Senior Planner, City of Santa Monica From: Christine Lazzaretto; Molly Iker Date: April 1, Gale Place

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1 To: Scott Albright 1 Senior Planner, City of Santa Monica From: Christine Lazzaretto; Molly Iker Date: April 1, 2015 RE: 15 Gale Place INTRODUCTION Historic Resources Group (HRG) has completed an evaluation of the single-family residence located at 15 Gale Place in the City of Santa Monica, California, for potential historic significance, and to identify significant character-defining features of the property. HRG s review included observation of existing conditions on the property; research of building permits and other primary and secondary sources; and a review of existing photographs and survey data for the property. This report concludes that 15 Gale Place does not appear eligible for listing as a City of Santa Monica Landmark. This conclusion is based on a review of the relevant historic contexts, and an analysis of the eligibility criteria and integrity thresholds for local designation. Previous Surveys and Evaluations The building at 15 Gale Place has not been documented in a previous survey. It is not currently listed in the California State Historical Resources Inventory. 1 1 State of California, Office of Historic Preservation, Historic Resources Inventory, August, 2011.

2 HISTORIC CONTEXT Postwar Development in Santa Monica With an infusion of military personnel and Douglas Aircraft employees during World War II, Santa Monica experienced a massive surge in population. In the four years between 1940 and 1944, Santa Monica went from 53,200 inhabitants to 65,000, a 22 percent increase. 2 A postwar building boom began in 1946 with the construction of several residential tracts of single-family residences. 3 These single-family residential tracts were of moderate size, and most were only given numerical references. A few tracts had names, such as the Towner Terrace tract or the Santa Fe Tract. 4 2 The Santa Monica Freeway was completed in 1966, linking Santa Monica to the vast expressway network developed in the Los Angeles area. The population of Santa Monica expanded during this period, reaching a total of 88,280 residents in People from various parts of the United States and around the world chose Santa Monica as home, the expanding cultural diversity of the population reflecting the varied ethnic, religious, and national backgrounds of the earliest Santa Monica citizens. Ranch Style Architecture 15 Gale Place is an example of the Ranch style of architecture. The Ranch style originated in the mid-1930s, when California architects Cliff May, H. Roy Kelley, William W. Wurster, and others adapted the traditional housing of southwest ranches, haciendas, and Spanish Colonial revival styles to a suburban house type suited for middle-income families. 5 For the editors of Sunset magazine, arbiter of western value and taste, the Ranch house represented the quintessential California style. 6 By the post-world War II period, the Ranch style had existed for decades, but it rapidly gained unprecedented popularity in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Designs for California Ranch-style homes were published in various nationwide magazines, and Sunset published three books on the subject. They stressed three basic concepts about the ranch house 2 Paula A. Scott, Santa Monica: A History on the Edge (San Francisco: Arcadia Publishing, 2004), p Adapted from PCR Services Corporation and Historic Resources Group, City of Santa Monica Historic Preservation Element, September Santa Monica, Mar Vista and Westwood map, June 1955, Santa Monica Public Library Historical Maps Collection, accessed March 31, David L. Ames and Linda Flint McClelland, National Register Bulletin: Historic Residential Suburbs, Guidelines for Evaluation and Documentation for the National Register of Historic Places (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, 2002), p Kevin Starr, Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 52.

