII Citywide Historic Context Statement HISTORIC RESOURCES GROUP 103 THEME: RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT 1930-1945 Most residential construction projects were halted during the Great Depression and many residents faced layoffs and foreclosures. Land use was focused on re-purposing existing properties in more useful ways, such as utilizing vacant lots and yards to create gardens and raise rabbits and chickens. When residential development did occur, it was on an individual basis rather than on the massive scale seen in the post-World War II era. Through most of the 1930s, the average contractor in California built no more than four homes per year.74 In San Luis Obispo, there were no annexations and only three subdivisions during the 1930s: the Nippon tract, recorded in 1931; the California Park tract, recorded in 1938; and the Escuela Alta tract, recorded in 1939. All told, less than 200 additional residential lots were created during the entire decade. Residences from this period range from small, one-story minimal houses, to one- and two-story residences designed in popular architectural styles. Residential architecture from this period in San Luis Obispo includes American Colonial Revival, Mediterranean Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival, and Tudor Revival. 74 California Department of Transportation, Tract Housing in California, 1945-1973: A Context for National Register Evaluation, 2011, 4. ATTACHMENT 3Item 2 Packet Page 40 City of San Luis Obispo Historic Context: Great Depression & WWII Citywide Historic Context Statement HISTORIC RESOURCES GROUP 104 Map indicating the three subdivisions recorded in San Luis Obispo in the 1930s. Source: San Luis Obispo GIS data. ATTACHMENT 3Item 2 Packet Page 41 City of San Luis Obispo Historic Context: Great Depression & WWII Citywide Historic Context Statement HISTORIC RESOURCES GROUP 105 Residential Development 1930-1945: Associated Property Types, Integrity Considerations & Eligibility Standards Property Type: Single-family Residence; Multi-family Residence; Historic District A residential property from this period may be significant:  As an excellent example of 1930s residential development in San Luis Obispo – Criterion A/1/B.2 (Event).  As a rare example of a multi-family residential development or a particular multi-family residential property type from the period – Criterion A/1/B.2 (Event); C/3/A.1,A.2 (Design/Construction).  For its association with a significant person in San Luis Obispo’s history – Criterion B/2/B.1 (Person).  As an excellent or rare local example of particular architectural style associated with the period – Criterion C/3/A.1,A.2 (Design/Construction).  A collection of residences from this period that are linked geographically may be eligible as a historic district. Integrity Considerations In order to be eligible for listing at the federal, state, or local levels, a property must retain sufficient integrity to convey its historic significance under the Residential Development 1930-1945 theme. There was minimal residential development during this period; therefore there are likely relatively few eligible properties related to this theme. Residential properties from this period eligible under Criteria A/1/B.2 (Event) should retain integrity of location, design, feeling, and association. A residential property significant under Criterion B/2/B.1 (Person) should retain integrity of design, feeling, and association, at a minimum, in order to convey the historic association with a significant person. Residential properties significant under Criterion C/3/A.1,A.2 (Design/Construction) should retain integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, and feeling. Eligibility Standards To be eligible, a property must:  date from the period of significance;  display the significant character-defining features of the property type or architectural style; and  retain the essential aspects of integrity. ATTACHMENT 3Item 2 Packet Page 42 City of San Luis Obispo Historic Context: Great Depression & WWII Citywide Historic Context Statement HISTORIC RESOURCES GROUP 106 Extant Examples 822 Murray Street, 1930. Photo 2013; source Historic Resources Group. 752 Mission Street, 1931. Photo 2013; source Historic Resources Group. ATTACHMENT 3Item 2 Packet Page 43 12 Zoning, or remove the property from historic listing if the structure on the property no longer meets eligibility criteria for listing, following the process for listing set forth herein. 14.01.070. Evaluation Criteria for Historic Resource Listing When determining if a property should be designated as a listed Historic or Cultural Resource, the CHC and City Council shall consider this ordinance and State Historic Preservation Office (“SHPO”) standards. In order to be eligible for designation, the resource shall exhibit a high level of historic integrity, be at least fifty (50) years old (less than 50 if it can be demonstrated that enough time has passed to understand its historical importance) and satisfy at least one of the following criteria: A. Architectural Criteria: Embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, region, or method of construction, or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values. (1)Style: Describes the form of a building, such as size, structural shape and details within that form (e.g. arrangement of windows and doors, ornamentation, etc.). Building style will be evaluated as a measure of: a. The relative purity of a traditional style; b. Rarity of existence at any time in the locale; and/or current rarity although the structure reflects a once popular style; c. Traditional, vernacular and/or eclectic influences that represent a particular social milieu and period of the community; and/or the uniqueness of hybrid styles and how these styles are put together. (2)Design: Describes the architectural concept of a structure and the quality of artistic merit and craftsmanship of the individual parts. Reflects how well a particular style or combination of styles are expressed through compatibility and detailing of elements. Also, suggests degree to which the designer (e.g., carpenter-builder) accurately interpreted and conveyed the style(s). Building design will be evaluated as a measure of: a. Notable attractiveness with aesthetic appeal because of its artistic merit, details and craftsmanship (even if not necessarily unique); b. An expression of interesting details and eclecticism among carpenter-builders, although the craftsmanship and artistic quality may not be superior. (3)Architect: Describes the professional (an individual or firm) directly responsible for the building design and plans of the structure. The architect will be evaluated as a reference to: ATTACHMENT 4Item 2 Packet Page 44 13 a. A notable architect (e.g., Wright, Morgan), including architects who made significant contributions to the state or region, or an architect whose work influenced development of the city, state or nation. b. An architect who, in terms of craftsmanship, made significant contributions to San Luis Obispo (e.g., Abrahams who, according to local sources, designed the house at 810 Osos - Frank Avila's father's home - built between 1927 – 30). B. Historic Criteria (1) History – Person: Associated with the lives of persons important to local, California, or national history. Historic person will be evaluated as a measure of the degree to which a person or group was: a. Significant to the community as a public leader (e.g., mayor, congress member, etc.) or for his or her fame and outstanding recognition - locally, regionally, or nationally. b. Significant to the community as a public servant or person who made early, unique, or outstanding contributions to the community, important local affairs or institutions (e.g., council members, educators, medical professionals, clergymen, railroad officials). (2) History – Event: Associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of local or regional history or the cultural heritage of California or the United States. Historic event will be evaluated as a measure of: (i) A landmark, famous, or first-of-its-kind event for the city - regardless of whether the impact of the event spread beyond the city. (ii) A relatively unique, important or interesting contribution to the city (e.g., the Ah Louis Store as the center for Chinese-American cultural activities in early San Luis Obispo history). (3) History-Context: Associated with and also a prime illustration of predominant patterns of political, social, economic, cultural, medical, educational, governmental, military, industrial, or religious history. Historic context will be evaluated as a measure of the degree to which it reflects: a. Early, first, or major patterns of local history, regardless of whether the historic effects go beyond the city level, that are intimately connected with the building (e.g., County Museum). b. Secondary patterns of local history, but closely associated with the building (e.g., Park Hotel). ATTACHMENT 4Item 2 Packet Page 45