The early career of architect Robert Henry Ainsworth: from draftsman to practitioner

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Content The Early Career of Architect Robert Henry Ainsworth:
From Draftsman to Practitioner

By

Christopher M. Conradt

________________________________________________________________

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF HERITAGE CONSERVATION

December 2017

Copyright 2017 Christopher M. Conradt
ii

Acknowledgments

First, I would like to thank my friend Nick Osborne for bringing to my attention his
great-grand father, Robert Henry Ainsworth, and the archive that he passed down to his family.
Nick Osborne, Kirk Osborne, and the rest of those related to Robert Ainsworth, thank you for
allowing me to explore his archive and career. He was a remarkable man!

I would like to express appreciation to my wife, Maria, whose love and constant support
carried me through the entire process. She put up with documents and photographs spread
throughout our home, and on occasions, my less than pleasant mood. I love you endlessly! I
would also like to thank my parents, Les and Lorri, and my in-laws, Jose and MariCarmen. Your
constant support and encouragement meant the world to me, I love you all! I would also like to
thank the rest of my family and friends who supported me in the process.
I would like to show gratitude to my thesis committee members Dr. Ken Breisch, Trudi
Sandmeier, and Dr. William Deverell. Thank you for the time that each one of you invested in
the formation of this thesis! Dr. Breisch, your insight and direction was invaluable throughout
the entire process. It was an honor to have you as my chair, thank you. Trudi Sandmeier, your
role in the development of my thesis and our discussions along the way were very important,
thank you. Dr. William Deverell, your course shook my academic foundation to the core and
prepared me intellectually and mentally to complete my thesis, I am indebted. In addition, your
insight and contacts at the Huntington Library were vital in my research, thank you.
A special thank you to Sherry, owner of the Moore residence, and her son Harrison.
Sherry, thank you for allowing me into your home on several occasions, and I appreciate the time
you took to share all of your knowledge about your house. Harrison, your tours of the house and
grounds were very important, thank you. I hope you get to spend the rest of your life at that
house!
I would like to thank the following authors, in no particular order, whose books were
critical in my understanding of certain facets of Robert Ainsworth’s career. The late Alson Clark,
Kathleen Tuttle, Stefanos Polyzoides, and Diane Kanner. I thank you!
Finally, I would like to express my everlasting gratitude to the late, Dr. Kevin Starr. I was
a student in the last two courses that you taught and for that, I am grateful. Your knowledge of
and admiration for California was illuminating and infectious. Thank you for the assistance with
the Moore chapter and all of your cheer. At the end of each class, you would ask your students,
“Tell me something brilliant before you go!” I was hoping to share this with you. You are
missed, my friend.

iii

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ii
List of Figures iv
Abstract ix
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: The Initial Stages of Robert Ainsworth’s Career 13
Education and Early Training 13
Draftsman for Sylvanus Marston 18
Chief Draftsman for Wallace Neff 24
Ainsworth Establishes His Practice 32
The Minton Cronkhite Residence 33
Ainsworth and The Small House 34

Chapter 2: The West California Apartments 38
Chapter 3: The Robert T. Moore Residence 54
Chapter 4: The C.B. Piper Residence 83
Chapter 5: The Kimball Residence 101
Conclusion 120
Bibliography 126
Appendix A: “Residences Designed and Executed by Robert H. Ainsworth, Architect” 131

iv

List of Figures

Figure I.1: Portrait of Robert Henry Ainsworth 1
Figure I.2: The corner of Orlando Road and Holladay Road 2
Figure I.3: Ainsworth’s label from a job folder 5
Figure I.4: The Gross residence 7
Figure I.5: The Woolston residence 8
Figure I.6: The Morick beach house 8
Figure I.7: Interior of the Ainsworth family beach house 9
Figure I.8: The Pasadena Humane Society 10
Figure I.9: The Lamanda Park Substation 11
Figure I.10: Grover Cleveland School 11
Figure 1.1: Study for a college of architecture 15
Figure 1.2: Ainsworth pictured in 1921 16
Figure 1.3: Refectory Building at Columbus Park 17
Figure 1.4: William R. Staats house by Marston, Van Pelt & Maybury 20
Figure 1.5: The Grace Nicholson Treasure house 21
Figure 1.6: The Bourne house designed by Wallace Neff 27
Figure 1.7: The Doane house designed by Wallace Neff 28
Figure 1.8: Niblo house foundation plan 29
Figure 1.9: Transverse section, California Security Loan Corporation 30
Figure 1.10: Front elevation, California Security Loan Corporation 31
Figure 1.11: Minton Cronkhite residence 33
v

Figure 1.12: The Cameron residence 35
Figure 1.13: R.R. Bush house in Palm Springs 36
Figure 1.14: House for the Foss Construction Company in Palm Springs 36
Figure 1.15: The Singer Park Apartments 37
Figure 2.1: The West California Apartments, by Julius Shulman 39
Figure 2.2: Overhead view of the WCA 41
Figure 2.3: WCA plan drawing by Ainsworth 42
Figure 2.4: Pathway to the courtyard 43
Figure 2.5: View of the courtyard 44
Figure 2.6: Courtyard fountain and the doorway to Apartment #3 45
Figure 2.7: View of the apartments from the courtyard interior 47
Figure 2.8: Front façade of Apartment #1A 48
Figure 2.9: Façade of Apartment #1A and the driveway 49
Figure 2.10: A courtyard view 50
Figure 2.11: Floor plan for Apartment #4 51
Figure 2.12: View of entry hall and stairs 52
Figure 3.1: Robert Moore with his specimen collection 55
Figure 3.2: Robert Moore in the field 57
Figure 3.3: Overhead view of the Moore residence. 59
Figure 3.4: Partial view of the main entrance gate and front façade 61
Figure 3.5: Partial view of the patio area off the rear elevation 62
Figure 3.6: A section of Charles Gibbs Adams’ landscape blueprint 63
Figure 3.7: Top of the trail located near the front façade 64
vi

Figure 3.8: View of the rear elevation and grounds 65
Figure 3.9: Main gate and front façade 66
Figure 3.10: Front façade blueprint 67
Figure 3.11: Rear elevation blueprint 67
Figure 3.12: View of the turret in the front façade 67
Figure 3.13: Porte cochere and main entry door 68
Figure 3.14: Garage and rear elevation 68
Figure 3.15: Motor Court located on the rear façade 69
Figure 3.16: Main entry and main corridor of the residence 70
Figure 3.17: Entry hall of residence 71
Figure 3.18: View from the main corridor 72
Figure 3.19: Staircase corbel design by Ainsworth 72
Figure 3.20: View of turret staircase and ceiling 73
Figure 3.21: Corbel bracket designed by Ainsworth 74
Figure 3.22: First floor plan 75
Figure 3.23: Fireplace in the living room. 76
Figure 3.24: Truss system of living room ceiling 77
Figure 3.25: Second floor plan 78
Figure 3.26: Basement level blueprint 79
Figure 3.27: View from inside of the vault in basement 80
Figure 3.28: Robert Moore’s specimen collection 81
Figure 4.1: Partial overhead view of the Piper residence 83
Figure 4.2: Advertisement featuring the Piper residence 84
vii

