CA-Modern Magazine Spring 2019

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CA MODERN

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P8 | Joe Eichler’s ‘last stand’ at Palo Alto’s Los Arboles Addition P14 | 12 modern California sites are feared not long for this world P20 | Chris Trueman’s art may be abstract but its concerns are real

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EICHLER INSPIRED HOME TOUR 2019

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Contents

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34

20 28

24

7 On the Homefront Three Eichler tracts in Orange celebrate their ‘historic’ status with May home tour

8 Feature Storyboard Eichler’s ‘last stand’ in homebuilding— Palo Alto’s Los Arboles Addition today

14 California Dreamin’ Call for action: 12 California mid-century modern sites drift into the danger zone

20 Art About the House SoCal painter Chris Trueman delves into the abstract using old media, new ideas

24 CA-Modern Flashback More than nostalgia: vintage lunchboxes of steel still find a way to melt our hearts

28 Blast from the Past Unsung masters of the mid-century: trailblazing with ten Bay Area jewelers

34 Dear Cherry Advice, etiquette and tips for healthy homemaking and mid-mod manners

Contributors Publisher & Managing Editor | Marty Arbunich | marty@eichlernetwork.com Marketing Coordinator | Chris Marcoccio | chris@eichlernetwork.com Publisher’s Consultant | Dave Kalman of Terrella Media

On the Cover While our cover photograph by Albert E. Kahn serves as a clever graphic tying the Eichlers to this issue’s feature on vintage lunchboxes, we hope our treatment doesn’t diminish the important role the 1963 image played in the history of the Eichler homes. The photo of the two schoolboys walking back home to their Eichler neighborhood in San Rafael’s Lucas Valley moved Joe Eichler in a profound way.

Joe brought special attention to it numerous times during the last decade of his life, calling the image “the most eloquent expression of the philosophy of my organization, Eichler Homes.” For Eichler, the two youths in embrace—one black, the other AsianCaucasian—perfectly captured his feelings towards race relations. Albert Kahn felt much the same way. “That photograph was not accidental,” Kahn’s son Brian told us back in 2002. “The two children reflected my father’s view of the only type of society worthy of humanity. It is a statement about an alternative world, one my father believed would come.” In addition to his work as a photographer, Albert Kahn was also an author and political activist, and nephew of Albert Kahn the modernist industrial architect. He died in 1979 at age 67. Kahn left behind a fascinating series of photographs, mostly of children at play, with the Lucas Valley Eichlers as his backdrop.

Features Editor | Dave Weinstein Home-Improvement Editor | Tanja Kern Staff Writers | Dan Smith | Jack Levitan Photography | Sabrina Huang Print Designer | Diana Rich Social Media Editor | Robin Bertelsen of Daxia Digital Web Maintenance | Priscila Hoffman CA-Modern magazine is published quarterly in regional editions during January, April, July, and October by the Eichler Network, P.O. Box 22635, San Francisco, CA 94122. Mailed to thousands of select California mid-century modern households (and aficionados), including all Northern California Eichler and Streng modern homes. Subscriptions and back issues available at the CA-Modern magazine section of Eichler Network Online: eichlernetwork.com. Publisher: 415-668-0954. Marketing: 415-307-3801.

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On the Homefront SoCal tour set Three now-historic Eichler tracts in Orange will open their doors May 18 and 19 Once upon a 21st century time, in

the central Orange County shadow of Disneyland, a mid-century magic kingdom of its own decided at long last to throw open its doors wide to the admiring public.

So let it be known: the three now-historic mid-century modern Eichler tracts in the city of Orange are coming together to host ‘Preserve Orange County Eichler Home Tour,’ their most comprehensive home tour ever, on the weekend of May 18 and 19.

Now, Joe Eichler built approximately 340 homes in early-1960s Orange and several have been on tours since, concedes tour co-organizer and architect Robert Imboden.

“But it wasn’t on this scale,” allows Imboden, resident of the community since 2015, adding, “I think this is the first time they’re being shown in a light as historic resources.”

Imboden should know, as a board member of Preserve Orange County, the principal tour sponsor, and author of the pending application for Orange’s three Eichler tracts to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

National Register status would be like icing on the cake for the Eichlers of Orange, all of which were honored and protected with local historic status last fall when the town’s city council made a monumental move, declaring them historic districts.

“I have no reason other than to expect a good outcome,” Imboden said of the National Register application now under review, and the Orange-based preservation consultant is equally optimistic about the upcoming tour.

“Quite frankly, we have enough homes that we can be a little bit choosy,” he said of the process to select at least nine homes for the

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tour. So many homeowners agreed to participate, he said, that the selection committee can “really curate the homes and provide the diversity we are looking for.”

The synchronously named Fairhaven (1960), Fairmeadow (1962), and Fairhills (1964) Eichler

initial open house, she said, “From then on, we were trying to find an affordable Eichler.”

Singer’s surging career with health care company McKesson Corporation has required some flexibility since her and Chris’ second child was born in 2012, the year they bought an A-framed Jones & Emmons model in Fairhills.

From that point on “we lived in four houses in six years, and two of them were Eichlers,” Singer said with a resigned smile. “I don’t think I’ll ever go back to turn-of-the-century homes. This suits us better.”

After selling their first Fairhills

the remodel, Singer said with another smile, “Robert’s making sure we get the kitchen done before it [the tour] starts.”

“Our approach to selecting the homes for the tour was to include an assortment of properties representative of the various Eichler plans,” Imboden explained. “But it was also to include some diversity in terms of homes that are both very well preserved, as well as some that have been sensitively adapted to meet the changes in lifestyles that have occurred over the past half century.

“The [tour] booklet will include information about each of the homes featured on the tour, but also some information about Joe Eichler and the architectural firms responsible for them.”

Tour tickets cost $60, with discounts available for students and Orange Eichler owners. Activities for children will be provided on May 19. Purchase of a $150 ticket includes the tour, booklet, and admission to a cocktail reception May 18 that will feature a panel

Eichler to move to Walnut Creek for five years, the couple was finally able to renew their love affair with the Eichlers of Orange. They would have loved to get their first Eichler back, Singer says, but the local restaurateurs to whom they sold it told them, “We heard you’re coming back—you can’t have it back.”

Rebuffed, the determined couple pressed on, and soon found the four-bedroom Anshen and Allen design that they will be putting on tour—with its remodeled kitchen, of course. Since Imboden designed

discussion by Imboden and authors Alan Hess and Tom Zoellner. Tour hours are 10am to 4pm each day.

Proceeds of the tour will benefit ‘Preserve Orange County,’ a 501(c)3 nonprofit.

For more information or to purchase tickets to ‘Preserve Orange County Eichler Home Tour,’ visit preserveorangecounty.org/eichlerhome-tour –Dan Smith

HISTORIC STATUS. Top: Joe Eichler (circa 1959) points to his building future: 340 homes in Orange.

Above: One of the Eichlers featured on the Orange tour will be the Fairhaven home of Jeanine Singer and Chris Kopczynski. Right: Two views of a Claude Oakland model from Fairmeadow, also on the tour. tracts are all represented on the tour, as are the three Eichler architectural firms of Anshen and Allen, Jones & Emmons, and Claude Oakland.

Fairhaven resident Jeanine Singer said she and husband Chris Kopczynski are happy to be on the tour—partly in hopes that it will hasten their now-underway kitchen remodel, and partly because visiting an Eichler open house seven years ago basically changed their lives.

“It’s very hard to go back to a ‘normal’ home after you’ve lived in an Eichler,” said Singer, who happens to be an expert on that particular topic. After the couple’s

Photography: courtesy Better Living SoCal

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■F E ATU R E STO RYB O A R D

Los Arboles Addition stays caring and connected in a planned mix of Palo Alto one- and two-story Eichlers Story: Dave Weinstein Photography: Sabrina Huang

From the start it’s been one of Joe Eichler’s more attractive little neighborhoods, large models with low or high gables alongside rare, original Eichler two-story homes.

It’s too bad Joe never got a chance to see it.

The 30 homes of Palo Alto’s Los Arboles Addition, as Eichler named the tract, were among the last he built, and most of the building took place after he died of a heart ailment in July 1974.

Forty-five years later those homes —on Torreya Court and adjacent Loma Verde Avenue, plus one lone model on Middlefield Road—seem virtually intact, presenting an inviting streetscape shaded by live oaks, maples, and a mini-redwood forest.

One owner, Chet Sandberg, has in his yard a torreya tree, the court’s namesake.

‘Los Arboles’ means ‘trees’ in Spanish, but when the tract was new, there were precious few arboles to be found.

“There was no landscaping at all. None 8 CAMODERN

Eichler’s last stand

at all,” recalls original buyer Beverly Martin. It’s called ‘Addition,’ or ‘Los Arboles Addition 2,’ because the homes sit next to the much larger Los Arboles tract from 1959-1961.

More than intact homes and fine trees, though, what people love about life in the Addition are their neighbors.

“Everybody pretty much does take care of each other,” says Michael Montegut, a 16-year resident who has been raising two children here with his wife. “People visit when someone is sick. They help their neighbors who are elderly. It feels like a real neighborhood.”

“Once my kids were locked out of our house when I was late getting home. They knew they could go to any house in the neighborhood and they would be safe,” he says.

Herb Fischgrund, among the tract’s first buyers, didn’t move in until October 1974, several months after Joe’s death. In fact, Herb says that in some ways these aren’t Eichler homes at all, since the builder was the Klingbeil Company.

Klingbeil was a builder that employed Ned Eichler, Joe’s son, in California, from the late 1960s. Ned likely introduced the Ohio-based builder to his father. At some point in the early 1970s, Joe sold his firm of that era to Klingbeil, says Joe’s grandson, David Eichler.

Still, site and house plans are inscribed ‘Joseph L. Eichler Associates,

ONE MEETS TWO. Top: Los Arboles Addition is unusual, not only because it has original two-story Eichlers, but because it has them on flat land and near one-story homes. Here, Herb Fischgrund’s original one-story Eichler (left) stands alongside Matt Johnson’s original two-story (right). In between them, in the rear, is the single-story Eichler of Pradipta Ghosh and Peter Hu. Above: One of the neighborhood’s social spots is Fischgrund’s bench, at the entrance to his Eichler. Seen here are (L-R) Ghosh, Fischgrund, Johnson, and Hu. Inc.,’ and in discussing the tract in a 2003 interview, the late architect Kinji Imada of Claude Oakland & Associates described Eichler as their client.