3 rather than discussing its style: livability, flexibility, and an unpretentious character. 7 California Ranch homes emphasized outdoor living areas extending beyond the house on the same level, and merged interior space with exterior, separated by large areas of glass and sliding glass doors (typically fully-glazed side-sliding aluminum frame doors). 3 In 1946, Sunset magazine and Cliff May published Sunset Western Ranch Houses, which served as the definitive guide to the ranch house. 8 In the late 1940s, magazine surveys indicated the postwar family s preference for the informal ranch house as well as a desire to have all their living space on one floor with a basement for laundry and other utilities and a multipurpose room for hobbies and recreation. 9 After gaining popularity in the 1940s, the style became dominant in the United States throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The popularity of the ranch house was made possible by the nation s increasing dependence on the automobile. Never before was it possible to use land so extravagantly. The 1950s suburban ranch house reflected modern consumer preferences and growing incomes. With its low, horizontal silhouette and rambling floor plan, the house type reflected the nation s growing fascination with the informal lifestyle of the west coast as well as the changing functional needs of families. The Ranch house emphasized its horizontality by maximizing façade width. This effect was increased by the addition of attached garages, which were integral to most ranch houses. The Ranch style is loosely based on early Spanish Colonial precedents of the American southwest, modified by influences from Craftsman and Prairie modernism of the early 20 th century. With L- or U-shaped floor plans and sliding glass doors that provide direct access to the patio from the living area, the Ranch house [was] ideal for an indoor/outdoor lifestyle and great for families, qualities that made it [extremely] appealing in its early days. 10 The style is characterized by asymmetrical one-story buildings with low-pitched roofs. Roofs are typically hipped, cross-gabled, or side-gabled with a moderate or wide eave overhang, either boxed or open, with rafters exposed as homage to Craftsman architecture. Both wooden and brick wall cladding are common, and are often used in combination. Picture windows, broad chimneys, and horizontal bands of windows became distinguishing features of the lower-cost suburban ranch home. 7 David Bricker, Ranch Houses are Not All the Same, accessed August 28, Starr, Golden Dreams, p Ames and McClelland, Historic Residential Suburbs, p Alan Hess, The Ranch House (New York: Henry N. Abrams, 2004), back cover.

4 Cecil A. Gale Cecil Arnold Gale was born May 12, 1896 in New Brunswick, Canada, and moved to California in He soon started building in Los Angeles, where he built the Gale Manor Apartments, among several other buildings. Gale moved to Santa Monica in His biography indicates that he was working as a carpenter from 1939 until 1953, a contractor in 1954, and a builder in His most prolific period in Santa Monica was from 1935 to In 1953, Gale estimated that he had erected about one thousand medium- to high-priced homes in the area, characterized by "extremely good floor plans and tasteful decorations." Many of the building permits for Gale s houses list him as both the owner and builder, indicating that they were built as speculative ventures. 12 Gale earned such local renown that his homes were occasionally advertised simply as one of those attractive Cecil Gale homes in classified advertisements in the Los Angeles Times In 1953, Gale constructed nine homes at the northwestern limits of Santa Monica on San Vicente Boulevard and on a cul-de-sac he named Gale Place. Cost of the homes ranged from $40,000 to $50,000. In 1954, Gale completed construction of 30 Gale Place, where he and his wife moved in Gale lived there until his death on January 14, ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION 15 Gale Place is located on the north side of Gale Place, northwest of the intersection of San Vicente Boulevard and 17 th Street in the City of Santa Monica. The property is bounded on the east and west by single-family residences, on the north by the Riviera Country Club, and on the south by Gale Place. The property contains a one-story singlefamily residence constructed in The building is of wood frame construction. 14 It is in the Ranch style, with a rectangular plan and horizontal massing. The side-gable roof is clad in cedar shake. There is a broad, ashlar stone exterior chimney on the south façade. The exterior walls are clad in board and batten siding. The primary entrance is located on the south façade and consists of a partially-glazed paneled wood door with fixed sidelights. The door is recessed beneath an archway with decorative brackets, and is accessed by a flagstone path and short stairway. Fenestration consists primarily of paired four-over-four double-hung wood windows, with a bay window at the west end of the south façade. Character-defining Features Every historic building is unique, with its own identity and its own distinctive character. Character-defining features are those visual aspects and physical features or elements that 11 Gale biographical information from the Santa Monica Community Book (5th Edition), Margarita J. Wuellner, Preliminary Historic Assessment: th Street (APN ), March 30, Classified Ad 7 No Title, Los Angeles Times, November 29, City of Santa Monica building permits.