Figure 4.3: Overhead view of the Oak Knoll Neighborhood 85
Figure 4.4: Piper house location, Sanborn Map 85
Figure 4.5: Partial view of the front façade 86
Figure 4.6: View of the front façade from Fairfield Circle 87
Figure 4.7: Overhead view of Piper residence 88
Figure 4.8: Rear elevation view from Kewen Drive 89
Figure 4.9: View of the rear elevation, terrace level, and garden 90
Figure 4.10: Rear elevation of the Piper residence 91
Figure 4.11: The boiler room 93
Figure 4.12: Tunnel opening to green area 94
Figure 4.13: First and second floor plan 95
Figure 4.14: View showing the living room wing 96
Figure 4.15: Partial view of the living room interior 97
Figure 4.16: Partial view of Piper’s library 98
Figure 4.17: View of the main floor hallway 99
Figure 5.1: Disney animator Ward Kimball 102
Figure 5.2: Grizzly Flats railroad, September 1938 103
Figure 5.3: Overhead view of the Kimball property 104
Figure 5.4: Layout of the Kimball Property 105
Figure 5.5: Partial view of front facade of Kimball residence 105
Figure 5.6: Front façade of the house 106
Figure 5.7: Layout of the residence 107
Figure 5.8: Initial sketch of the Kimball residence by Ainsworth 108
viii

Figure 5.9: The Kimball kitchen 109
Figure 5.10: A dwarf and doodles by Ward Kimball 110
Figure 5.11: Partial view of the living room 111
Figure 5.12: Initial sketch of living room 112
Figure 5.13: Second sketch of living room 112
Figure 5.14: Final rendering of the living room #1 113
Figure 5.15: Final rendering of the living room #2 113
Figure 5.16: Final design of Ward’s studio #1 114
Figure 5.17: Final design of Ward’s studio #2 115
Figure 5.18: Corner fireplace in Ward’s studio 116
Figure 5.19: Ward’s studio, circa 1940 117
Figure 5.20: The Kimball family and their train 118
Figure C.1: Design for a Montgomery Wards 121
Figure C.2: Design for Earl’s Cafeteria 121
Figure C.3: House believed to have been designed for Dr. Laertes White 123
Figure C.4: Ainsworth and the Sierra Madre Library, by Julius Shulman 125

ix

Abstract

This thesis is on architect Robert Henry Ainsworth, whose office was located in Pasadena
from 1927 to 1966. The focus is on his career during the years 1922 to 1940, although aspects of
his entire career are touched on. From 1922 to 1927, Robert Ainsworth was a draftsman for
Sylvanus Marston, then chief draftsman for Wallace Neff. Ainsworth opened his own office in
Pasadena, CA in 1927 as the sole principal. He remained the sole principal until 1962, when the
architectural firm Ainsworth & McClellan was formed. Most of Ainsworth’s commissions from
1927 until 1940 were residential, and the majority where located in the greater Pasadena area. He
designed many large houses during this period but was also active in promulgating and designing
small houses. Ainsworth also completed large public commissions between 1927 and 1940, such
as the Pasadena Humane Society building and the Grover Cleveland School. Ainsworth had the
gift of being able to practice in a broad spectrum of architectural styles, while balancing his
client’s wishes with his own inspired designs.

1

Introduction
Architect Robert Henry Ainsworth left a lasting imprint on Southern California’s built
environment. From 1927 until his retirement in 1966, Robert Ainsworth had an architecture
office located in Pasadena. Not only did he practice in Pasadena, but he lived in the city with his
wife Lillian and their two daughters, Marian and Carol, until moving to nearby Sierra Madre.
Nowhere can Ainsworth’s body of work be more recognized than in the greater Pasadena area,
due to the large concentration and exceptional examples of his work found in the region. Inspired
as it is by the grandeur of Ainsworth’s early commissions, this thesis primarily focuses on
Ainsworth’s architectural career from 1922 until 1940. It is also produced in expectation that it
may be a foundation upon which further research by other scholars and students will be produced
in the future.
Figure I.1: Portrait of Robert Henry Ainsworth. Courtesy of the
Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

2

An in-depth analysis of Ainsworth’s career as an architect has never been undertaken
until now. This thesis has been only been realized due to my lifelong friendship with Robert
Ainsworth’s great grandson, Nick Osborne. It was Nick who informed me of his great
grandfather’s career, and that he had located several boxes containing Ainsworth’s photographs,
blueprints, and other architecture related ephemera.
1
Providentially, the discovery of Ainsworth’s
archive came only a year before I decided to pursue my Masters of Heritage Conservation degree
at USC. Before starting graduate school, I became convinced that Ainsworth’s career as an
architect held substantial merit when Nick showed me a concentration of houses designed by
Ainsworth located adjacent to the Huntington Library in San Marino. Standing near the corner of
Orlando Road and Holladay Road, three stately residences remain as a testament to Ainsworth’s
legacy as an architect. Between 1928 and 1933, Ainsworth completed the French manor inspired
residence at 1386 Orlando Road, the Mediterranean style residence at 800 Holladay Road, and
the English Tudor style residence at 850 Holladay Road.
2
All three homes are over 5,000 square
feet in size, and each vividly expresses the elegant and imaginative flair that Ainsworth imbued
into so many of his commissions. They also attest to his remarkable ability to work in a broad
spectrum of architectural styles.

1
The Robert H. Ainsworth Archive is currently in possession of the Osborne Family.
2
“Residences designed and executed by Robert H. Ainsworth, Architect,” Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.
Figure I.2: The corner of Orlando Road and Holladay Road in San Marino. Ainsworth designed the houses
designated with a star. Courtesy of Google Maps.

3

Robert Ainsworth served as a draftsman for Sylvanus Marston in Pasadena from 1922 to
1924. His skills were further refined when he served as chief draftsman for Wallace Neff, also in
Pasadena, from 1924 until 1927. Marston and Neff were considered by many to be the region’s
foremost architects adept in the revival styles. Working with two of the great masters of design
of his time, Ainsworth became immersed in the design styles of revivalism. He also began his
career when design influence was shifting in Southern California. During the early 1920s,
architects in Southern California were no longer looking to the California Missions for influence,
but began to look towards Europe for inspiration, in particular the Mediterranean.
3
“The
architecture of choice in the 1920s was then called “Mediterranean,” a kind of amalgam of
principally Spanish motifs with details borrowed from Italy, France, and even North Africa.”
4