Klingbeil finished the tract after Joe died.

Los Arboles Addition was one of at least two tracts Joe was developing at the time of his death. The other was San Antonio Court, nine homes on

Parsons Way and Almond Avenue in Los Altos. Eichler, working on all of these homes with architect Oakland, was also producing a few custom homes at the time, including one on Guinda Street in Palo Alto.

Visiting the attractive tract, which is centered on Torreya Court, does not induce a somber mood. But it could if you think not just about Joe’s death

where nearly 3,000 Eichler homes were built. Many other mid-century modern homes dot the town as well, some built by developers clearly inspired by Eichler.

But by the mid-1980s, when Arlene and David Holloway bought their home on Torreya Court, the reputation of Eichlers had hit bottom.

“I remember when I told people we were buying an Eichler, there was a certain amount of snippiness,” Arlene says. “People asked, “Are you getting a

NEW BLOOD. Top: Matt Johnson, seen here on his Eichler staircase, has brought enthusiasm and new social activities to Los Arboles since he arrived in 2015. Center left: Original owners Chet and Jean Sandberg, pictured in their backyard, surrounded by three other images of their beautiful two-story Eichler. but about the fate of Eichler and other mid-century modern homes starting in the mid-1970s.

On Torreya Court in 1974 and 1975, Eichler homes were simultaneously going up—and going away.

These homes are among the last of their kind.

Elsewhere too, the style was fading from fashion. The dream, shared by many progressive thinkers and designers, that open planned, rational homes would become the norm in America, was dying.

Nowhere did the dream come closer to fruition than in Palo Alto,

five-minute one or a ten-minute one?” referring to how long it would take one of the homes to burn down.

In many Eichler neighborhoods after the style fell out of fashion, owners made drastic changes. Not here. Except for an oddball door with leaded glass or an occasional mismatched garage door, the homes appear intact from the street—though some have lost their distinctive original Dutch front doors.

Only one house, on Loma Verde, has lost its Eichler looks, and that happened recently. “And I think they tried [to preserve the look],” says Arlene Holloway.

“They knew they needed more space, and so on. That young man [the owner] was brought up in that house.”

Inside the homes too there have been relatively modest changes, other than standard bath and kitchen remod-

els, says Richard Martin, an original owner. Some walls have been moved.

Pradipta Ghosh and Peter Hu recently got rid of a brick fireplace in the middle of their window wall to open the view.

And in the two-story homes, where upstairs master bedrooms originally were equipped with only half walls to provide views into the double-height living room below, most owners have opted instead for privacy by filling in the wall.

Many people have installed retractable roofs over their atriums to keep

things warm and provide interior-like space in the winter.

The tract has seven basic plans, with variety provided by reversing some of them, and varying rooflines and positions on lots. The site plan was by Oakland & Associates. Pradipta Ghosh is one of many who appreciate that “there are no power lines, so we have unobstructed views.”

One masterful model, the PA-305, has an atrium that is entirely surrounded by living space, instead of serving as an entry courtyard, as most atriums do.

Nancy Mar has been living in one of these models since 1974. “Forty-four years now!” she exclaims. She and her husband were the seventh family to buy here. Besides the atrium, she loves the way the exterior wood paneling extends into the interior.

Los Arboles Addition is unusual, not only because it has original two-story Eichlers, but because it has them on flat land. In places like San Mateo Highlands and Strawberry Point in Marin, site constraints led to Eichler’s use of two-story homes to provide enough floor space on challenging lots.

Asked why Eichler may have put two-story homes in Los Arboles, Herb says, “I can only guess it was to squeeze more houses in.”

By the mid-1970s, the days of Eichler finding large, undeveloped orchards on the Peninsula were in the Continued pg 11 CAMODERN 9

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■F E ATU R E STO RYB O A R D EICHLER’S LAST STAND (continued from pg 9)

past. Los Arboles Addition’s site was originally home to a church and parking lot, says Chet Sandberg, an original owner.

Two-story additions in one-story Eichler tracts always raise fears that privacy will be lost as people gaze from

their second-story bedrooms into their neighbor’s glass-walled rooms. That is a bit of a problem here—but not a desperate one, folks say.

Herb Fischgrund recalled one neighbor who was “bugged by the [neighboring] kids looking into his house.” The man put in a planter and large tree to

bers first visiting it. “We didn’t realize it was an Eichler. I had never heard of two-story Eichlers. I said, ‘This house looks like an Eichler,’ and she [the broker] said, ‘It is an Eichler.’”

“What’s nice about the two-story Eichler is, the bedrooms are all upstairs, so you have a little more privacy,” says

“No one wants teardowns and McMansions,” says Renata Tong, who with her husband, John, are raising two daughters in the Addition.

But the plan did not move forward, with city planners citing the number of existing two-story homes in the tract.

From the start, the neighborhood

ON THE CUL-DE-SAC. Top: The view along Torreya Court presents an inviting streetscape shaded by live oaks, maples, and a mini-redwood forest—and homes that seem virtually intact. Above: The living room and atrium of Pradipta Ghosh and Peter Hu (seen in their kitchen at left). Bottom far left: Partially hidden by trees, the exterior of the Ghosh-Hu Eichler. To its right, another of the neighborhood’s seven different Eichler models.

block views. Arlene Holloway, who lives in a two-story, says foliage preserves their neighbor’s privacy.

Among residents living in a twostory is Michael Montegut, who remem-

Montegut, who had lived in a smaller, single-story Eichler in Cupertino.

The two-story Eichlers have dramatic, double-height living areas, which Montegut enjoys. He says, “The house feels quite large because of the twostory glass when you walk in.”

Almost one third of the Addition’s homes may be two stories already, but when the neighboring Los Arboles tract sought to prevent two-story homes by seeking single-story-only zoning, some people in Los Arboles Addition thought they would do the same.

has attracted folks in what is today called tech. Matt Johnson, who runs a tech firm from his home, appreciates that “the engineers who were original owners who worked for defense contractors, how well they get along with newer folks in tech.”

Residents appreciate their tract’s convenient, Midtown location. Many kids bike to school. Richard Martin used to bike to his job at the Stanford Research Park. Mitchell Park and the library are a short walk or drive away.

Middlefield Road can get traffic, C A M O D E R N 11

■F E ATU R E STO RYB O A R D but it’s never too bad, neighbors say. Across Loma Verde is a small neighborhood shopping center, with a dry cleaner, a shop selling high-end wines, a popular café, and an enormously popular Philz Coffee, famous for its mint mojitos among other pricey drinks.

“There is always a line at Philz,” says John Tong. Neighbors, even those who love coffee, wince when talk turns to the coffee shop. That’s because Philz fanatics park in front of their homes—even when it is illegal to do so—and drive through their court looking for parking or for a shortcut that doesn’t exist (because Torreya ends in a cul-de-sac).

As problems go, an invasion of java junkies is minor. Los Arboles Addition faced worse grief in its earlier years. Two of the problems were ones Eichler had faced periodically throughout his career—the vicissitudes of the real estate and money markets, and quality control.

TONG EICHLER. Top: “No one wants teardowns and McMansions,” says Renata Tong, hiding here with husband John behind the Dutch door at their lovely Eichler entrance. Above: The Tongs’ living room (left) and dining room (right). Bottom right: Their atrium is a favorite place to study for daughter Sophia (left), joined here by friends Emily Su (center) and Cathy Hou (right) and family pooch Kaiya.

The third problem was the sort that Eichler worked hard never to have.

In 1974, when Herb and Alice Fischgrund were house hunting, the housing market was tight, prices were rising, and interest rates were high. When Herb and Alice bought their house, they were looking at a mortgage of eight percent. But by the time the house was done, the lenders were demanding 11.

Sales were slow in the tract, Herb says, with some houses not selling until 1976. It took more than two years to 12 C A M O D E R N

sell 30 houses. Prices were lowered to move the homes, he says.

Mary Triggs bought a two-story home on Loma Verde with her husband, an engineer, in 1976 for $78,600 at about 12 percent interest. There were still six homes unsold, she remembers.

The Fischgrunds discovered a second problem a few months after moving into their home, when winter hit.

“It was freezing,” Herb recalls, adding, “The heating system was not adequate for the size of the house.”

A group of Eichler owners on nearby Harker Avenue were preparing to sue Klingbeil over the defect and asked if folks from Los Arboles Addition would join. “As I sat shivering in my living room, I thought, I could go for that,” Herb says.

Addition has always been a social place.

Nancy Mar and her husband gave Chinese New Year celebrations in the old days. “Great parties,” Herb recalls. Kids played on the quiet cul-de-sac back then, and still do today.

There has never been an official

SERENITY REIGNS. Top: Forty-four-year Eichler owner Nancy Mar stands inside her woodsy interior looking up at her rectractable atrium cover. Her home has a peaceful Asian presence to it, a theme that continues into the bathroom (above) and to her front exterior (near right). Far right: Another of Los Arboles’ Eichler models.

The small settlement that resulted, he says, provided enough money to add a rolling roof over the atrium. “It’s the best investment I ever made,” Herb says, saying it turned the atrium into ‘another room’ during the winter and allowed for wintertime parties.

The third problem, Mary Triggs says, is “a touchy subject.”

By most accounts, Los Arboles

neighborhood association, but today Renata Tong manages the email tree, keeping in touch with neighbors about parties, good electricians, and news.

Herb, Matt Johnson, Arlene Holloway, and others get together regularly over coffee, rotating from home to home. There is also a book club with half a dozen members.

“There are friendly people on the

court, but we’re not in and out of each other’s houses every day,” Arlene says, adding that folks watch over their neighbors’ homes.

“We refer to ourselves at the ‘Torreya Court Militia.’ We keep an eye on what’s going on,” she says.

Court didn’t share the sentiment.

Mary Triggs, who is from Chile, remembers when some families on the court objected to her two young daughters playing with the other kids. She says this was simply because of their ethnic heritage.

The girls were hurt by the treatment but, Mary recalls, “They are very strong.”

