Tag Archives: architecture

Historic Grant Hotel

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Open House San Diego 2020
U.S. Grant Hotel
Downtown San Diego
March 8, 2020

We spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon touring several architectural sites on view to the public as part of the Open House San Diego program.  The Open House concept began in London, England in 1992 as a way to bring a wider understanding of architecture to the public.  The San Diego version began in 2017 with tours of sites in Banker’s Hill, Downtown, the Gaslamp District, East Village, and Barrio Logan.  It has expanded its range since then. On these weekends, places that may not normally be open to the public are available.  The OH! San Diego program is organized by the San Diego Architectural Foundation.  In 2018 we toured some of the sites in the Banker’s Hill area as part of the Open House weekend, but never got around to blogging about them.

This year we visited several sites in the Gaslamp District, starting with a self-guided tour at the U.S. Grant Hotel.  We picked up a handsome brochure that led us around the public spaces of the hotel.  The brochure was available on the OH weekend at a table hosted by volunteers, but may also be available to the public at the Concierge desk for tours at other times.  The hotel is located on the site of the original “downtown” hotel, the Horton House, built by Alonzo Horton when he created “New Town” San Diego in the 1860s.  The U.S. Grant Hotel was built by a consortium of businessmen affiliated with Ulysses S. Grant, Jr., the second son of President Grant.  Construction was interrupted in the wake of the San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906, because of other demands for construction labor, but eventually the hotel opened in 1910.

The guide led us around the ornate lobby area, which holds historic images and information about the development of the hotel in the mezzanine level near the valet entrance.  There were no functions being hosted the day that we toured, and we were able to walk through all of the ballrooms and meeting rooms that are not on view when in use by private parties.  The Palm Court is an elegant space in the location of what was once the hotel’s dining room, and is named in honor of the former Palm Garden terrace, later enclosed to provide the “Presidential Ballroom” on the second floor.

Also on the lobby level is the beautiful and historic Grant Grill. The Grill was a meeting place for businessmen in its early years of the 1950s and 1960s; “Men ONLY Before 3:00 P.M.” read the sign at the time.  In 1969, that rule was challenged by a group of female attorneys who held a protest sit-in at lunch time, booking a table under an assumed, masculine name.  The rule was finally abolished after legal action was threatened.  One of the protesters later went on to become a member of Congress and another became a Superior Court judge.

We went up to the second floor and saw what seems to be the largest public space in the hotel, the Presidential Ballroom.  It boasts a stage area.  In the foyer on that level are portraits of all of the presidents and first ladies who have visited the hotel, while near the entrance to the ballroom are photos of presidential visits.

On the lower level we found several interesting architectural drawings, plans, and photographs of the hotel throughout its history.  In the 1930s, an eleventh floor was added to the hotel to serve as the studio and broadcast center for KFSD radio.

The elegant “Court” spaces, Chafee (pictured above) and Chairman’s, served originally as lounges for men and women preparing for or seeking respite from the events in the adjacent Crystal Ballroom.  The Crystal Ballroom is an ornate space that has been remodeled, most recently when the Sycuan Tribe purchased the hotel and modernized it in the early 2000s, but it retains the air of the original.  The travertine and marble are set off by the elegant pillars and gleaming chandeliers and draw the eye to the original fireplace at the far end.

Coming up: posts about the historic San Diego Trust and Savings Bank building, and sites in the Gaslamp.

Ghostly Inheritance

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Inheritance
University of California, San Diego
October 26, 2018

On the Friday before Halloween, we went to see the second performance of a new chamber opera, Inheritance. It was timely for the season and the political debates of the day — the story revolves around Sarah Winchester, the widow of a scion of the Winchester Arms’ Winchesters, who MAY have been haunted in her life by the ghosts of those killed by Winchester rifles, or perhaps the spirit of the baby daughter whose death she mourned. The focal point of the piece, the “inheritance,” is the famous Winchester Mystery House, in San Jose, California. The house is an oddity, with a “door to nowhere,” useless staircases, and other weird spaces. Mrs. Winchester kept building for years, and the question arose as to what was she doing: seeking to atone, distracting herself, or trying her hand as an architect in a time that did not allow that of women? The opera explores a couple of these ideas.

Neither of us approaches modern art with a lot of enthusiasm; we love to quote Charles Ryder’s dictum that Modern Art is “great bosh.” We were pleasantly surprised that we enjoyed the music as much as we did. We had just seen a preview piece about the world premiere of the opera in the San Diego Union Tribune the Sunday before. We thought we would take a chance on it.