One of the principal architects who promulgated the Mediterranean style, architect Reginald D.
Johnson, wrote in 1923 that, “since Italy and Spain have an all year outdoor climate with
prevailing wind similar to that of Southern California the Mediterranean inspiration seems to be
a logical one (for Southern California).”
56
Wallace Neff was seen by some as, “one of the most
brilliant proponents in the West of the Mediterranean style.”
7
In addition, while the
Mediterranean style prevailed in Southern California during the 1920s, “Neff, like his
colleagues, was at the same time producing a broad array of other period revival designs whose
reference points were international/national, not regional.”
8
These other period revival designs
included the English Tudor, Norman revival, French provincial, among other styles.
While these aforementioned design styles were created on historic precedent, “they were
not necessarily historically authentic…they represented an attempt to find something in history’s
grab bag to delight the eye.”
9
Architectural historian Robert Winter states that, “a talented
architect could create Tudor, Spanish, Islamic, and Anglo-Colonial buildings according to a
client’s whims. This disregard for strict ideology meant that most domestic architecture in the

3
Alson Clark et al, Wallace Neff, 1895-1982: The Romance of Regional Architecture, (San Marino, CA: The
Huntington Library, 1989), 39.
4
Robert Winter and Alexander Vertikoff, The Architecture of Entertainment: L.A. in the Twenties, (Salt Lake City:
Gibbs Smith, 2006), 58.
5
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 39.
6
Kevin Starr, Material Dreams: Southern California through the 1920s, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press,
1990), 203.
7
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 41.
8
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 41.
9
Winter, Entertainment, 58.

4

1920s was pure entertainment.”
10
This eclectic form of architecture that was en vogue in
Southern California during the 1920s, “made Los Angeles residential neighborhoods
distinctively vibrant.”
11
The Pasadena area is rich with many examples of eclectic residential
architecture. “Lining a street such as Lombardy, which connects Pasadena with the town of San
Marino, was a bewildering array of architectural images, many of which resembled stage sets
more than private homes.”
12
Robert Ainsworth would complete several commissions on
Lombardy Road, adding his own touch to the eclectic residential neighborhood.
Sources of inspiration for architects in Southern California during the 1920s and 1930s
were found in many published books and magazines. These publications promoted the
Mediterranean and Spanish styles as the appropriate regional identity for Southern California.
The publications, “were readily available to Southern California architects, who would copy
illustrated details and then combine them in new arrangements.”
13
Rexford Newcomb was one of
the chief promoters of the Spanish and Mediterranean style as an appropriate regional identity for
California, and other regions in Texas and Florida. “Newcomb and other writers of the period
championed an architectural style or styles based on the idea that Southern California possessed
an agreed upon regional culture descended from Spanish and Mexican roots and promoted the
work of architects…who could provide works that reflected that heritage.”
14
Newcomb produced
several of the most significant books of his time that promoted this regional style. These include
The Spanish House for America in 1927 and Mediterranean Domestic Architecture in 1928.
Ainsworth’s training with Marston and Neff familiarized him with many of these publications
and the motifs and styles they promulgated.
In 1927, a year considered by architectural historian David Gebhard to be the, “height of
the period revivals in America,” Ainsworth opened up his architectural office as the sole
principal in Pasadena.
15
Ainsworth executed commissions in a variety of revival styles, as his
clientele desired them. While his designs are certainly inspired and unique, he was one of many
architects that was producing eclectic revival style designs in Southern California. Eclectic

10
Winter, Entertainment, 58.
11
Winter, Entertainment, 64.
12
Winter, Entertainment, 66.
13
Winter, Entertainment, 64.
14
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 55.
15
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 37.

5

architecture was ubiquitous in Southern California during the 1920s. What was less common was
to find an architect, such as Robert Ainsworth, whose training and understanding of such
architecture was exemplary to other architects that were trying to establish themselves during the
1920s. In the early twenties, there were just over 200 practicing architects in Los Angeles.
16
That
number grew, such that by 1927, there was an even greater abundance of architects in Southern
California, leading to increased competition for commissions. Ainsworth was able to secure and
execute large residential commissions immediately when he opened his own office, during a time
when competition among architects may have been at its peak in Southern California. This
attests to his knowledge of eclectic architecture, his ability to create attractive designs, and that
his designs attracted clientele.
By 1930, Ainsworth had established himself as a highly regarded architect. That year,
Ainsworth was featured in the Los Angeles exhibition, “Best In House Architecture,” at the
Architects Building located on Figueroa and Fifth Street.
17
Photographs formed a “permanent
exhibit” on the ground floor of the building and allowed those, “who contemplate building
homes to study the different types of architecture suitable to the natural surroundings and climate
of Southern California.”
18
Featured alongside Ainsworth were prominent architects such as
Roland Coate, Ralph Flewelling, Myron Hunt, Reginald D. Johnson, Gordon B. Kaufmann,
Wallace Neff, Paul Williams, and Marston & Maybury.
19
Ainsworth survived the sluggish

16
Diane Kanner, Wallace Neff and the Grand Houses of the Golden State, (New York, NY: Monacelli Press, 2005),
149.
17
Architect and Engineer, (October 1930): 109.
18
Architect and Engineer, (October 1930): 109.
19
Architect and Engineer, (October 1930): 109.
Figure I.3: Ainsworth’s label from a job folder, 1939. University of California,
Santa Barbara. Architecture and Design Collection. Robert Henry Ainsworth
papers relating to the Ward Kimball house.

6

economy of the 1930s and continued to operate as the sole principal during this time. What had
been a steep upward trend in the 1920s reversed course in the early years of the Great
Depression. By 1934, there were only 164 architects practicing in Los Angeles, “the following
year another thirty disappeared from the Los Angeles City Directory.”
20
Ainsworth could have
collaborated with other architects during these tough finical times, but he was still in demand and
continued to receive commissions on his own.
Most of Ainsworth’s commissions from 1927 until 1940 were residential, and the
majority where located in the greater Pasadena area. Ainsworth’s commissions were often
featured in newspapers such as the San Marino Tribune and the Pasadena Star News, as well as
in leading architectural publications. Ainsworth’s records indicate that he designed fifty-seven
residences during this period.
21
Primarily before World War II, Robert Ainsworth designed
houses in numerous revival styles including, among others, Mediterranean Revival, Spanish
Colonial Revival, English Tudor, French Manor, American Colonial Revival, Monterey Revival,
and Normandy Revival. By the 1930s, Ainsworth had executed residential designs in a modern
style and early versions of the California Ranch house.
Two of his more interesting residential designs from this period that are not examined in
this thesis are the Mrs. Frank Gross residence and the Dr. & Mrs. Wesley J. Woolston residence.
The Gross residence was completed at 384 Meadow Grove Street in Flintridge in 1931, just two
blocks away from the house he designed that same year for Robert T. Moore. (Figure I.4) The
house, as Ainsworth noted, was, “a moderate sized suburban home adapted from the picturesque
architecture of rural France….accentuated by driftwood-colored timber work adzed to a pleasing
texture.”
22
The modern style Woolston residence was completed in Emerald Bay, California in
1939, the same year Ainsworth designed the Kimball residence. (Figure I.5) Blueprints show that
the 3,665 square foot two-story house had a finished basement with rooms such as maid’s
quarters and a photographic dark room.
23
Not accounted for in Ainsworth’s documents and found
in his archive, are two beach houses he designed on Balboa Island during the 1930s. One “beach
cottage” was constructed for Mr. & Mrs. Hugh Morick. (Figure I.6) As Ainsworth noted, it was

20
Kanner, Neff Grand Houses, 149.
21
“Residences designed and executed by Robert H. Ainsworth, Architect.”
22
Back of photograph of Gross residence, Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.
23
Blueprints of Woolston house, Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

7

a, “beach house for some family friends at Balboa Island...cost $3,500.”
24
The second “beach
cottage” by Ainsworth on Balboa Island was designed for his family and him, with the interiors
design appearing very modern in style.
25
(Figure I.7) Numerous other houses from this period,
not included in Ainsworth’s documents, are acknowledged as his design, including, the residence
at 522 East Broadway Street in San Gabriel, whose front façade was created to resemble the
Alamo Mission.
26
The City of Pasadena indicates in its records that Ainsworth designed two
residences near the Rose Bowl Stadium located at 944 and 885 Linda Vista Avenue in
Pasadena.
27
Ainsworth’s archive is incomplete and it can be stated with certainty that his
residential commissions during this period are not fully accounted for.