Triggs and her husband responded by keeping to themselves. But for the past decade or so she has taken part in social activities in the tract. Today, Mary says, “It’s more multi-cultural.”

In a neighborhood of 30 homes— in fact, in any neighborhood—one person can make a difference. As Los Arboles Addition heads for its 50th year, that person may be Matt Johnson, who moved here in 2015. Matt thinks a lot about Eichlers and Eichler communities and wants to improve his own house in period fashion—and his neighborhood too.

“Which is considered the iconic Eichler model, like a ‘65 Mustang?” he asks. And, in other neighborhoods, what do people do to really create friendships? Matt plans to organize an Eichler shindig in 2019 featuring speakers and more.

Matt Johnson puts on a barbecue or two every year, inviting friends from the tract as well as people he works with. Chet, whose yard is vast, throws a garden party annually.

Michael Montegut enjoys that people wave to each other when they drive by, and stop and talk when they meet while out walking. One center of social life is the bench Herb and Alice established in front of their home, where they would sit and greet people walking by.

Alice died last year, so now it’s just Herb. “People walk by, and you often see a group of neighbors talking to him on his bench,” Michael says.

For years, though, one family kept its distance—and not because they were snooty. Joe Eichler was known for welcoming ethnic minorities to his tracts.

But some homeowners on Torreya

And this is a guy, by the way, who has swum the English Channel.

Herb Fischgrund, who has become a good friend of Matt’s, says about the Eichlers, in a tone not quite jaded, “I take it all for granted. I don’t want the architecture to change. But it’s just a house. But Matt brings such enthusiasm to the architecture of the Eichler.

“Enthusiasm. I mean, it just overflows!” ■ • The 30 Eichler homes of Los Arboles Addition (some early title and assessor’s documents also called it ‘Los Arboles Addition No. 2’) can be found at the intersection of Middlefield Road and Loma Verde Drive. Homes are on Torreya Court and Loma Verde Avenue. A single home, which backs up to the homes on Torreya, is on Middlefield Road.

Additional photography: Dave Weinstein C A M O D E R N 13

■CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’

NOT LONG FOR

THIS WORLD? Teardown threats loom for these twelve special California modern sites that hang on for dear life Story: Dave Weinstein

Do people take preservation of modernist structures seriously?

They do in San Francisco, where the town’s Planning Commission recently ordered the owner of a Richard Neutra-designed home to rebuild it as it originally looked, after he tore it down illegally.

Throughout the nation, architects, planners, and preservationists have watched as many buildings from the 1940s to the 1970s have come down.

But as the mid-century modern resurgence has grown, so have concerns about significant and beautiful residential, commercial, and institutional buildings.

Folks who might once have fought simply to save their modern neighborhoods often find themselves branching out to the wider world of modernism.

All too often, significant examples of modern residential architecture have come tumbling down with no notice. In recent years, that happened to two California modernist gems: the Brentwood home of Los Angeles architect William Krisel in 2014; and, in that same year, the spectacular Atherton residence of mid-century modern developer Elmer Gavello, a home that was designed by 14 C A M O D E R N

homebuilder Joe Eichler’s architects Anshen and Allen.

With larger buildings, though, there is often more notice, and time to react.

There have been victories, as supporters band together to protect threatened treasures.

Some of the endangered buildings discussed here are sure to go. But others could be rescued—perhaps with your help.

1 Covina Bowl

Built: 1956 Architect: Powers, Daly & DeRosa Where: 1060 West San Bernardino Rd., Covina There are people who would simply never go bowling. Yet many of those people deeply mourn the closure of Covina Bowl in late 2017 and wonder whether it will ever reopen.

It’s that striking of an image on the land, a true treasure of the roadside, with a towering, 60-foot-tall freestanding sign and a triangular entry that is “reminiscent of the pyramids of ancient Egypt.”

The Covina’s architects—Gordon Powers, Austin Daly, and Pat DeRosa —were bowling alley masters, having designed close to 50 in California.

Among those, Covina was special.

According to a 1962 article in National Bowlers Journal and Billiard Review, and who would know better, “Covina Bowl ultimately became the vanguard for the grandiose class of

photo circa 1950s

bowling center architecture which is still called, for want of a better label, ‘California Style.’”

The building was named to the National Register in 2016. A developer wants to build housing on the site. The Los Angeles Conservancy has been seeking a “win-win situation.”

“Covina Bowl’s Googie elements,” the Register nomination states, “include the auto-centric design, pyramidal entrance, prominent neon sign, exaggerated folded plate canopy-porte-cochere, natural rock piers and accent walls, and plate-glass windows that bring the landscaped outdoors in.”

2 Stanford Medical Center Built: 1959 Architect: Edward Durell Stone Where: 300 Pasteur Dr., Palo Alto

After the original 19th century Stanford Quad, with its rusticated arcades, the most outstanding complex of buildings on campus has to be Stanford Medical

Center. But it is slated to be demolished and replaced due to state seismic rules.

Stanford argues that the center is “functionally deficient.”

Ed Stone, working with landscape architect Thomas Church, created a 56-acre complex with seven buildings that is both delirious and relaxing. His characteristic concrete screen blocks

add romance. Rooms open onto a series of garden courtyards.

Mary Anne Hunting, author of a monograph on the architect, called the center “a hospital of restful beauty with almost every part related to garden courts.”

In arguing to save the building by using it for other purposes, architectural

critic Alan Hess said it was one of the best buildings by Stone, a leading midcentury architect with a style all his own.

“It ranks alongside the 1958 American Embassy in New Delhi and the U.S. Pavilion for the 1958 Brussels Fair in expressing Stone’s innovative, controversial, and highly popular interpretation of modern architecture,” Hess wrote.

3 Joe Eichler’s home (formerly) Built: 1951 Architect: Anshen and Allen Where: 19 Irving Ave., Atherton

No Eichler home looks more like a design by Frank Lloyd Wright than this one builder Joe Eichler had Anshen and Allen design for himself and his family. The Eichlers lived there till 1965, and just one other family has lived there since.

The rustic, warm, tree-shaded home, which suggests the Bazett House, the Wright home in Hillsborough where Joe had previously lived—the one that inspired him to photo circa mid-1950s become a builder—has clearly been well loved. It remains almost entirely intact and is built around a large yard with a pool.

But no relatively compact home on a large lot in wealthy Atherton is safe from demolition when it changes hands. The home has no official historic designation, though it would clearly qualify for both national and state recognition because of its architectural quality and association with master architects and an important home developer.

Another custom Eichler home from 1951, just across the street from this one, came down two years ago shortly after it was sold.

While placing a home on the National Register of Historic Places or State Register of Historical Resources does not guarantee preservation, such placement means that planners must consider the building’s cultural value before allowing demolition.

C A M O D E R N 15

■CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’

4 Century 21 Dome Theatre

Built: 1964 Architect: Vincent G. Raney Where: 3161 Olsen Dr. (at Winchester Blvd.), San Jose San Jose preservationists and lovers of modern cinemas fought hard to preserve at least one of the domed theaters that made up this four-dome complex—and sort of succeeded. But San Jose will no longer have a flying saucer-like theater.

Instead, one of the domed theaters will be preserved and incorporated into the planned Santana West Tech Campus.

In 2014, the commission found the theater eligible for listing on the

5 Connell House

Built: 1958 Architect: Richard Neutra Where: 1170 Signal Hill Rd., Pebble Beach As Pebble Beach homes go, the Connell House by the pioneering modern architect Neutra is simple. Simplicity is a virtue for modernist structures.

The home has another virtue—a view of the Pacific.

That’s the virtue the home’s owner, a Silicon Valley exec, hopes to play up, while replacing the 3,300-squarefoot home with something quadrupling in size.

The battle to preserve this 1958 home began a decade ago. The Alliance of Monterey Area Preservationists has sunk untold hours into saving it because of its architectural virtues.

Their arguments have been judged

worthy, including by state and federal officials who found the building eligible for the National Register of Historic Resources and placed it on the state’s Register. It has not been placed on the National Register, however, because approval by a private owner is required.

Still, when the owner sought a demolition permit, she was required to do an environmental report because the building was deemed significant. The report said preservation of the building was the best alternative. County planners will consider the issue soon.

Architectural historians Barbara Lamprecht and Anthony Kirk, who wrote the register nomination, said of the house that it “is still a prescient work of architecture that demonstrates Neutra’s convictions and establishes a template for contemporary and future architects in how to design with the land.”

photo circa 1950s

6 First National Bank (formerly) Built: 1958 Architect: Higgins and Root Where: 1010 South First St., San Jose

For a time branch banks throughout California—and often beyond—played a role in their communities, not just as lenders and as educators, convincing children to open banking accounts, but as objects of art.

The trend can be linked to artist Millard Sheets, who, starting in 1956, designed and outfitted dozens of Home Savings banks with murals, sculptures, and mosaics.

By the late 1950s and early ‘60s, San Jose’s longtime institution, First National Bank, had gone equally modern, bringing modern bank 16 C A M O D E R N

National Register and gave it official state designation as well.

The Century 21 Dome was the only one of the domed theaters that had retained its looks by 2014. It opened in 1964 to show large-format Cinerama films.

“The domes, which evoke notions of a spaceship, were emblematic of an era that has vanished, of optimism in the future, looking ahead to the 21st century and the space age with joy and anticipation,” wrote author Therese Poletti, who argued for preservation.

In recent years, domed theaters have been coming down throughout the Bay Area, including two others in San Jose and one in Pleasant Hill.

branches complete with public art to neighborhoods and redoing its onceconservative downtown tower in a modern idiom.

“First National Bank (later becoming Bank of the West) would build numerous impressive buildings throughout San Jose, many of them featuring tile mosaic murals designed in the expressionist modernist shapes of the day,” the firm PAST wrote in 2001 for the ‘San Jose Modernism Historic Context Statement.’

The branch at South First and Willow, now bedraggled, empty, and available for lease (or worse?) is a superb example of civic- and art-minded commercial architecture. The wonderful mosaic mural is by Mary Henry.

Continued pg 18

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■CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’ NOT LONG... (continued from pg 16)

7 Town & Country Center

Built: 1948, 1955 Architect: A. Quincy Jones and Paul R. Williams; 1955 addition by Don Wexler Where: 146-174 North Palm Canyon Dr., Palm Springs Palm Springs preservationists have been fighting to save this modern shopping center and entertainment venue for more than a decade. They have fended off several attempts to destroy the once-swank structure.