The composer is Lei Liang, a professor at the University of California, San Diego. The production was staged in the Experimental Theater space in the Conrad Prebys Music Center on the campus by ArtPower, an organization that promotes the arts at UCSD. The producer of the show also sang the lead role. Susan Narucki teaches at UCSD. She gave a fine performance in a role that called for strong singing and declaiming—the monologue at the end of the opera was movingly presented.

The other singers were also very good. They played roles that drifted back and forth from the real world to the ghostly, as modern day humans leading or taking tours of the house and as spirits confronting or communing with Sarah. The “tour guide” was strongly portrayed by Josué Cerón , who also did a nice job interpolating some cliché “guide humor” in his tour. The two supporting role female vocalists, Kirsten Ashley Wiest and Hillary Jean Young, who are both graduate students working with Narucki, were very good in their roles as well, as tourists, ghosts of the slain, or at one point the dead child of Sarah.

The rest of the production was also gripping and interesting. Visually, there was great reliance on scrims. Bob has not liked scrims very much when we have seen them used at San Diego Opera in the past, but here they were quite effective. The singers moved them from time to time, to frame the story or redefine the space. They were also used as backdrops for projected images. Almost all of the lyrics were projected on the scrims, which is helpful even in English language opera. Bob particularly liked the textile-like wallpapers that appeared on a couple of occasions. We also saw the Mystery House and lots of falling objects, particularly chairs. That aspect had an air of the Terry Gilliam Monty Python’s Flying Circus animation about it, but it emphasized Sarah’s potential motivation, of the piling up of guilt over the death of gun victims. Aurally, the musicians did a terrific job with a complicated and somewhat improvised piece. The percussionists under the stage were quite busy, shouting the numbers of the dead as well as playing the many instruments called for by the composer. The wind players alternated clarinets and bass clarinets, and the guitarist had opportunities to display his fine Spanish-style guitar skills. The artist on the bass violin seemed to be having lots of fun slapping and plucking and bowing and sawing his instrument, with a couple of virtuoso improvisations.

The opera was performed only three times; we hope it is revived so more people get a chance to see it.

A review of the world premiere performance from the Union-Tribune can be found here.

For those who are more interested in the building and its backstory than in the new opera, we recommend the coverage on 99 Percent Invisible. Roman Mars writes:

The widely accepted narrative about Sarah Winchester, and the one that the current owners of the house are selling, is that she was haunted by spirits. But not everyone is buying it. Historian Mary Jo Ignoffo explores alternative theories about Sarah Winchester in her book, Captive of the Labyrinth.

Ignoffo found no evidence supporting the idea that Sarah Winchester communed with spirits. She believes that what drove Sarah Winchester to build was her desire to be an architect.

Sarah Winchester lived at time when it was highly unusual for women to be architects. She wasn’t licensed, so her own home was the perfect place—and the only place—where she could practice architecture.

Whatever her motivations were, Sarah Winchester built a house with more than 150 rooms, 2000 doors, 47 fireplaces, 40 bedrooms, 40 staircases, 17 chimneys, 13 bathrooms, six kitchens, three elevators, two basements, and one shower. She spent nearly all of her life being an architect.

Heritage Park

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Heritage Park
Lynnwood, Washington
May 27, 2017

We ventured out from San Diego, and flew north to spend Memorial Day weekend with our daughters who live in Washington State, near Seattle. We brought the California weather with us – sunny and in the 80’s.

Our youngest daughter teases us that our super power is finding a museum anywhere. Bob rose to that challenge. On Saturday we bought sandwiches to go at a local Subway then headed to Heritage Park in the Alderwood area of Lynnwood, a town just north of Seattle. We enjoyed a picnic outside, under a pine next to ferns and moss-covered rocks – things you definitely do not see in Southern California!

After the picnic we explored the historic buildings and small museums located in Heritage Park. At each stop we met and chatted with docents who excelled in both enthusiasm and knowledge. All exhibits offered free admission; we left donations in the various donation jars.

First stop was the Wickers Building, known originally as the Alderwood Manor Main Store. This building was built 1919 and used as a general store for much of its existence, then as a plumber’s shop and finally as an appliance parts store. Like the other Heritage Park structures, it was relocated to this spot; it would otherwise have been demolished to make room for the freeway. Inside the building we chatted with the woman running the visitor center, whose knowledge of Washington State was truly encyclopedic. She seemed to want to plan outings for us for every day of our visit.

We then stepped into the newly opened Northwest Veterans Museum, a one room museum with a good, and varied, display of artifacts in display cases, one case for each major war from World War I to the present. This small museum was run by two knowledgeable volunteers, and they had a plate of delicious homemade cookies on offer. Among the artifacts was a uniform that had belonged to Col. Mary V. Fager, an Army nurse who served from World War II to the 1970’s.