24
Back of photograph of Morick cottage, Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.
25
Beach house for Robert H. Ainsworth and family, Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.
26
Nick Osborne, interview with author, 2017.
27
“California Historical Resources Inventory Database,” City of Pasadena, accessed July 30, 2017,
http://pasadena.cfwebtools.com/search.cfm?display=search.
Figure I.4: The Gross residence. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

8

Figure I.5: The Woolston residence. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

Figure I.6: The Morick beach house. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

9

Figure I.7: Interior of the Ainsworth family beach house. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

10

Ainsworth also completed large public commissions between 1927 and 1940. One of his
most recognized commissions is the Pasadena Humane Society, designed in a Mediterranean
style and completed in 1932.
28
It has been designated in the National Register as an individual
property and the City of Pasadena has designated it as a landmark property. Ainsworth also
designed for the City of Pasadena the eclectic, Mediterranean style Lamanda Park Substation in
1933.
29
The City of Pasadena has designated the substation as a landmark property. One of his
largest public commissions, designed in 1935, is the PWA style Grover Cleveland School in
Pasadena. It was “the first school building in Pasadena deviating from traditional procedures in
design and construction,” due to the fact that “steel slip forms were used to provide poured
concrete hollow exterior walls.”
30
In 1940, Ainsworth designed an enormous manufacturing
plant and office for Norris Stamping in Vernon, California.
31
At its newly built plant, Norris
Stamping aided in the WWII effort as, “an important manufacturer of seamless artillery cartridge
cases fabricated from steel instead of brass, which had not been thought feasible.”
32

28
“California Historical Resources Inventory Database,” City of Pasadena.
29
“California Historical Resources Inventory Database,” City of Pasadena.
30
Ainsworth and McClellan brochure, Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.
31
American Architects Directory, Biographical Section, 1962, 6.
32
“Kenneth Norris, Industrialist, 72,” New York Times, March 28, 1972, accessed July 29, 2017,
http://www.nytimes.com/1972/03/28/archives/kenneth-norrisindustrialist-72-coast-concern-he-founded-has-
sales.html.
Figure I.8: The Pasadena Humane Society. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth
Archive.

11

Figure I.9: The Lamanda Park Substation. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

Figure I.10: Grover Cleveland School. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

12

The body of the thesis further examines Ainsworth’s background and then four of his
residential commissions: the West California Apartments, the Robert T. Moore residence, the
C.B. Piper residence, and the Kimball residence. All four of these residences were featured in the
Architectural Digest or the Architect and Engineer, two leading architectural publications of
their time; the C.B. Piper residence was featured in both. The four case studies were chosen for a
number of reasons, but two of the primary reasons were the abundance of archival material
available for each case study and that fact that they varied both typologically and stylistically.
The West California Apartments was Ainsworth’s first apartment building and one of his
first commissions. In addition, there are several photos in Ainsworth’s archive as well as copies
of the original newspaper feature in Pasadena Star News in 1928. Ainsworth also included the
building in his brochure in the 1960s as an example of multi-unit housing and declared the
building as, “Pasadena’s first studio-type apartment.”
33
In 1956, Ainsworth listed the Piper and
Moore residences as principle works under his biographical entry of the American Institute of
Architects directory. Furthermore, they are the only residential commissions he listed in the
entry. This displayed to me that Ainsworth thought these two houses stood out among the many
other large residential commissions he completed during the time they were completed. The
Piper residence had most the most coverage in architectural magazines after its completion.
These publications featured a sufficient amount of photos along with a detailed description.
There is no archival material pertaining to the Piper house. As for the Moore residence, two
photographs were located in the archive along with the photographs in its magazine feature. The
current owner of the Moore house has most of the original blueprints. I was also given
unrestricted access to the house and grounds, which provided a great measure of information.
The Kimball residence archive, rich with material, was given to UCSB by the Kimballs in 2010.
It contains the house blueprints, drawings, job folder, among other ephemera. These four
commissions all vary in size, layout, and style. Taken together, they display Ainsworth’s ability
to practice in multiple architectural styles, and his knack at balancing his client’s wishes with his
own inspired design. The following chapter turns to the rise of Ainsworth’s architectural career,
from his humble beginnings in Wisconsin to becoming one of Pasadena’s most gifted architects.

33
Ainsworth and McClellan brochure.

13

Chapter 1: The Initial Stages of Robert Ainsworth’s Career
Robert Henry Ainsworth was born in Shawano, Wisconsin in 1895. He remained with his
family in Wisconsin until he began attending nearby Lawrence College in 1914.
34
During 1915-
1917, Ainsworth attended Chicago Technical College (now defunct) which offered programs in
both engineering and architecture.
35
It is unknown what studies Ainsworth undertook while at the
Chicago Technical College, but his time there was cut short due to World War I. Ainsworth
enlisted in the Navy and began his training in San Francisco in July 1917.
36
He served as a
Hospital Apprentice, Carpenters Mate, and finally as Navy Department Personnel in Washington
D.C.
37
During his service in Washington D.C., he functioned as a superintendent of construction
on war and Navy buildings.
38
He was discharged from service in January 1919.
39
After his
service in the Navy, Robert Ainsworth began to pursue a degree in architecture in at the
University of Michigan.
40
Whether Ainsworth chose the University of Michigan due to its
relative proximity to his home or for its prestigious and progressive curriculum, Ainsworth’s
decision was an outstanding choice that would ultimately influence his architectural career.
The University of Michigan began offering courses in architecture in 1876 under William
Le Baron Jenney.
41
Jenney was an American architect and engineer who built the Home
Insurance Building in Chicago in 1884, considered one of the world’s first skyscrapers, due to its
height and steel skeletal framing. In 1906, Emil Lorch became the head of the architecture
program at Michigan.
42
Lorch was an advocate of Prairie School design, which his brother-in-
law George Elmslie and Frank Lloyd Wright advocated.
43
From their ideas, Lorch evolved, what
he labeled “Pure Design,” a system, which promoted an “approach to architecture education that

34
Justice B. Detwiler, Who’s Who in California: Directory of Biographical Sketches, 1928-1929 (San Francisco:
Who’s Who Publishing company, 1929), 45.
35
Detwiler, Who’s Who, 45.
36
Navy Service Record for Robert Henry Ainsworth, Service Number 100-09-95.
37
Navy Service Record.
38
Detwiler, Who’s Who, 45.
39
Navy Service Record.
40
Detwiler, Who’s Who, 45.
41
"Explore the history of the architecture and urban planning programs at the University of Michigan," Taubman
College of Architecture & Urban Planning, accessed May 21, 2017,
https://taubmancollege.umich.edu/about/history.
42
"Explore the history of the architecture,” Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning.
43
"Emil Lorch," Michigan Modern, accessed May 22, 2017, http://www.michiganmodern.org/designers/emil-lorch.