It was designed by modernist A. Quincy Jones, who would later design homes for Joe Eichler, and Paul R. Williams, a pioneering African American architect who worked in a variety of styles.

The center won popularity in the

photo circa 1949

growing community of Palm Springs when it opened, and praise in the national architectural press. Its dining room and lounge became the place to be.

“The Town and Country Center is one of the best examples of the International Style of architecture in Southern California, and is an impor-

tant early ‘mixed use’ development. It is also architecturally noteworthy for its pedestrian-friendly open-air courtyard which creates passage between two prominent streets,” the National Register nomination stated.

Now the owner is pressing to rehabilitate the center and is working with an esteemed architectural firm, Marmol

Radziner. But some leading desert preservations have doubts.

After a meeting in late 2018 on the plan, the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation reported a “general sense…that a significant amount of the [Town & Country’s] historic fabric…was being proposed for demolition.”

8 Bob’s Big Boy (formerly)

just designing them to sell hamburgers.”

Fans, though, see these increasingly rare examples of roadside mid-century design as wonderfully wacky retorts to the increasingly bland architecture that is taking their place—and as historically important too.

San Jose preservationist Heather David believes the Winchester Avenue structure, which started out as a Bob’s Big Boy restaurant in the 1960s and then became Flames Coffee Shop for 25 years before closing in 2016, may be the only example of a Big Boy based on Armet and Davis’s original, 1958 prototype design remaining in the Bay Area.

It may soon be gone, though, to be replaced by the Santana West Tech Campus, which would also displace— though partially preserve—another iconic mid-century landmark, the Century 21 Dome.

Built: 1965-1966 Architect: Armet & Davis Where: 449 South Winchester Blvd., San Jose

rendering circa 1965

9 Capitol Towers

Built: 1959-1961 Architect: Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons Where: Between Fifth and Seventh Sts. (and N and P), Sacramento This attractive ten-acre garden city within a city is comprised of low-rise and high-rise apartments, grassy areas and paths, and a sculpture wall. Pedestrian walkways are kept safely away from roads.

The design was by top modern architects. Besides WB&E, Vernon DeMars and Edward Larrabee Barnes were involved.

A proposal to densify this little district by replacing the low-rise buildings with high-rises riled Sacra18 C A M O D E R N

mento’s dedicated band of modernists. They fought hard to preserve Capitol Towers and to stave off its replacement, Sacramento Commons.

But despite some victories (including state approval of the neighborhood’s listing on the National Register), they appear to have lost.

Planners approved of the change in part because Sacramento Commons would qualify as a “transit priority project.” The neighborhood, by the way, is a short walk to the State Capitol.

The National Register nomination, prepared by the group Sacramento Modern under leader Gretchen Steinberg, cited Capitol Towers as “a wellplanned and well-designed example of urban redevelopment housing.”

Are the world’s great designers the best spokespeople for their own designs? Not in the case of Eldon Davis, who with partner Louis Armet, designed thousands of outlandish fast food and coffee shops throughout the United States and Canada, including this striking example, which lovers of Googie architecture desperately hope to preserve.

“I can’t see why they’d try to preserve any of them,” Davis told the Los Angeles Times in 1986, as the paper recounted in its 2011 obituary for the architect. “We would have liked to have made them more aesthetic, but we were

10 Home Savings Bank Built: 1970 Architect: Millard Sheets Where: 2600 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica

Millard Sheets redefined roadside architecture as something that went beyond gaudy, goofy, and ‘Googie.’ He gave it class, like you’d find in an art museum, by designing dozens of banks throughout California (and, later, beyond) and adorning them inside and out with art created by himself or by artists belonging to a stable he’d created around his studio in Claremont.

It’s amazing how many of these immediately identifiable Sheets banks, many originally for Home Savings, still

entertain passersby in towns large and small. It is shocking that one of Sheet’s most prominent works on one of the most prominent sites faces destruction.

The owner of the former Santa Monica branch, which in recent years has been used for retail, plans to rip it down but donate its exterior mural to the city.

The Los Angeles Conservancy, which is trying to save the building, notes of it, “Sheets’ design for the Santa Monica location introduced some new variations to his Home Savings branch designs, including a building plan that features two wings projecting at 45-degree angles from the front elevation, framing the entry plaza. The building is itself positioned at a 45-degree angle to the corner of the lot.”

11 Metropolitan Water District Built: 1963 Architect: William Periera & Associates Where: 1111 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles

photo circa 1963

12 Star Theatre

Built: 1947 Architect: S. Charles Lee Where: 145 N. First St., La Puente To devotees of movie palaces, S. Charles Lee (1900-1990) is a star on the order of Clark Gable. Lee believed the design of movie theaters was as important to the movie-going experience as the films themselves.

“The show starts on the sidewalk,” he would say, and anyone who has visited his grand cinema palaces in Los Angeles believes it. The Star, though, in the small city of La Puente, 35 miles east of Dodger Stadium, is something else entirely.

It’s simple, innovative, modern in its functionality and use of new materials and forms, and it is threatened by plans

During his career, William Pereira and firm designed office towers, campuses, banks, and entire city plans. The firm’s most famous building is San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid.

Yet today so many of his projects are coming down that folks in Los Angeles have formed a project ‘Pereira in Peril’ that has brought 100-plus people to meetings to save Pereira’s buildings.

Although a Pereira-designed tower for the MWD was restored and converted into residences next door, the low-rise campus, with its concrete screen walls, is “threatened by demolition, with plans to reconstruct fragments [of the

original design],” says author and preservationist Alan Hess. “That’s not preservation. It’s not even an homage.”

Like other Pereira projects, the building floats above a decorative pool of water.

The developer plans to replace the Pereira structure with a million square feet of condos, apartments, hotel rooms, and more.

The MWD campus is a crucial work in Pereira’s career. “It marks a definite turning point in his career, setting up new ideas about Southern California, turning away from the International Style of past projects…,” Hess says. “He was much more responding to the culture and climate of Southern California with the integral sunscreens, the terraces, the water [feature], the landscaping.”

to build condos on the site.

The barrel-vaulted building (the website Cinema Treasures calls it “Quonset Hut style”) was constructed using a series of crisscrossing arches.

The freestanding, star-topped tower sign remains a town landmark (not always with positive associations; for years the Star showed ‘adult’ films.)

At least two groups are fighting to preserve the historic theater, including one made up of locals. The other is the Los Angeles Conservancy, which says of the Star: “Lee’s design for the Star Theatre is directly influenced by two important postwar-era trends: lingering wartime restrictions on building materials and the growing prominence of the automobile.”

Continued pg 33 C A M O D E R N 19

■ART ABOUT THE HOUSE

Story: Dave Weinstein Art: Chris Trueman Lead photography: Adriene Biondo

PUSHING THE LIMITS

Chris Trueman’s innovative paintings may be abstract but they still explore what’s real in the world we live in

If it’s a sunny day in Upland, Califor-

nia—and it usually is—you can learn about Chris Trueman’s art just by walking by the studio where he works. All you need to do is listen.

The artist often keeps his large roll-up studio door open so he can take in the San Gabriel Mountains that loom to the north, making it easy to hear his workaday artist’s soundtrack—mixtapes of dance, electronic, and downtempo sounds.

Trueman is an abstract painter, continuing a tradition whose Western fine art beginnings reach back to the start of the 20th century. It’s a tradition that has been declared dead numerous times, most succinctly by the conservative artist and writer Wyndham Lewis: “The abstract is dead of a very customary complaint of civilized man: boredom,” Lewis wrote in 1940.

And let’s not forget, by the way, how many times over the past several decades the entire enterprise of painting has been declared dead.

Early on, Trueman contemplated focusing on digit rather than paint. Alas, he had no choice, as he learned while studying at the San Francisco Art Institute. His digital creations kept looking like paintings.

“My professor told me, ‘You’re switching media, but you are essentially painting.’ When I graduated, that stuck in my mind. So I thought, rather than creating new media with old ideas, I would use old media with new ideas.”

“We are hopefully making work about what is happening now,” Trueman says of his paintings.

Abstract his paintings may be, but they explore many of today’s hottest topics, depending on who is looking and how closely they look. Moods range from dystopian to exuberant.

They delve into people’s retreats from the real world into virtual space, explore where virtual reality begins and real reality ends, and can suggest speed and violence and malevolent weather.

You can see in Trueman’s paintings 20 C A M O D E R N

our changing landscapes, seascapes, and urban-scapes—and much else.

“When I look at Chris’s work, there’s a kind of joyfulness, there’s a kind of extemporaneous-ness, there’s a kind of motion that happens in his work that makes me feel a kind of freedom, a kind of boundlessness with how I experience the world around me,” says Edward Cella, who shows Trueman’s art at his eponymous gallery in Los Angeles.

Jim Lampley, the sportscaster known for his work on HBO’s boxing broadcasts, sees other messages in Trueman’s art. Lampley has five Trueman canvases

in his home in Del Mar, near San Diego.

The first piece that caught his eye “has a white background,” Lampley says. “Diagonal lines are gray, and within the gray is a kind of turbulent assortment of colors—black, orange, and red. When I look at it, it talks to me about war. It looks like a bomb has gone off or there has been some other explosive event. It stirs both fear and realism in me.”

“In every painting there is both a marriage and a collision of order and chaos,” Lampley says.

A Trueman painting often combines ordered, straight-line, or curved grids

with areas of seemingly splashed-on color put together in the way a DJ might combine different sounds in a mixtape.

Trueman never worked as a DJ, but he often listens to DJ-based mixes while working. “There’s a consistency to the beat. It’s sort of regular,” he says.

“If music changes too rapidly, it really throws me off in my work.”

Trueman compares his work to a mixtape in the way he may combine in a single work hard-edge and Op Art-style moiré patterns with the emotional, gestural, dramatic strokes of abstract expressionism.

His Op Art elements create a strong

sense of three-dimensionality. Elsewhere, swirling washes of translucent color suggest a kind of otherworldly, smoky, even celestial space—but sometimes with a degree of menace.