After seeing the Veterans Museum, we went upstairs to tour what had been the apartment space for the Wickers family, who ran the store for several decades. It was furnished with the sort of items they might have had around 1934 when their daughter was born.

Our second stop was Interurban Car 55, the last survivor of six trolley cars that served the Alderwood – Seattle – Everett electric car line from 1910-1939. It was used as a roadside diner for a while after its retirement. It has since been beautifully restored. We looked at the trolley car from a distance; it is fenced off most of the time. A docent who saw us admiring it came out to tell us that there will be an open house on June 10 when visitors can go inside the enclosure and into the car itself. We told our daughter she should plan to go back and see it then.

We then went into the Superintendent’s Cottage, which dates from 1917. This building was the home for the superintendent of the Demonstration Farm, a large hatchery. In 1922 Alderwood Manor, Washington was the second largest egg producer in the nation. Who knew? Inside that cottage there are fascinating sets of “then and now” photos of locations in and around Lynnwood, and also maps of the area over the past century of development. We learned the origin and backstory of several local landmark buildings.

Our final inside visit was to the Humble House, and even though we arrived when it was officially closing, the volunteer on duty insisted we come in. That cottage was built in 1919 and is typical of the farmhouses in the area at that time. The local genealogy society keeps its library in the cottage. We chatted with the woman on duty, who like us has roots in Massachusetts. She graduated from the University of Massachusetts. Together we chuckled a little over the local view that things that date back only a century are “old” – not the frame of reference we have in New England, first settled in the 17th Century, or even in California, with Spanish missionaries founding Mission San Diego in 1769.

Next to Humble House is a gigantic rhododendron. We were impressed with its size and profuse blooms, then later noticed many more large rhododendrons as we drove around. Like the ferns, not something we see much of in Southern California. Funny how well plants grow when you give them some water.

Before we left the park we walked around the Water Tower. This structure, like the Superintendent’s Cottage, was part of the Demonstration Farm. It has been relocated but not yet restored. There is no water tank on top of it, and the interior is not open for visitors. The historical society wants to refurbish it but lacks funds to do so currently.

Marston House

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Marston House
San Diego
February 4, 2017

We visited the Marston House in February, using our Macy’s Museum Month discount pass. Entrance to the house itself is only with a guided tour, and tours run each half hour. We had just missed one tour by about 5 minutes so spent some time walking around the exterior, examining the house from the outside and enjoying the gardens. It was pleasant strolling, though not the season for roses. We also admired the walled laundry area, for hanging out the wash, and peeked into the cellar. Later, the docent told us it is a half cellar rather than a full one, because the house is built into a slope. The cellar housed the utilities and was used by the help.

When our turn to take the next tour came, we were the only ones on it. The docent was very well informed and very enthusiastic. He told us all about the Marston family members who had lived in the house, the architect, the furnishings, the original construction and various modifications of the house, and the recent history of preservation efforts. He also gave us a context for the architectural details, comparing the Marston House to the Gamble House in Pasadena. (We saw the outside of the Gamble House once, back in 2014, and would like to go back sometime and tour the interior; the Marston House experience has piqued our interest.)

The downstairs has beautiful woodwork. The redwood from the forests of northern California give the rooms a warm feel. The docent pointed out a nice detail—butterfly key joints between some of the boards lining the walls. The music room has hidden racks in the walls. Mr. Marston’s study has lovely built-in bookshelves, and he forbade the installation of a call button there to help maintain the contemplative atmosphere; most other rooms in the house are connected to the indicator in the butler’s pantry. Bob thought that the use of pocket doors gave the downstairs a very clean look and nice sense of flow from room to room.

The house is tastefully furnished with period pieces, though little that was owned by the Marstons remains. The Marston family used the house until the 1980s, when it was given to the City of San Diego. At that time, the furnishings were reclaimed by family members. Since then, the museum has worked to find replacements that fit the setting, even getting a period bathtub.

The tour provides access to the first and second floors of the house. The first floor was designed for entertaining and the dining room opens onto a sizeable patio. One famous visitor was Theodore Roosevelt, who came to dinner when the former president attended the Panama-California Exposition in 1915. The attic area was also finished and used as sleeping quarters by the family, but it is not currently open to visitors. A neat detail throughout the house is the raised thresholds and floor levels in the baths and closets. The docent kept reminding us to watch our step. He speculated that the architectural quirk was meant to make it easier to sweep the primary floor levels cleanly and to easily sweep out those smaller spaces, into the adjacent hallways or larger rooms, although no one knows for sure.

The house was completed in 1905. George W. Marston was a self-made man who came to San Diego and made his money in the retail industry, owning a successful local department store. The house was begun with a Tudor style in mind, but once Marston hired Irving Gill to finish the project, Gill altered it as much as possible to fit his vision of the Arts and Crafts Movement. The exterior retains some Tudor characteristics while hinting at the Prairie School. Inside, there are many typical Gill elements including coved floor to wall transitions in the public rooms, casement windows with transoms, and enclosed bathtubs.