5 give the building its character and help to convey its significance. Character-defining features can identify the building as an example of a specific building type, usually related to the building s function; they can exemplify the use of specific materials or methods of construction, or embody an historical period or architectural style; and they can convey the sense of time and place in buildings associated with significant events or people. A building s character-defining features can include but are not limited to: 5 Setting and site; Shape and massing; Roof and related features, such as chimneys or skylights; Projections, such as balconies or porches; Recesses or voids, such as galleries or arcades; Windows and doors and their openings; Materials, with their distinguishing textures, finishes, colors and craftsmanship; and Interior features, materials, finishes, spaces, and spatial relationships. Character-defining features are those constructed during the property s period of significance that contribute to the integrity of the property. In general, retaining characterdefining features retains the integrity of an historic property, and therefore helps to retain the property s eligibility as an historic resource. Significant impacts on an historic resource result from major change to character-defining features, or from many incremental changes over time. 15 Gale Place is a good local example of Ranch-style architecture. Significant exterior character-defining features include: Single-story height Rectangular plan Horizontal massing Low-pitched, side-gabled roof Asymmetrical primary façade Picture windows Horizontal bands of windows Wood board and batten exterior wall cladding Broad chimney Alterations In 1982, there was an addition to the eastern portion of the building. The addition is visible from the public right-of-way and altered the original roofline.

6 EVALUATION CRITERIA Historic resources may be designated at the federal, state, and local levels. Current designations available in Santa Monica include: National Historic Landmarks, National Register of Historic Places, California Register of Historical Resources, California Registered Historical Landmarks, California Points of Historical Interest, and Santa Monica Landmarks, Structures of Merit, and Historic Districts. While some programs place emphasis on architectural character, all use basic criteria relating to a property s place in important events or patterns of development, association with important personages, and architectural significance. This evaluation of 15 Gale Place is limited to the property s eligibility for designation as a Santa Monica Landmark. 6 Santa Monica Landmark Designation Criteria The Santa Monica Landmarks and Historic Districts Ordinance includes criteria and procedures for designating City of Santa Monica Landmarks, Structures of Merit, and Historic Districts. Landmarks may include structures, natural features, or any type of improvement to a property that is found to have particular architectural or historical significance to the City. The Landmarks Commission may approve the landmark designation of a structure, improvement, natural feature or an object if it finds that it meets one or more of the following criteria: (1) It exemplifies, symbolizes, or manifests elements of the cultural, social, economic, political or architectural history of the City. (2) It has aesthetic or artistic interest or value, or other noteworthy interest or value. (3) It is identified with historic personages or with important events in local, state or national history. (4) It embodies distinguishing architectural characteristics valuable to a study of a period, style, method of construction, or the use of indigenous materials or craftsmanship, or is a unique or rare example of an architectural design, detail or historical type valuable to such a study. (5) It is a significant or a representative example of the work or product of a notable builder, designer or architect. (6) It has a unique location, a singular physical characteristic, or is an established and familiar visual feature of a neighborhood, community or the City.

7 Integrity In addition to meeting one or more eligibility criteria, a property must retain historic integrity. Historic integrity is the ability of a property to convey its significance and is defined as the authenticity of a property s historic identity, evidenced by the survival of physical characteristics that existed during the property s historic period. 15 The National Park Service defines seven aspects of integrity: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. To retain historic integrity a property will always possess several, and usually most, of the aspects. 7 HISTORIC RESOURCES ASSESSMENT Integrity The single-family residence at 15 Gale Place has undergone only some alteration. In 1982, a bedroom and bathroom were added to the east, and, in 1987, fire damage was repaired and plumbing fixtures replaced. Additionally, when the house was built, it was surrounded by other Ranch homes. However, through inappropriate alterations, demolition, and incompatible infill, the single-family residence at 15 Gale Place is now one of three remaining Ranch houses on the cul-de-sac; all three have had some degree of alteration. The house retains integrity of location, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. Evaluation for Local Landmark Designation Criterion 1 15 Gale Place does not exemplify, symbolize, or manifest elements of the cultural, social, economic, political or architectural history of the City. It is a good local example of post- World War II residential development constructed by prominent Santa Monica builder/developer Cecil A. Gale. However, according to guidelines established by the National Park Service for evaluating postwar suburbanization, typically these resources are evaluated as historic districts so that important elements such as community planning and tract features can also be considered. Individual properties may be eligible, but only if they also exhibit outstanding design characteristics, or are significant for an association with an important person or event. 16 Criterion 2 15 Gale Place is a good local example of the Ranch-style of architecture and exhibits significant character-defining features of the style; however it is not distinctive and there is 15 U.S. Department of the Interior, National Register Bulletin 16: How to Complete the National Register Registration Form (Washington D.C.: National Park Service) 1997, p Ames and McClelland, Historic Residential Suburbs.