“At first I was looking at the work as [my being] more of a DJ,” Trueman says, “taking elements from hard-edge painting and combining it with abstract expressionism, sort of a counterpoint idea. I was taking the emotive qualities of abstract expressionism and mixing it with the blue collar, anti-ego [attitude] of hard-edge.

“Everything kind of gets mixed up.

It’s like in cooking—fusion cooking,

from the sky. It’s deeply saturated, it vibrates. It’s the color of cinema, the color of illumination.”

Many of Trueman’s paintings, with their color gradients morphing from blue to purple, can suggest psychedelic poster art of the 1960s. Other effects could include woven patterns, iridescence, and shiny silver.

These are seriously sensuous paintings. Are they too pretty to be taken seriously?

“Early on,” Trueman says, “with young painters, there is often a tendency to make things that are unattractive, all black and white, or brown,

OLD MEDIA, NEW IDEAS. As an abstract painter, Chris Trueman (in his studio - top left) continues a tradition whose Western fine art beginnings reach back to the start of the 20th century. Left: Trueman has provided a number of new originals, including this striking one outside the elevators, for the 181 Fremont skyscraper, San Francisco. like Korean tacos.”

“It’s like taking a piece of A and a piece of B,” he adds, “putting it together and getting something different.” “[Trueman’s] color is so important and distinctive,” Cella says. “He works in both a kind of silver, gray, black monochrome. But he can switch into a very saturated, almost-illuminated panel of color that comes from light, that comes from electrical light, that comes

as a way to say, ‘This is not decorative.’

Mine, there is so much activity, there’s so much happening, I’m not concerned with something coming off as pretty, or even garish.”

Speaking of the range of people who collect his art, he says, “[The work is] aesthetically pleasing, a good chunk of it. So I end up getting a real variety of people. Some people buy because it matches the color of a couch.”

C A M O D E R N 21

■ART ABOUT THE HOUSE A recent Trueman exhibit, at the San Francisco gallery Themes + Projects, had his paintings priced from $30,000 (large originals) to $1,500 (small).

Limited-edition prints were $400.

Trueman clearly enjoys making these paintings, often using squeegees to apply acrylic to an unusual material for painters—a relatively new trademarked plastic film called Yupo that repels rather than absorbs paint.

“Modernism is all about innovation, about pushing the material,” Cella says.

“Chris is innovative in that way, the way mid-century architects were innovative, with new materials.”

“He’s had to invent his own choreography, his own set of gestures, to apply the paint,” Cella says, noting that in painting on Yupo, Trueman can both put paint on and wipe it away.

“In a way it is translucent,” Cella says of Trueman’s painted surfaces. “The works almost seem like they are constructed digitally, or like there is a light source emanating from it.”

“I like to have a big bag of tricks or materials to use,” Trueman says.

These include spray painting and silkscreening, and also ‘interference’ paint, which can create a different set of colors and shapes depending on the angle from which a painting is viewed.

With interference paint, he says, “A photo can only show one aspect of the painting.”

Andi Campognone, who has known Trueman for a decade and is curator of the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, says his work is all about today—especially today in Southern California.

“One thing that makes a really great painting is the artist’s ability to tell their stories about the time they are living,” she says. “He makes paintings that reflect his current landscape,

not just the landscape of the place but the landscape of painting, the landscape of politics, the landscape of being a family man.”

Trueman lives in Claremont, a

lovely art-soaked town filled with colleges an hour east of Los Angeles, with his wife, a hospice social worker, and three young children. He teaches art at Chaffey Community College in

URBAN ELEGANCE. Top: In the art collection at the entrance to the Los Angeles luxury hi-rise condo Ten50 hangs this large canvas by Trueman, part of the decor’s mix of moody and industrial glamour.

22 C A M O D E R N

Rancho Cucamonga.

Trueman often emphasizes to his students that art is about more than working in your studio. It pays to know other artists, dealers, and curators.

tions. He is part of the creative spirit.”

Trueman’s art delves into the murky world where reality and virtual reality mix. Although his paintings may suggest abstract expressionism in part,

other showed the identical paintings as digital reproductions. “They were as close as possible to the originals,” Trueman says. Wall panels made clear which were original paintings and

influencing their value,” he says.

“I had to think, how do I price these? Because as sort of a performative piece, they were almost original, in that sense.”

“I think painting is largely a perceptual practice at this point,” Trueman adds.

Trueman, who was born in 1978, grew up in Chico and gravitated towards San Francisco as the closest major art center. He studied first at the Art Institute there, then at the Claremont Graduate School, where he got his MFA in 2010.

Things have been going right for Trueman. Not only does he show in galleries in Northern and Southern California, Australia, Tulsa, and Houston, he’s gotten some large commissions, including at the office tower Ten50 Grand in Los Angeles.

His biggest commission is new—at the new 181 Fremont Street tower in San Francisco. One of the building’s

MIXTAPE ON CANVAS. Top: Trueman in his studio, applying the spray-and-peel method that often unveils ordered, straight-line, or curved grids with areas of seemingly splashed-on color, like his work above.

“You spend half your time in the studio and half your time in the art world,” he tells students. “That’s where you find shows and collectors. If you don’t go to people’s shows, who’s going to come to your show?”

Much of his art mingling also takes place online, mostly through sharing images and comments on Instagram, which enables him to become part of an active art community that is worldwide.

“You can quickly scan 30 or 40 things,” Trueman says. “You can keep an eye on what people are doing.”

It also helps that Los Angeles has become “an epicenter” for new artists, says Campognone. “It’s a place artists are coming to from around the world —with new approaches to artmaking here—and they’re looking at innova-

Trueman avoids textural paint handling.

From a bit of distance the images could be, well, computer generated.

“You’re stewing on these ideas,” he says. “How images are dispersed and communicated, how much life people see on their phones, where art is devoid of tangibility. Seeing an art show on Instagram—it’s a whole different ballgame when you see it in person.”

He played with this idea two years ago in a sort of ‘is it live or is it Memorex’ two-continent-paired exhibit—one in Brisbane, Australia, the other in Los Angeles. (Remember the ad campaign from the early 1970s? Were you hearing Ella Fitzgerald sing—or a recording of Ella on Memorex tape?)

One of the exhibits featured paintings done by the artist’s hand. The

which were reproductions.

“I was thinking so much about how people look at the world through their devices and social media,” he says. “I wanted to see if it would cause a pause in the way people perceive the work.”

Was there a difference between original and copy? Yes. “The sheen on the [digital] surface was too uniform,” he says.

The artist and gallery priced the digital versions 30 percent less than the ‘originals.’ But why was that, Trueman asks. “Is it just the romantic attachment that we have to the painting, that the artist touched it? What is the intrinsic value of an original? Does it matter if it is an original?”

“Even by pricing them, we were

tenants is Instagram. Trueman’s mural will be alongside the elevated Salesforce Park, an oasis of greenery atop the City’s Transbay Transit Center.

“I’m supporting a family from my art shows,” he says.

Trueman is producing art for a 2019 show at Edward Cella Art & Architecture. He’ll travel to Australia for a solo showing there. He’s also hoping to get a solo exhibit in New York, to show more in Europe, and to be featured in museums.

He’s optimistic, saying, “I’m on a sturdy trajectory.” ■ • For more of Chris Trueman’s work, visit ChrisTrueman.com Additional photography: Laure Joliet; and courtesy DES Architects + Engineers C A M O D E R N 23

■CA MODERN FLASHBACK

x o b h c n Lu

love

How nostalgia, art and history keep fans passionate about the metal pail that once defined their identity Story: Jack Levitan

They’re made of cold steel, but for some reason lunchboxes can just melt your heart.

“You get the warm, fuzzy feeling of when you were a kid and you wanted to play,” says Tom Fitzsimmons.

Fitzsimmons grew up when ‘Star Wars’ first hit, and became a fan. The lunchboxes he displays at home bring him back to the days of “may the Force be with you.”

Fitzsimmons, whose Concord shop, Pot of Gold Collectibles and More, specializes in vintage toys, always has a few lunchboxes on his shelves.

“When people see the lunchboxes we have here, it reminds them of their own childhood, the lunchboxes they carried in school, the ones they used to play hockey with, sliding it across the floor.”

But if you think the love of lunch24 C A M O D E R N

boxes is just about nostalgia—well, you’re mostly right. But it’s about art too, and history. The story of lunchboxes even comes with a little mystery.

And for some, lunchboxes have been about hitting it big.

Back in 1989, the height of lunchbox mania, Massachusetts artist and lunchbox collector (they’re called ‘boxers’) Scott Bruce told ABC News that lunchboxes were the wave of the future.

What Bruce was talking about was the boxes’ financial future. “There’s been a remarkable appreciation, something like 100 percent a year,” Bruce said of

PAIL OF PASSION. Top: Back in the 1960s, when this photo was shot at the Lucas Valley Eichler tract in San Rafael, lunchboxes were all the craze.

The boy on the left lunched with the ‘Munsters.’ Right: Before the craze hit in post-World War II, most lunchboxes looked plain and ordinary, like this one.

LUNCHBOX MANIA. Back in the day, the average kid carrying a lunch to school (above, top) only owned one lunchbox. However, between 1949 and 1985, more than 450 different lunchbox choices became available in the U.S. Right: Here are a few of the greatest hits. Row one (L-R): Teenager (1957), Disneyland Castle (1957), Flintstones (1964). Row two: Roy Rodgers (1958), Lone Ranger (1954), Daniel Boone (1955). Row three: Lost in Space (1967), Astronaut Space (1960), Jetsons (1963). prices for collectable boxes. “Few stocks can match that.”

Scott estimated that his collection —1,500 boxes at the time—was worth $75,000. And he suggested that savvy parents should invest in lunchboxes to pay for their youngsters’ college educations.

Good idea. But if you do, Mr. and Mrs. Collector, please advise little Keila or little Enrico not to play hockey with their lunchboxes.

Today, prices can still reach amazing levels—but that’s so only if the lunchbox is really rare, or “looks brand new, like you bought it yesterday,” says Joe Castro, owner of Time Tunnel Toys in San Jose.

“It was kind of a big fad for a while, like in the ‘80s. Prices went really high,” Castro says of lunchboxes. He adds, “Things kind of run through their course. The prices go up, then it crashes.”