Tickets for the tours are sold in the gift shop located in the adjacent carriage house/garage. The house is open Fridays through Mondays, except Christmas Day, from 10 to 5. Tours leave every half hour, last tour at 4 p.m. Regular admission costs $15 for adults, with discounts for seniors, active duty military, students, and children under 12. (The Macy’s discount gave us 50% off.) Being a mansion of a certain age, the museum is not readily accessible to those in wheelchairs.

While there are no dining facilities adjacent to the house, the area has many cafes, restaurants, and pubs. After our visit and a walk in the park, we enjoyed excellent craft beer at The Brew Project on Fifth Avenue, itself located in a 1902 Craftsman House. We enjoyed the brew pub and plan to go back and try it for lunch or dinner.

Petersen’s Grand Reopening

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Petersen Automotive Museum
Wilshire Boulevard “Miracle Mile”
December 12, 2015

The Petersen Automotive Museum has just reopened after a long (14 month) remodeling project. We love old cars and so does Margaret, so we headed for the Miracle Mile to check out the new Petersen. We had been there with her at least twice before, most recently on Mustang Weekend.

The exterior has been totally redone and is the subject of some controversy in architectural circles: some love it, some, including Los Angeles Times’ architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, hate it, calling it happily tasteless and aggressively bad. Another critic called it an atrocity. The wall is red, and it is encircled by silver metallic undulating bands of metal, giving the feel of motion. On the whole, we liked it. We have to agree with Petersen board president Bruce Meyer, who told the Los Angeles Times “Before, nobody knew we were here. Now, nobody’s ever going to drive by this building and not know we’re here.”

You can get a little sense of the exterior, both before and after, from the photos below, the top one taken on this visit and the lower one taken in 2012:

Petersen_exterior_new

Petersen_2012

The interior of the museum repeats the red color on some accent walls, with complementary white, gray, and silver walls and carpeting.

The staff at the ticket desk suggested we start on the third floor and work our way down. The third floor kept us captivated for quite a while. It is a large open gallery with cars from all eras. The display starts with a beautiful replica of the first automobile ever built, in 1886 by Benz. Meredith was interested to see the rare Davis Divan on display. Its restoration had been the subject of a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. She is on the museum’s email list and had received periodic updates about the car, so it was nice to see it “in the flesh.” There is also a gorgeous 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air on display, which brought back memories for Margaret and Meredith of their family car in the 1960’s, a white 1955 Bel Air. Most cars cannot be touched, but we took turns sitting in an antique Ford.

Petersen_Ford_Bob

Meredith asked Margaret, what was the first car she ever drove? She said it was her mother’s 1949 Ford, and smiled at the memory.

One entire wall of the third floor gallery displays cars from movies and television shows, with film clips running in the back showing the cars on the screen. They were a varied group, including (among many other vehicles) the Jaguar and Aston Martin from the latest James Bond movie; the Batmobile from Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992); the Pontiac Aztec from Breaking Bad; and the Volkswagen bus from Little Miss Sunshine.

We had lingered so long on the third floor, that we decided to save the second floor for another day. It includes exhibits about the automotive industry, manufacturing, high-performance road cars, hot rods and custom cars, alternative power vehicles, and motorcycles. It also includes the Discovery Center with driving simulators.

We finished our visit with a stroll through the first floor galleries. The theme of this floor is artistry, and a large collection of the most beautiful classic luxury cars is displayed here, all perfectly restored. They are truly gorgeous.

Admission to the museum is $15 for adults, $12 for students or seniors, and $7 for youth. Bob was given free admission as an educator with his school ID card. Parking is $12 for all day.

Wheelchair accessibility is adequate to meet ADA requirements but is not outstanding. Visitors with a handicapped placard can park in designated spots on the ground floor of the garage, if any are available. (All were full the day we visited, but we had parked in the Page Museum lot to be closer to Johnnie’s for lunch, so were not inconvenienced.) If you have to park on the upper floor of the garage, be aware there is still no elevator! That omission was a missed opportunity in the renovation. Within the museum there are elevators, of course, but galleries and bathrooms have heavy doors without handicapped push button openings. That is not an issue for us, with two able-bodied people helping Margaret, but could be more of a problem for another visitor.

Petersen_Johnnys

The museum restaurant is not yet open; it is scheduled to open in April 2016. We had lunch before the museum visit at our favorite place on Wilshire, Johnnie’s New York Pizzeria. Our youngest daughter joined us for lunch, and we all enjoyed both the visit and the food.