14

would allow students more freedom than the Beaux Arts philosophy.”
44
“Pure design taught
students to be inventive with shape, space and color rather than rely on traditional styles and
architectural solutions.”
45
Lorch was a founding member of the Architecture League of America
and used the League to promote “pure design” principles.
46
When Lorch was hired on as head of
the Architecture program at University of Michigan, he integrated the ideas of pure design into
the school’s curriculum. "Through the untiring endeavor of Lorch, the department of the
University of Michigan became a School with a marked individuality and one which always
maintained very high educational standards."
47
While attending the University of Michigan,
Ainsworth would have received a rigorous education, one immersed Lorch’s ideas, but also in
Beaux Arts principles of composition.
By the time of his graduation, Robert Ainsworth possessed an understanding of the
principles of “Pure Design.” In 1921, the advance architecture students at the University of
Michigan were given the task to come up with designs for a “College of Architecture” building.
This exercise was given to the students because the University of Michigan did not yet have an
independent architecture building.
48
In 1921, the engineering and architecture schools were
combined together as the Colleges of Engineering and Architecture.
49
The drawings produced by
the advanced architecture students served as a case study for a new architecture building.
Designs for the building that represented, “a range of possibilities rather than closely related
solutions,” were published in the Michigan Architect and Engineer.
50
It pointed out that, “these
plans had evidently been carefully thought out and would make such an excellent and credible
building that the Michigan Architect and Engineer believes it is doing a real service in
publishing them.”
51

44
"Emil Lorch," Michigan Modern.
45
"Emil Lorch," Michigan Modern.
46
"Emil Lorch," Michigan Modern.
47
"Emil Lorch," Michigan Modern.
48
"Architectural Building Needed at Ann Arbor," Michigan Architect and Engineer, Vol. III, No. 12 (December
1921): 168.
49
"Architectural Building Needed,” Michigan Architect and Engineer, 168.
50
"Architectural Building Needed,” Michigan Architect and Engineer, 169.
51
"Architectural Building Needed,” Michigan Architect and Engineer, 169.

15

Ainsworth’s design for the architecture building was paired in the magazine with one by
W.K. Rindge. (Figure 1.1) Rindge’s proposal features a symmetrical façade that uses prominent
features of the Classical orders, whereas Ainsworth’s Prairie School design relies on the basic
elements of architecture; the rectangle and the square. No Classical elements appear in the work,
giving attention to the massing of the building in a pure and simple way. No prominent features
of ornament or easily overt indications of Classicism are present. Ainsworth designed a stripped
down building, harkening to some of the design principles used by Louis Sullivan and Frank
Lloyd Wright. Ainsworth also limited his use of landscape to focus attention on his building,
whereas Rindge who uses landscaping to provide a more picturesque setting for his building.
Figure 1.1: Study for a college of architecture. Michigan Architect and
Engineer. Vol. III. No. 12. 1921.

16

While in school, Ainsworth became a member of Alpha Rho Chi, the first national
architecture fraternity founded at the University of Michigan and was also a member of the Tau
Sigma Delta Honor Society.
52
He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in architecture in
1922.
53
Upon graduation, Ainsworth found his first job as a draftsman at the respected
architectural firm of Chatten & Hammond in Chicago, Illinois.
54
Several works by Chatten &

52
Detwiler, Who’s Who, 45.
53
Michigan Alumnus, Vol. 39 (1932): 134.
54
American Architects Directory, Biographical Section, 1956, 5.
Figure 1.2: Ainsworth pictured in 1921. Michiganensian. Volume 25. 1921.

17

Hammond have been listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places including the
Columbus Park Refectory building completed in 1922. This building was designed in a
Mediterranean revival style and extends into the park’s lake. It is a handsome building heavily
steeped in the Beaux Arts tradition with great detail being incorporated into the interior’s clear
span and truss work. Ainsworth would have been well aware of the Refectory building
commission while working at Chatten & Hammond, and may have been involved in some way in
its design. Ainsworth would go on to design and execute many buildings in the Mediterranean
style with particular attention to landscape design, often working with some of the best landscape
architects in the area. Chicago, however, would only be a short chapter in the long career of
Robert Ainsworth, as he jumped at the opportunity to relocate to California during 1922.
55

Robert Ainsworth arrived in Southern California to practice architecture in an
environment where architectural experimentation and eclecticism were burgeoning. The
knowledge that Ainsworth gained while at the University of Michigan and as a draftsman for
Chatten & Hammond is certainly not enough to explain how he ended up landing employment as

55
American Architects Directory, Bio, 5.
Figure 1.3: Refectory Building at Columbus Park. Photo courtesy of Chuckman’s photos. Accessed
August 2, 2017. (https://chuckmanchicagonostalgia.wordpress.com/2015/01/16/postcard-chicago-
columbus-park-jackson-and-south-central-boating-dedicated-1918-tinted-1920s/).

18

a draftsman with two of California’s most esteemed architectural firms. He started at Marston &
Van Pelt and moved on to the office of Wallace Neff. Ainsworth’s own talent certainly gave him
an edge in a competitive job market, particularly at such a prestigious firms. Only the most
talented draftsmen could stay employed full time and often draftsmen moved between multiple
offices in order to have an adequate amount of work. Ainsworth was able to secure work fulltime
solely with Marston & Van Pelt when he arrived in 1922, and then transition fulltime to the
office of Wallace Neff in 1924.
56

When Ainsworth was hired on as a draftsman at the firm of Marston & Van Pelt in
Pasadena, he had earned a position at one of Southern California’s well-regarded architecture
firms that had become recognized for its exceptional designs.
57
During the 1920s, Marston &
Van Pelt’s work was frequently featured in local newspapers and major architecture
publications.
58
Arguably, Ainsworth could not have found a more creative firm to work for, as he
was first beginning to solidify his career in California. Marston & Van Pelt’s work reflected a
wide variety of architectural styles and both small and large residential, civic, and commercial
architectural commissions.
Pasadena native Sylvanus Marston received a degree in architecture at Cornell University
in 1907. He began practicing architecture in Pasadena around 1908 and by 1914, his head
draftsman, Garrett Van Pelt, became partner to the firm.
59
By the time Ainsworth arrived at the
firm in 1922, Marston & Van Pelt had completed numerous important commissions, which
established them as a well-respected firm in Southern California.
60
As the head of the firm,
Sylvanus Marston “had the paramount role and was adept at working with the people he hired
and managing the different talents involved in a given commission.”
61
Marston would hand off
his initial design sketches to Van Pelt and his draftsmen who would then produce working
drawings.
62
Robert Ainsworth would have received instructions from both Van Pelt and Marston

56
American Architects Directory, Bio, 5.
57
Kathleen Tuttle, Sylvanus Marston: Pasadena's Quintessential Architect, (Santa Monica, CA: Hennessey &
Ingalls, 2001), 5.
58
Tuttle, Marston, 5.
59
Tuttle, Marston, Chronology.
60
In 1923, Edgar Maybury became a named partner forming Marston, Van Pelt & Maybury, although he had
already served as a lead draftsman in the office since 1921.
61
Tuttle, Marston, 3.
62
Tuttle, Marston, 3.