In fact, he says, there is less demand these days for 1950s and ‘60s boxes and other toys because the natural buyers for those items, people from the 1950s and ‘60s, “age out.”

“Most people who are into the stuff from the ‘50s and ‘60s are no longer collecting it,” he says. “Many of them already own what they want. Old people are getting rid of stuff.”

“Some may buy a mint lunchbox to replace one they have that is scuffed.”

Castro, who is just over 60, mentions the boxes he used to own, that reflected his younger days: ‘Kung Fu’ (Remember that one—with David Carradine?), and professional dare-

“When people talk about lunchboxes,” he says, “they’re really passionate about it.”

But who cares about values skyrocketing? For many buyers, lunchboxes are less investments in the future than an easy, fun, and relatively affordable way to add some retro charm to your home.

The best lunchboxes are beautiful little works of portable art—optimistic, cute, filled with bravery and danger, featuring frilly fashion and puppy dogs and kitties—art that is aimed at children ages six to roughly 14.

“I find lunchboxes fascinating,” says Leung, who grew up in the 1970s

devil Evel Knievel.

“Everybody was jumping bikes, like Evel Knievel,” Castro recalls.

Today, collectors for vintage toys and lunchboxes tend to be in their 40s, he says. “That’s the people who are buying now, so I have to focus my merchandise on ‘80s stuff. Transformers, He-Man, Ninja Turtles.”

Dealer Andrew Leung has seen interest in lunchboxes fall off among general buyers. Still, he says, there are serious collectors out there who will pay a good price for a desirable lunchbox. “There can be some big money in it if you find the right collector,” he says.

and ‘80s in Woodland, California. “As a kid, we didn’t have iPhones back then. During lunch I would stare at my lunchbox. I looked at it like a little TV show. I appreciated the drawing and art style.”

Leung, who owns Toy Fusion, a collectors store in Sacramento, still has his ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’ box. “It’s somewhere at my mom’s house. I don’t want to sell it.”

“It’s the art that grabs people,” Allen Woodall and Sean Brickell wrote in their important The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Metal Lunch Boxes from 1992, a guide that tried to feature color shots of every C A M O D E R N 25

■CAMODERNFLASHBACK metal lunchbox ever produced, “front, rear, band, and bottle,” in alphabetical order.

One strong appeal of the boxes to young people was simply that they were made of metal, evoking real strength— and opening and closing with that resounding click.

Here were your favorite characters —not on flimsy newsprint, as in comic books or the cover of TV Guide, not in the ephemeral flickering of 35-mm film or the TV screen—but on something solid, utilitarian, intimate, something you carry every day.

Back in the day, the average kid carrying a lunch to school only had a single lunchbox. Moms were frugal, for one thing—especially those who opted for tuna sandwiches and apples from home, versus the 15-cent hot meals served by the school cafeteria.

But even more, your box defined your identity. If you carried a Davy Crockett box, chances are you also owned a coonskin cap. If you carried the Bionic Woman, with art of Lindsay Wagner outracing a muscle car, then you were one tough and resilient gal.

But a collector today needs more than one—and not just to qualify as a collector. It is together, en masse, that the boxes really make a visual statement—grouped, perhaps, with the western shows to one side, outer space boxes on the other, and of course those with a cool mid-century modern vibe front and center.

Seeking out boxes that represent your favorite shows isn’t always the best aesthetic strategy. Did you ever hear of the show ‘Lidsville’? Probably not, but its 1972 lunchbox is wacky and wild. About the better-known series ‘Lost in Space,’ Woodall and Brickell write, “The TV show was sophomoric, but the box is a masterpiece. Every inch is a genuine work of art and color.”

Not every box was based on a TV show or movie. There were sports boxes, generic boxes with gingham patterns, boxes celebrating your favorite food (Rice Krispies even), Barbie boxes and other toy boxes, and boxes about cowboys and outer space not tied to shows.

Given the period, you won’t find many minorities pictured on lunchboxes, though African Americans figured in boxes celebrating the Harlem Globetrotters, the cartoon ‘Wee Pals,’ and the TV show ‘Julia,’ 26 C A M O D E R N

starring Diahann Carroll, “the first black women on a lunchbox,” according to Woodall and Brickell.

Several boxes, in Spanish, played up stars from Spanish-language TV, and the soccer great Pele had his own box.

Since lunchboxes were aimed at preteens, for the most part, there are many period icons that were never stamped into steel. You won’t find authentic mid-century lunchboxes for Federico Fellini or Ernie Kovacs or ‘Psycho’— or even Marilyn Monroe.

But why didn’t Donna Reed get a box? Or ‘Leave It to Beaver’? On the show, Beav was shown carrying a lunchbox. But apparently the only ‘box’ that ever recognized the show came out decades later, as a retro container for DVDs of season one.

It’s too bad adults didn’t carry decorative lunchboxes in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Wouldn’t it be great to have one showing JFK and Jackie—or how about ‘I Like Ike’?

Some of the artists who designed for lunchbox companies were well known, including the comic book

WHAT’S FOR LUNCH? Top: While mom combs his hair, the little guy smirks and keeps a grip on his lunch. Above: Six more lunchboxes that moved the masses.

Row one (L-R): Beatles (1964), Kung Fu (1974), Universal Movie Monsters (1979). Row two: Batman and Robin (1966), Wonder Woman (recent), Superman (1967). artist Wally Wood. There was also the lesser known, outside the lunchbox world, Robert Burton, “a giant of lunchbox art,” according to Woodall and Brickell.

Burton designed what is regarded as the first real lunchbox, Hopalong Cassidy, in 1949 or 1950 for Aladdin, as well as many other Aladdin boxes through the 1950s.

There had been a few earlier lunchboxes, including a Mickey Mouse box way back in 1935, which is often considered the first movie character lunchbox. But it was smaller than later lunchboxes, and oval and, more importantly, did not establish the lunchbox as something every child must carry to school, like the Hoppy box, which sold by the

hundreds of thousands.

“The profits from the new lunchboxes enabled Aladdin to build a new lunchbox manufacturing plant,” historian Mary Bellis has written.

Hopalong Cassidy began as a decal pasted onto a metal box. But soon lunchbox makers used lithography to print directly on the metal. Starting in Continued pg 32

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C A M O D E R N 27

nBLAST FROM TH E PAST

UNSUNG MASTERS OF THE MID-CENTURY BAY AREA’S MODERN JEWELERS

By Dan Smith

When Joe Eichler built his first neighborhoods south of San Francisco in the late 1940s, the City was ground zero of several social and cultural movements. Modernism was being imported to the U.S. by European designers fleeing fascism, and architecture was only one of its manifestations.

One similar but unrelated movement was the Beat Generation of writers congregating in 1950s San Francisco, and another came by way of the artists who formed the groundbreaking Metal Arts Guild (MAG) of San Francisco in 1951. Art jewelry, like architecture, was a profession

FLORENCE RESNIKOFF

IMOGENE ‘TEX’ GIELING

Resnikoff met Margaret De Patta upon joining MAG and was substantially influenced by her modernist sensibility, but the latter’s preference for simplicity over adornment ran contrary to the former’s abiding artistic instincts.

Resnikoff went about developing her own style, gaining skills in electroforming and anodizing to employ unusual combinations of bronze, silver, copper, and gemstones in her work. Her jewelry embraced ornamentation and color through use of various enamels, patinas, and cast resins.

Beginning in 1973, she taught for 16 years at the California College of Arts and Crafts.

Some jewelers, like Merry Renk, rarely taught; others, like Byron Wilson, taught almost to the exclusion of their art. Gieling balanced both, producing jewelry in seven decades while teaching for 30-plus years and establishing the metal arts departments at two prominent local schools.

She used different metal in different periods, working initially with silver (often with pearls or stones), and later on more with gold. Focusing on her intent to ‘enhance the material,’ the Texas native almost exclusively created one-of-a-kind pieces.

MARGARET DE PATTA

MILTON CAVAGNARO

BYRON WILSON

This Tacoma native was a leading light of modernist jewelry whose career is sometimes overlooked because it was shortened by suicide in 1964, just when studio jewelry started taking off. De Patta was driven to teach herself the art of jewelry making in 1929 by dissatisfaction with the available choices for a wedding ring. Her training in constructivism and Bauhaus design produced pieces with lapidary Francis Sperison that used structure, line, and light in unprecedented ways, especially with rutilated quartz.

This Mill Valley-based artisan may have been better known for his ‘mass-produced’ modernist household items, including salt-and-pepper shakers and the ubiquitous Eega Reminder Bird for desktops, but he also made remarkable jewelry that often used dark woods, such as ebony and rosewood, to contrast with sterling silver. After growing up in Oakland and starting professionally as a painter and teacher in the ‘40s, Cavagnaro turned to jewelry in the ‘50s and later moved on primarily to industrial and landscape design.

Several pioneers of MAG passed on their knowledge through teaching, but Wilson is one who may have let his art take a back seat to instruction. The Alameda native taught for a quarter-century at California College of Arts and Crafts (in addition to work as a railroad claims inspector) and reportedly didn’t want to compete with his students. His sense of artistic innovation was undeniable though, incorporating both organic and geometric shapes, and color contrasts through use of silver, wood, bone, and walrus ivory.

28 C A M O D E R N

transformed and emboldened by modernism.

The Bay Area’s avant-garde jewelry scene was, in part, a sociopolitical movement of artists demanding that their work be valued, and not merely copied, in an age of increasing mass production. This was a hallmark of MAG, the first jewelry association of its kind in the country.

All ten of our Unsung Masters here were founders or early members of MAG, and the guild’s continued existence today gives testimony to its ongoing relevance.

With the support of MAG and one of its charismatic founders, studio jewelry blossomed in the City by the Bay. “I think they were all influenced by her, whether [or not] they admitted it a lot,” says Libby Cooper about the first president of MAG, the brilliant artist Margaret De Patta.

The owner of Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cooper has sold pieces by most of our featured jewelers and also met several.

In addition, she helped select our ten masters and shared her views on these trailblazing metalsmiths.