8 an addition that is visible from the public right-of-way. Therefore, it does not appear eligible under Criterion 2. 8 Criterion 3 15 Gale Place is not identified with historic personages or with important events in local, state, or national history. Criterion 4 Although 15 Gale Place is a good local example of Ranch-style architecture from the post- World War II period, it does not embody distinguishing architectural characteristics valuable to a study of a period, style, and method of construction, and it is not a unique example of an architectural design or historical type valuable to such a study. Criterion 5 15 Gale Place is the work of notable Santa Monica builder Cecil A. Gale. His work followed trends of the time, and contributed to the postwar architectural development of the City of Santa Monica. However, this property is not a significant example of his work, and it is located in a neighborhood that has seen a lot of change over time and no longer reflects its original development as a postwar Ranch house neighborhood. Criterion 6 15 Gale Place does not have a unique location, nor is it an established and familiar visual feature of the neighborhood, community, or city. CONCLUSION The single-family residence located at 15 Gale Place in the City of Santa Monica does not appear eligible for local designation. It is a good local example of ranch style architecture built by a prominent local builder. However, it is not an outstanding or noteworthy example of the style, it is not associated with important people or events, and it has been altered.

9 BIBLIOGRAPHY Classified Ad 7 No Title. Los Angeles Times. November 29, Ames, David L. and Linda Flint McClelland. National Register Bulletin: Historic Residential Suburbs, Guidelines for Evaluation and Documentation for the National Register of Historic Places. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, p Bricker, David. Ranch Houses are Not All the Same. accessed August 28, City of Santa Monica building permits. Hess, Alan. The Ranch House. New York: Henry N. Abrams, PCR Services Corporation and Historic Resources Group. City of Santa Monica Historic Preservation Element. September Santa Monica, Mar Vista and Westwood map, June Santa Monica Public Library Historical Maps Collection. Accessed March 31, Scott, Paula A. Santa Monica: A History on the Edge. San Francisco: Arcadia Publishing, p Starr, Kevin. Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 52. State of California. Office of Historic Preservation. Historic Resources Inventory, August, U.S. Department of the Interior. National Register Bulletin 16: How to Complete the National Register Registration Form. Washington D.C.: National Park Service p White, Carl Frederick, ed. "Cecil Arnold Gale." Santa Monica Community Book. 5th ed. Santa Monica, CA: A.H. Cawston, Wuellner, Margarita J. Preliminary Historic Assessment: th Street (APN ). March 30, 2007.

10 PERMIT HISTORY 10 Date Owner Description 07/08/1953 Cecil Gale New construction of single-story, 2500 square foot home of wood frame construction. 05/28/1982 Hasso Hohberg Remodeling and addition of one bedroom and one bathroom. 02/25/1987 Toni Hohberg Repair of fire damage, new electrical, new plumbing fixtures in kitchen.

11 EXISTING CONDITION PHOTOGRAPHS 11 Figure 1: View of south façade, facing northeast.

12 12 Figure 2: View of east addition, facing northwest.

13 13 Figure 3: View of garage, bay window, and large ashlar stone chimney, facing north.

14 14 Figure 4: Contextual view of Gale Place, facing northwest.

15 15 Figure 5: Contextual view of Gale Place, facing northeast.

16 SITE MAP 16 N