19

during his time spent there. The working drawings would then circulate back to Marston and Van
Pelt who would modify them to achieve the desired design.
63
What would seem like a rather
mechanical and straightforward task was often impeded by the fact that Marston and Van Pelt
could have upwards of thirty commissions going on simultaneously.
64
Not only would there be
multiple commissions in the office, the designs for each commission could range from Spanish
Revival to English Tudor to a French Manor. Beyond the known regular job tasks, draftsmen
could never exactly anticipate the next commission’s style, the location of the commission, or
how design ideas may fluctuate from each commission to the next. Marston and Van Pelt relied
on Ainsworth to produce high caliber working drawings that were both imaginative and
technical.
65
The existence of the firm operating as a fluid piece of machinery rested on the
shoulders of draftsmen like Ainsworth. In essence, Ainsworth became one of the linchpins
between Marston’s initial design and the final product.
Marston had cultivated the ability to design commissions across a wide spectrum of
styles. As architectural historian Kathleen Tuttle points out, “Few, if any, architects in Pasadena
could match Marston’s broad repertoire.”
66
With an educational background deeply seated in the
Beaux Arts system, Marston understood historical styles and was adept at blending more than
one style.
67
He also mastered the ability to take a client’s desires for a house and transform them
into a design on paper.
68
While some architects, like Frank Lloyd Wright and Irving Gill, sought
to create a new American style of architecture, Marston’s designs were rooted in the historical
styles favored by his clients, designs noted by architectural historian Kathleen Tuttle to be
“uncommon in their beauty.”
69
While employed at Marston’s office, Robert Ainsworth was
steeped in the art of skillfully blending architectural styles together to fabricate commissions.
This skill would serve Ainsworth well during his time with Marston, while at Neff’s office, and
eventually when he opened his own practice.

63
Tuttle, Marston, 3.
64
Tuttle, Marston, 3.
65
Tuttle, Marston, 3.
66
Tuttle, Marston, 4.
67
Tuttle, Marston, 4.
68
Tuttle, Marston, 3.
69
Tuttle, Marston, 3.

20

Between 1922-1924, the duration of Ainsworth’s employment at the firm, Marston’s
office designed over 130 commissions.
70
Some of the more recognized commissions that
Ainsworth may have worked on (but certainly would have become familiar with while working
in office) were a French Manor house designed for William R. Staats, a large Spanish house for
James Scripps Booth, and a Mediterranean house for William Henry Peters.
71
Ainsworth’s
drawing skills undoubtedly grew while under the direction of Marston, and he gained first-hand
experience working on some of California’s most elegant residential commissions of the first
half of the 1920s.
One commission that stands out among others is the Grace Nicholson Treasure House.
Arguably, the Grace Nicholson Treasure House commission was the apogee of Ainsworth’s
drafting career while at Marston’s firm due to its intricate and unparalleled design. Oral history

70
Tuttle, Marston, 129-131.
71
Tuttle, Marston, 67, 81, 88.
Figure 1.4: William R. Staats house by Marston, Van Pelt & Maybury. Courtesy of
Google Maps.

21

given by Robert Ainsworth’s family states that he was involved in the Grace Nicholson project.
72

Furthermore, an original photo that appears to be taken shortly after the Grace Nicholson
building was completed is found in Robert Ainsworth’s personal archive of architectural photos
and drawings of projects that he was involved with during his career.
73
(Figure 1.5) The
technique evident in the front elevation drawing of the Grace Nicholson building design might
point to Ainsworth’s own hand, although further investigation is needed to confirm this.
Marston, Van Pelt & Maybury designed the “Grace Nicholson Treasure House of
Oriental Art” in 1924 for Grace Nicholson. Grace Nicholson wanted a building that would not
only house her Asian antiques business, but that would reflect the items for sale inside the
building and her own personal interest in Asian culture. Nicholson desired a two-story building
that emulated a Chinese palace; an idea that was likely inspired by fellow antiques dealers
Adolph and Eugene Bernheimer’s construction of their own Chinese Palace in Hollywood,
Yama-shiro in 1914-1915. Marston, Van Pelt & Maybury certainly did not have any prior

72
Nick Osborne, interview with author, 2017.
73
Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.
Figure 1.5: The Grace Nicholson Treasure House. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

22

experience in building such an exotic building. Special requests by Nicholson for the appearance
and layout of the building were given to Marston to complete. Of great importance to the
architects and Ainsworth were the many photos Nicholson had commissioned of Chinese
temples in China.
74
“Marston’s team and Nicholson would spend significant time together, to
study Chinese symbols and history and to understand the meaning and placement of Nicholson’s
authentic Chinese ornaments – sculptures, tiles, and wooden grilles – that she wanted
incorporated into the building.”
75
Clearly, those involved with the project received a crash course
in Chinese architecture and design, no matter how elementary the lessons may have been. As
Kathleen Tuttle has noted, “while the details were authentic, the arrangement of them was freely
interpreted...the effect is arresting and unique.”
76
Upon completion, architectural critics praised
the building with the California Southland stating in 1925 that, “it is far and away the most
interesting and beautiful commercial building Pasadena can boast. No skyscraper, no ordinary
office building can compare with it.”
77
To this day, the Grace Nicholson Treasure House (now
the USC Pacific Asia Museum) is still celebrated as one of Pasadena’s most unusual and exotic
buildings.
The principal parallel between Sylvanus Marston and Robert Ainsworth was their shared
ability to design commissions in a broad spectrum of styles. Ainsworth could attest to his
proficiency in all of the revival styles, including Chinese, that were popular in California during
the early 1920s. By 1924, Ainsworth should have had enough experience to be able to draft
nearly any architecture style given to him to complete. During Ainsworth’s early years as a
draftsman under the tutelage of Sylvanus Marston, his creativity and an aptitude for a boundless
architectural vocabulary were encouraged and sustained. In addition, Sylvanus Marston would
go on to become a lasting friend of Ainsworth. Marston was actively involved with the Southern
California chapter of the American Institute of Architects, ultimately serving as chapter president
twice.
78
In 1928, after Robert Ainsworth opened up his own architecture office in Pasadena, he
was elected an associate of the AIA, a requirement before becoming an elected member.
79

74
Tuttle, Marston, 93.
75
Tuttle, Marston, 94.
76
Tuttle, Marston, 94.
77
Tuttle, Marston, 91.
78
Tuttle, Marston, 3.
79
“Robert Ainsworth AIA membership application,” The American Institute of Architects Archive, 1937.