MARGARET ‘PENNY’ DHAEMERS

PETER MACCHIARINI

Many members of MAG practiced other media than jewelry, but few were more multi-talented or academically accomplished than Penny Dhaemers. Many attended or taught at California College of Arts and Crafts, including Dhaemers, but she went on to teach in and sometimes chair the design department at UC College of Environmental Design in Berkeley. Her media in the midcentury were painting, sculpture, and very sculptural, biomorphic jewelry. She has also exhibited ceramics, photography, and most recently computer rendering and animation.

This veteran of the Works Progress Administration was the conscience and early ringleader of MAG, as his North Beach studio was frequented by numerous artists. A native of Santa Rosa schooled in Italy, Macchiarini apprenticed with modernist sculptors Ralph Stackpole and Beniamino Bufano (while sharing their left-wing views) before focusing more on jewelry.

Fiercely opposed to artists, including his colleague De Patta, doing production jewelry, Macchiarini drew from cubism and African masks in developing his trademark layering of ‘pods.’

BOB WINSTON Another co-founder of MAG, this Long Beach native was the non-conformist/hippie of the crowd before that stereotype even existed. In order to produce complex organic shapes and textures, he resurrected the ancient Egyptian technique of lost-wax casting and was the first to teach it at a U.S. college.

After moving from Berkeley to Scottsdale in 1959, he authored a textbook on the subject. With his preference for organic design and materials (such as bone), Winston was somewhat less influenced by De Patta.

MERRY RENK

IRENA BRYNNER

Renk and De Patta both studied at Chicago’s Institute of Design before moving west and co-founding MAG with Macchiarini and others. She became known for her gold work with intricate, interlocking pieces, which included crowns inspired by fairytale games of her New Jersey childhood. She combined her love for metalwork and painting by employing enamel finishes that were also functional in accord with her Bauhaus training. A San Franciscan for some 70 years, Renk was the turn-of-thecentury grande dame of MAG.

The Russian-born Brynner had less than two years of experience when she joined MAG in the 1950s. She benefited greatly from membership and, later, from Hollywood exposure through her cousin, movie star Yul Brynner. She was trained as a painter, yet seemed to draw inspiration from architecture in creating what she felt was sculpture for the body. Although admittedly influenced by De Patta, her brand of modernism became more organic, emphasizing the body as a functional part of the jewelry.

Thanks to Libby Cooper of Mobilia Gallery (mobiliagallery.com) for assistance in selecting our roster of masters Photography: courtesy Cavagnaro family, Merry Renk collection, Oakland Museum of California, Metal Arts Guild of San Francisco, Rico Tee Archives

C A M O D E R N 29

On the Homefront New on floors Bay Area experts weigh in on emerging technologies, preferred Eichler flooring Whoever said there’s nothing new under the sun certainly hadn’t tried to refloor an Eichler lately. And if you’re contemplating such a project, better pull out those favorite Oakleys or Aviators—the modern home flooring future’s so bright, you gotta wear shades.

“There are more products available now for the look of an Eichler than there ever has been,” says Lori Wyzard, one of two Bay Area veterans of Eichler flooring projects we consulted to curate the state of the art in Eichler flooring.

“The new trend right now is LVP,” observed our other expert, Vick Balian, manager of the Los Altos-Mountain View location for the half-century-old fourstore chain, Carpeteria Flooring Centers. Balian referred to luxury vinyl planks, one of several flooring options that disproves the “nothing new” naysayers.

“You look at it, you think it’s real wood. You touch it, it feels like real wood,” said Balian of two strengths of the format that has replaced lessrealistic vinyl tile. “That’s the newest one that is taking over the market because of the fact that it’s waterproof [and] water resistant.”

Wyzard, the owner since 1991 of Bay Area Floors & Design, concedes the popularity of LVP but begs to differ on some of the details. Although she sells the product, it is far from her preference, and she believes its strengths are sometimes exaggerated.

“Nothing’s waterproof—nothing,” said the business owner. “They can say whatever they want, but nothing’s waterproof.”

Wyzard concedes that vinyl planks certainly resist stains better than wood flooring, but maintains that sufficiently bad flooding will stain even LVP. She noted that com-

30 C A M O D E R N

mercial buildings used vinyl plank flooring for decades before improved colors rendered its look refined enough to interest homeowners. Still, she remains unimpressed.

“I would much rather sell a laminate floor than a vinyl floor,” she said of another popular flooring option for owners of modern-style homes. “I think it looks more real. It looks great.”

Both Wyzard and Balian noted that while LVP was pioneered by COREtec, now there are other

popular in Palo Alto Eichlers.

Both our experts said Eichler owners should feel free to have different flooring in bedrooms and bathrooms, but strongly recommended using one material throughout the public areas of the house.

“That has to kind of flow together,” said Balian. “Once you go into a different room, that can be totally different.”

Furthermore, Wyzard uses the possibility of multiple surfaces to alert customers to less expensive options.

no adhesives and allows for flooring materials to ‘float’ and be pulled up if needed before being reinstalled.

“If something happens, you can always take it apart and put it back together,” said Balian. “With a click system, it’s like doing a puzzle.”

Another new development in flooring is ‘loose laid’ surfaces that can be even easier than click systems to remove and reuse, but Wyzard believes the new systems are “too young,” adding, “I don’t think we’ve experienced the failures yet.”

NEW TRENDS. “There are more products available now for the look of an Eichler than there ever has been,” says Lori Wyzard of Bay Area Floors & Design. “...I would much rather sell a laminate floor than a vinyl floor.” Left: ‘Silver Dollar’ laminate flooring from Mohawk. Right: The clean, modern, and sophisticated look of porcelain. companies, including Mohawk, Mannington, and Fusion, offering a similar range of patterns and lengths.

Both still find COREtec to be a superior product though, with Balian commenting that “they have the best colors,” and Wyzard noting it “has had the least amount of complaints” at industry conventions.

Of course, the choices for flooring go beyond mere comparisons between vinyl and laminate. Both Carpeteria and Bay Area Floors & Design (which is a member of the Carpet One cooperative) offer several other materials, including varied types of engineered wood and, of course, carpeting. For Eichler projects, Bay Area Floors does porcelain tile but not polished concrete, and Carpeteria in Los Altos-Mountain View does neither.

Both stores do a lot of cork flooring in mid-century modern homes, which Wyzard said is particularly

“When you do hardwood surfaces, I always price out the bedrooms separately to let them see the difference,” she said, noting the potential savings of doing a room or two with a less-expensive material. “I try to give everybody options.”

Of course, if an Eichler still has operable radiant heating, that may be a consideration as well. Wyzard said, however, that the growing popularity of radiant heat in recent years has forced flooring manufacturers to adapt their product accordingly.

“They’ve all got certain acceptances for radiant heat [now]. You just have to do your homework,” she advised. “You have to check the warrantees. That’s the first thing I do is check the warrantee [on preferred materials] when I’m dealing with customers with radiant heat.”

The biggest change in the flooring industry, though, is the advent of ‘click system’ installation, which requires

There is a subtler change in flooring an Eichler, however, that Wyzard has been pleased to see.

“It’s interesting that for the first time, purchasing flooring is not just [based on] the period of the house,” the industry veteran noted of changing priorities. “What has become the norm is not that it’s an Eichler, but [rather suiting the customer’s] lifestyle.”

Consequently, just as important as what material you choose for flooring is one last piece of advice from Vick Balian: “Don’t follow somebody else’s path. Do what you like.”

–Dan Smith • Bay Area Floors & Design is located in San Mateo at 2225 South El Camino Real: bayareafloors.com. Carpeteria Flooring Centers is located in Los Altos at 4916 El Camino Real #160, and in Campbell at 415 E. Hamilton Ave.: carpeteria.com.

SM

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■CAMODERNFLASHBACK LUNCHBOX LOVE (continued from page 26)

1957 some boxes were ‘embossed,’ with sections of the images projecting in low relief. Most boxes were rectangular, but some were ‘domed’ with a barrel vault.

According to the lunchbox encyclopedia, from 1949 to 1985 450 different lunchboxes were produced in the United States (very few elsewhere, though a few come from Canada and Brazil). Later sources give the number as about 550.

That’s far fewer than you might imagine—but we’re talking metal lunchboxes, not the vinyl boxes that began back in 1959 and continued on after metal boxes died in 1985. The last metal box? ‘Rambo.’

“The movie revived Sly Stallone’s career, but ended metal lunchboxes,” Woodall and Brickell write—not quite accurately. Rambo may have been the last box—but the death of metal cer-

moved to plastic because of cost. It’s possible too that some school districts did ban metal boxes.

Plastic lunchboxes, whether of vinyl or hard plastic, have their collectors too, but collectors of metal boxes don’t always see the appeal. Leung prefers the metal boxes because their threedimensional embossing “adds a little more realism to it. The plastic ones are flat, and they can look cheap.”

One writer in Collectors Weekly called the vinyl boxes “basically shower curtains wrapped and sealed around pieces of cardboard.” He also compared them, more sympathetically, to another period artifact, vinyl go-go boots.

“Needless to say, these flimsy [vinyl lunchboxes] did not stand up well to being dragged to and from

boxes featuring Marilyn Monroe.

Yes, lunchboxes have hit the 21st century and like such other pursuits that once appealed only to children—

other things—the offerings include some sharp-looking boxes aimed at specific cohorts of mid-century modern fans.

MCM DOES LUNCH TOO. Top: These three photos show how Oakland artist Dee Adams brings together her two passions as décor for her live/work loft studio: mid-century modern furnishings (left and center) and an impressive lunchbox collection (right). Above: Three MCM-styled lunchboxes currently available from Zazzle.com, where there’s lots more: (L-R) ‘Black and White Checkerboard,’ ‘Retro Romantic Evening Couple,’ and ‘Retro Gay Pool Party.’ Above far right: Nowadays you can find a lunchbox representing virtually every celebrity from every walk of life—and for nearly every occasion too. Here, even the ‘Last Supper’ makes the lunch scene. tainly wasn’t Rambo’s fault.

Whose then was it? Ah, that’s the mystery.

In their encyclopedia, the two collectors repeat a myth, which has since been demolished, that the state of Florida banned metal boxes for being “lethal weapons,” used by kids to bash each other. It was said that other states soon followed.

But researchers, including one from the Florida Historical Society, have been unable to dig up those purported bans.

It’s possible the manufacturers 32 C A M O D E R N

school every day for a year, which is why finding a vinyl lunchbox in good condition can take some doing,” Collectors Weekly went on.

Today, collectors of lunchboxes can do more than troll eBay and collectors shops. They can buy lunchboxes that are brand new, celebrating all sorts of things eightyear-old boys would never think of celebrating. Using online tools, buyers can even customize and design their own lunchboxes.

And you can even buy 21st century

like scooters, Halloween, and coloring books—they are now finding an adult audience.

Lunchbox.com, an online retailer based in Pasadena and dating to 2000, produces metal boxes honoring the Grateful Dead, the lunch meat Spam, and the movies ‘Jaws’ and ‘Ghostbusters.’ There is also one that serves up Zombie Survival Kit. From online seller Zazzle—there people can find pre-designed or customized bed sheets, pet beds, posters, cookware, and lunchboxes, among

Those MCM lunchboxes include a Shag-inspired design of a romantic couple and their cat enjoying martinis alongside an Eames lounge chair and a portable turntable spinning 45s. Oh, and there’s a ‘retro gay pool party’ box too, with guys hanging out at poolside in front of a—natch!—Palm Springs butterfly-roofed home.

Is it lunchtime yet? ■ Photography: Albert Kahn (courtesy Kahn family), Zaz Von Schwinn; and courtesy Dee Adams, Geni Andrews, Rico Tee Archives

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NOT LONG... (continued from pg 19)

Others on the edge Among many other modern buildings in California facing threats in various ways, we should also mention the ten below: Bazett House, Hillsborough. Not only is this a superb example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s simple, designed-for-everyman Usonian architecture, the home at 101 Reservoir Road inspired Joe Eichler to become a homebuilder when he lived there during 1944 and 1945. Nonetheless, located on valuable, highly coveted Hillsborough land, this home has no historic designation or other official protection. So a future owner could seek its demolition—but would likely face a fight with preservationists.

Park Merced, San Francisco: In one of the City’s most unusual neighborhoods, this mix of low-rise and high-rise apartments from the mid-1940s, with landscaping by landscape architect Thomas Church, is slated to be rebuilt.

The towers will remain, new ones added, and the low-rises demolished.

Sacramento Zoo: Looking for more

room, zoo planners are considering a move away from the zoo’s longtime home in William Land Park, where distinctive, parabolic buildings from the mid-‘60s grace the entry. What would happen to the buildings?

LACMA, Los Angeles: The Los Angeles County Museum plans to demolish four buildings on its Wilshire Blvd. campus, including the original ones from 1964

by William Pereira.

MODERN ARCHITECTURAL TILE SURFACES

First National Bank (formerly), San Jose: This bank, at 3888 Stevens Creek Blvd. by unknown designers, features a rock mosaic by South Bay artist Harry Powers. Plans call for its replacement by a large-scale development.

Norm’s, West Hollywood: In 2015, preservationists fought off plans to demolish this distinctive Armet & Davis Googie coffee shop. But fans of the style are keeping their eyes on the situation at 470 North La Cienega Blvd.—just in case.

Kwik Way, Oakland: This once-popular, nowclosed eatery at 599 Lake Park Ave. is one of several Googie restaurants that have recently died in Oakland. It will be replaced by housing.

United Nations Plaza, San Francisco: On a bright sunny day with waters splashing over granite, the fountain at the UN Plaza can appear grand. But too often it looks derelict, occupied by homeless people. The City plans to redo this 1975 plaza, radically altering or eliminating landscape architect Lawrence Halprin’s design. ■

San Pablo Civic Lytton Savings Center: Walter (formerly), Los Thomas Brooks Angeles: This HOUSE OF INSPIRATION. Inside Wright’s Bazett House 1960 bank, by designed this —where Joe Eichler first became enamored of modern architect Kurt delightful blend architecture. Though it’s been in the same family since Meyer with a of Spanish Colo1945, the home’s unprotected status on coveted nial and Frank folded-plate roof Hillsborough land raises concern about its future. at 8150 Sunset Lloyd Wright modern in 1980.

Blvd., is slated Due to structural concerns, the Bay to be replaced by a Frank GehryArea city plans to demolish all of it designed housing/retail complex with except for a recreated historic adobe. a roof that looks like twisted taffy.

Photography: Heather David, Gretchen Steinberg, Sabrina Huang, Dave Weinstein, John Eng, Ian Chamberlain, Arthur Connell (courtesy UCLA Neutra Archive), Charles Hathaway, Debra Jane Seltzer, Julius Shulman (© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles - 2004.R.10); and courtesy Armet-Davis-Newlove Architects, Adriene Biondo, Metropolitan Water District, Wikipedia Commons Special thanks to Adriene Biondo for research assistance C A M O D E R N 33

DEAR

CHERRY . . . America’s Queen of Modernism, Manners and Mirth!

Dear Cherry: I have these wonderful clerestory windows and a soffit that provide such excellent bright light and space flow in my home. However, when I get up on a ladder to clean, the dust and grime seem to accumulate like no one’s business. Do you have any ‘bright’ ideas about how to deal with this issue?

–Down With Dirt Dear Down With Dirt: Yes. I have two suggestions for you.

First of all, once you have these surfaces immaculately clean, this is the time to be proactive.

Next, I recommend painting these flat dirt-collection surfaces with a thick coat of high-gloss paint, which will not only repel grime, it will make dirt easy to wipe away when it accumulates.

Even if the rest of the surfaces of your home are flat, satin, or eggshell sheen, these surfaces are up high enough that no one will be the wiser that you are using gloss paint.

Next up, here’s an old tip I learned… wax paper! You simply dampen the flat surface you wish to cover with a light mist of water and then lay down the wax paper on top of it. Neatly trim the paper to the edges.

When the surface starts to get grimy again, simply tear off the old wax paper and throw it out. You have a clean surface again. Then reapply another coat of wax paper. This is a nice once-a-year (or perhaps twice) spring-cleaning task to consider.

Wax paper also works wonders as shelf paper for shelves that don’t get too much traffic or have too many heavy or sharp items. It can also work to repel dust on top of high cabinets.

If you find yourself becoming a wax paper fanatic, try putting down multiple layers of wax paper and simply remove the top paper every time you want a clean surface.

Of course, don’t try this in Las Vegas or Palm Springs in the summertime, unless you always keep your interior highly air-conditioned. Otherwise you might be left doing a bad impression of the Wicked Witch of the West…“I’m melting!”

Dear Cherry: I had a party…and it was very dull. How do you get people talking?

–Perplexed Party-Giver

34 C A M O D E R N

Dear Perplexed: I’ve given some suggestions in previous columns about activities that get a party rolling. But here’s another very important and often overlooked action item: the formal introduction.

Many people dread going to parties

instance, to two preservation-minded friends I might say, “Hi John, this is my friend, Peter, who helped to start the Palm Springs Modern Committee!” Then I would turn to Peter and say, “Peter, my friend John dressed up like the Ronald McDonald clown to save the Downey

I can get the same affect from striking a piece of wood on a sharp surface. Even better is a book of recycled cardboard matches, which is far less impactful to the environment.

When I have the choice between something that affects our environment and something kinda cool looking, I vote for Mother Earth and old-fashioned ingenuity. And I hope that you will do the same.

Have you noticed that there are so many more certified-organic offerings available today compared to, say, ten years ago? Consumers direct

OLD-FANGLED TIPS. Left: Wax paper, says Cherry, works wonders as shelf paper and to repel dust on high cabinets. Right: Ever dry clothes the old-fashioned way? simply because they feel uncomfortable introducing themselves. As the host, try to make sure each arriving guest feels immediately welcomed, as if they were your guest of honor.

When a party is fairly large and people may not all know each other, it’s not up to you to introduce all your guests to everyone else. However, it is your duty to make sure that every guest is introduced to at least two or three new people as they arrive.

When I make an introduction, I always like to make sure I include something I know about each one that could be interesting or engaging. I might mention hobbies, history, or their line of work.

Think of yourself as a game-show host pulling out those fun facts about your guest ‘players.’ Like, “Ellen, my friend Larry is an expert historic architectural photographer.” And to Ellen, “Larry, my friend Ellen is a multitalented gal; she plays a mean ukulele, paints, writes, and once knit a Googie doll!” These core facts give my guests many options for striking up conversations on their own.

If I know something specific that two guests have in common, I will include those facts in my introduction. For

McDonalds from demolition!” Cross-links do not have to be dignified ones, just enough to start a conversation.

Many people are shy and have a tough time walking up to a group, or even an individual, to introduce themselves.

So if you notice a wallflower off to the side unattended, sidle up to them and see if there is someone at arms reach to introduce them to. If no one is close, I have literally taken guests by the arm and walked him or her across the room. “Come on, there is someone I’d love you to meet!”

If you have to interrupt a conversation to get people introduced to each other, it’s actually okay within the constraints of a party. No partygoer should expect to have long, drawn-out, and uninterrupted conversations anyway.

Remember, the point of a party is not to talk for an hour to the same person, but to mingle and have an easy, good time making new friends.

Dear Cherry: Matches or lighters?

–Light My Fire in San Francisco Dear Fiery One: Butane fuel surrounded by petroleum plastic? No, thank you.

changes in the marketplace. Vote with your dollars towards a cleaner, greener tomorrow.

Let me get off on a little tangent here. A clothesline in a discreet part of your yard is a marvelous investment. If you don’t have room for a line, you can still dry clothes on an old-fashioned folding wood rack. Just remember, every time you hang a load of laundry instead of using the dryer, you reduce your carbon emissions.

Plus, the fresh air and sunshine are easier on clothing fibers than the heat and agitation of a machine.

Try a washable, reusable rag instead of paper towels. Try a wool duster in lieu of a polyester disposable wand.

Get back to basics on other everyday items as well. Mix up your own cleansers using old-fashioned ingredients—like white vinegar, borax, baking soda, castile soap, hydrogen peroxide, lemon juice, and sunlight.

There are lots of ‘recipes’ available online for alternative scrubs and cleansers. And guess what? They’ve been used for centuries—and they work!

• For more Cherry, visit CherryCapri.com Photography: Taso Papadakis, Cherry Capri

From Sacramento to Orange County—this is the summer for modern home tours!

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