23

Ainsworth’s application for membership into the AIA was filed in late 1936, and it required that
three AIA members propose the applicant. The first individual that vouched for Ainsworth’s
membership into the AIA was Sylvanus Marston, followed by Reginald Johnson and Eugene
Weston Jr.; all three were prominent architects of their time.
80
Fifty-three out of fifty-three AIA
members approved Ainsworth’s application for membership; Ainsworth would remain an active
member in the AIA for the remainder of his career. He was one of the original members of the
Pasadena Chapter of the AIA.
81
Ainsworth become president of the Pasadena Chapter in 1949;
his immediate predecessor in that position was the architect Keith Marston, Sylvanus Marston’s
son.
82

Other connections between Sylvanus Marston and Robert Ainsworth deserve attention.
Marston took pride in designing large commissions but had a genuine interest in smaller
residential commissions, as well, an interest that distinguished “him from some of his peers who
preferred to work only for the wealthy.”
83
Such is the case of Pasadena architect Wallace Neff
who, by 1927, would only take on commissions that were more than $50,000.
84
Marston helped
bring the bungalow style house to the middle class and he has been referred to as “more of a
people’s architect.”
85
Marston, Van Pelt & Maybury designed a small house for furniture
designer George S. Hunt in Pasadena; the same year that the Grace Nicholson Treasure House
was designed.
86
The house would go on to win the title of “best small house built within the past
three years west of the Mississippi'' by House Beautiful in 1925.
87
While employed as a
draftsman under Marston, Ainsworth saw early in his career as a draftsman how a prominent
architect in Southern California could design houses on any scale without necessarily
compromising “architectural character or integrity.”
88
Ainsworth’s time spent under Marston
assuredly influenced his own designs for small houses that he began to execute during the 1930s.

80
“Robert Ainsworth AIA membership application,” American Institute of Architects Archive.
81
"About Us - Who We Are," AIA Pasadena & Foothill, accessed May 24, 2017, http://www.aiapf.org/?page=2.
82
"About Us - Who We Are," AIA Pasadena & Foothill.
83
Tuttle, Marston, 4.
84
Alson Clark, Wallace Neff: Architect of California's Golden Age, (Santa Barbara, CA: Capra Press, 1986), 25.
85
Tuttle, Marston, 32.
86
Tuttle, Marston, 71.
87
Tuttle, Marston, 71.
88
Tuttle, Marston, 69.

24

Working in the office of Marston, Van Pelt & Maybury, Ainsworth was able to build and refine
his talent as a draftsman and take these skills with him to the office of Wallace Neff.
In December 1924, Ainsworth left Marston’s office to become chief draftsman for
Wallace Neff.
89
The exact motive for Ainsworth’s transition is unknown. When Wallace Neff
hired Ainsworth, Neff was rapidly becoming one of Southern California’s rising architects, as he
had, “over $250,000 worth of work” in his office by 1923.
90
In 1925, Neff, with Ainsworth’s
help, completed thirty-nine commissions; the most commissions Neff completed in any single
year during his career.
91
Robert Ainsworth’s capacities as a draftsman and his abilities to take on
a leadership role must have been evident to Neff. He would remain at Wallace Neff’s office for
approximately the next two years. Architectural Historian Diane Kanner maintains that
Ainsworth was one of the finest draftsmen to ever pass through Wallace Neff’s office.
92

Wallace Neff was an imaginative architect, “who, in the 1920s, produced some of the
most remarkable eclectic houses of California’s golden age.”
93
Born in 1895, Neff was a native
of Southern California and grandson to the famous publishing mogul Andrew McNally.
94
Neff
had a cultured upbringing that included trips to Europe that would influence his sense of the built
environment, and his own architectural designs in the future.
95
He began his training in
architecture at MIT and like Ainsworth, found himself caught in the grasp of World War I, which
halted Neff’s training at the university. After World War I, Neff did not return to MIT and went
on to design his mother’s vacation home in Santa Barbara.
96
In 1922, Neff opened up his
architecture office in Pasadena.
97

Neff began designing commissions that were “dramatic in scale and proportion” and that
typically lacked ornament, as Neff “abhorred over embellishment.”
98
He developed his own
signature design style that he called “Californian.”
99
Neff mainly used Mediterranean or Spanish

89
Clark, Neff: Golden Age, 22.
90
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 19.
91
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 127-128.
92
Kanner, Neff Grand Houses, 75.
93
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 21.
94
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 15.
95
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 19.
96
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 17.
97
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 19.
98
Kanner, Neff Grand Houses, 11.
99
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 21.

25

designs, but he also employed French and English-inspired forms, among others.
100
When he
began developing his own signature style, he was treading a path already made popular by
George Washington Smith, Myron Hunt, and Reginald D. Johnson, who also found inspiration in
Southern California’s Mediterranean climate and its Spanish Colonial past. Architectural
historian David Gebhard states that what set Neff apart from other architects in Southern
California at that time was his “adolescent romanticism,” which in turn caused Neff to design
buildings that have, “little to do with the historic image employed” and are, “closely bound up
with Hollywood films.”
101
Gebhard further explains that Neff’s “gardens and buildings were
intended to be experienced as one would a Hollywood set. Such an approach was nontraditional,
pulling the design ever farther away from the reality of architecture.”
102
Neff’s signature design
quickly became popular, acknowledged by his many clients and the affirmative response of both
architectural critics and the press. Even other architects and builders began to borrow from
Neff’s designs. In 1926, California Southland noted that, “In so short a time his original work
has been the inspiration of countless copyists.”
103
Architectural historian Alson Clark maintains
that these copyists “made Neff’s vocabulary- the egg shaped arch, silo tower, corbeled balcony
running partway across the facade, horizontal stress, and overly low roof pitch- so ubiquitous
that Los Angeles would hardly be Los Angeles without them.”
104

To keep his office running efficiently, Wallace Neff was known to hire only the best
draftsmen available, and he demanded the highest level of expertise out of them. Neff required
that his draftsmen be, “male, under the age of thirty five, and able to design well, develop
freehand sketches into finished drawings, and work effectively without supervision. Applicants
might as well have been in practice for themselves, the requirements were so stringent.”
105

Neff’s use of unique forms in his design, his use of superior building materials, and at times
challenging building locations required the best people in the business to complete ongoing
projects.
106
Neff’s employees were expected to be “grounded in the basic principles of

100
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 10.
101
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 45.
102
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 47.
103
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 17.
104
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 27.
105
Kanner, Neff Grand Houses, 75.
106
Kanner, Neff Grand Houses, 75.

26

engineering technology.”
107
Wallace Neff would first develop initial sketches for a commission
and then turn them directly over to Robert Ainsworth.
108
Ainsworth’s tasks would have included
training the draftsmen to be proficient in Neff’s unique style, turning Neff’s designs into working
drawings, managing the draftsmen, and inspecting their completed drafts.
It took great perseverance to work for a man that had such high expectations, a hard-
driving professional who required near perfection from his office. Neff would reportedly stand
over the shoulders of his draftsmen for hours on end, making sure that their work was precise
and highly detailed.
109
“When they drafted one-eight-inch-scale working drawings, they were
expected to make sure that the major elements, particularly chimneys and exterior staircases,
remained exactly where Neff had sketched them on the presentation drawings.”
110
Although
every large architecture firm in the country had qualified draftsman who produced adequate
drawings, the technical detail and aesthetic quality of the drawings that came out of Neff’s office
are considered unparalleled. “The most striking characteristics of the working drawings produced
by Neff’s office in the ‘20s are their extraordinary clarity and consistency. From a technical point
of view, the hierarchy or notations and numbers, established by size and indicating degree of
importance in the process of construction, is exquisite. The actual craft of producing such sheets
of drawings is lost today…the drawings of Neff’s draughtsmen are works of art.”
111

When Robert Ainsworth was hired as chief draftsman in 1924, Wallace Neff’s office was
flooded with work, as he was producing some of California’s most extravagant houses during
this time. Arguably, Ainsworth joined Neff’s office at one of the high points in Neff’s career, in
terms of both the number of commissions being produced and in respect to the notable quality of
the work. Ainsworth played an integral role in the commissions that were given to Neff during
this period, which spanned from 1924 to approximately 1927. Some of the commissions during
these years included the Fredrick Cole Fairbanks house, the Arthur K. Bourne house, and the Dr.
Phillip Schuyler Doane house. Fairbanks, who was the son of United States Vice President
Charles Fairbanks, had a house built for him in the Mediterranean style with Italian and Spanish
influence. One of San Marino’s celebrated Spanish style houses was built for Arthur K. Bourne

107
Kanner, Neff Grand Houses, 75.
108
Clark, Neff: Golden Age, 21.
109
Kanner, Neff Grand Houses, 75.
110
Kanner, Neff Grand Houses, 75.
111
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 112.

27

in 1925, heir to fortune of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Architect Charles Moore called
the Bourne house, “one of the most satisfying examples of the Spanish Colonial ever built.”
112

The Doane house in San Marino was an outlier for Neff. (Figure 1.7) While Neff typically used
his signature Mediterranean or Spanish design, Neff based this particular house on “the
vernacular architecture of Normandy.”
113
The house is reminiscent of storybook style
architecture with its exaggerated, sweeping roofline and its many diminutive doors and windows.
The commissions that Ainsworth worked on while at Neff’s office only added more to his
knowledge and refined his already vast architectural repertoire.

112
Kanner, Neff Grand Houses, 90.
113
Clark, Neff: Golden Age, 63.
Figure 1.6: The Bourne house designed by Wallace Neff. Photo from Wallace Neff, 1895-1982: The Romance of
Regional Architecture. San Marino, CA: The Huntington Library. 1989.

28

Figure 1.7: The Doane house designed by Wallace Neff. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

29

One such commission, the Fred Niblo house, which was designed to, “resemble a
hemicyclic amphitheater,” clearly displays the complexity, quality, and creativity of the
commissions that Ainsworth was expected to handle for Neff.
114
It would become one of Neff’s
celebrated masterpieces due to, “the unusual form of a house conceived around a circular vehicle
court.”
115
The Niblo residence was Neff’s first house design based on a set of segmented circles
and executed in a Mediterranean style. Neff’s initial sketch was then transformed into a highly
complex working drawing by his draftsmen. “The foundation plan is given the veneration one
might expect to be reserved for monumental Roman works and is drawn with equivalent
strength. It expresses a tangible sense of respect for turning the earth, for occupying the
ground.”
116
The Niblo house foundation plan highlights the pain staking detail that Ainsworth
and the other draftsmen had to produce for Neff. (Figure 1.8)

114
Kanner, Neff Grand Houses, 120.
115
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 113.
116
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 113.
Figure 1.8: Niblo house foundation plan. Photo from Wallace Neff, 1895-1982: The Romance of Regional
Architecture. San Marino, CA: The Huntington Library. 1989.

30

We are able to see the talent that Ainsworth possessed as a draftsman in one of Neff’s
early commercial commissions. The only existing drawings produced by Ainsworth that are
located in Wallace Neff’s archive at The Huntington Library are of the California Security Loan
Corporation Building. This was built in 1925 in Pasadena. It was planned to be one of
Pasadena’s finest bank structures, flowing seamlessly in with other the Spanish and
Mediterranean style buildings of the time that lined Colorado Boulevard.
117
The bank’s president
noted that his firm’s “aim has been to make this one of the finest buildings of its kind in
California.”
118
What set the building apart from other Spanish revival buildings in the Los
Angeles area was that it was designed to reflect the appearance of a Spanish Church. It was
intended to be a “basilica of banking,” with an opulent nave-like interior.

117
Kanner, Neff Grand Houses, 82.
118
Kanner, Neff Grand Houses, 82.
Figure 1.9 Transverse section drawings of the California Security Loan Corporation Building. Drawn by
Ainsworth. From the Wallace Neff Archive. Photo courtesy of The Huntington Library.

31

The elevation and transverse section for the California Security Loan Corporation
Building were entrusted to Ainsworth to complete. Ainsworth’s talent, not only as a draftsman,
but as an artist can be seen in the minute detail of the Churrigueresque frame that surrounds the
second story balcony in the front elevation. (Figure 1.10) Ainsworth’s talent can also be seen in
the details of the wrought iron gates and balcony railing. For Neff, “wrought iron was of
paramount importance, and he insisted that full-scale patterns be drawn in charcoal and taped to
the walls of the office.”
119
Neff was able to communicate his design ideas to Ainsworth who then
transformed Neff’s vision into a working drawing. The highly detailed sketches that Ainsworth
and the draftsmen under him were able to produce were not only some of the best in the
business, but have now been branded as works of art.
120

119
Kanner, Neff Grand Houses, 76.
120
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 113.
Figure 1.10: Front elevation drawing of the California Security Loan
Corporation Building. Drawn by Ainsworth. From the Wallace Neff Archive.
Photo courtesy of The Huntington Library.

32

One of the most important skills that Ainsworth gained during his employment with
Wallace Neff was that he worked predominantly in the Spanish and Mediterranean styles for two
years straight. While Marston’s commissions have been regarded as exemplary examples of the
Mediterranean or Spanish style, the firm only completed around fifty buildings in this mode
during its thirty-four years in practice.
121
Thus, Ainsworth may only have seen or worked on a
few of these commissions during his time in that office. While working during his two years in
Neff’s office, Ainsworth would have had direct experience with at least fifty Spanish or
Mediterranean style commissions.
122
This does not include any other commissions that involved
an alternate style that Neff designed. Not only would Ainsworth learn, refine, and expand his
own architectural vocabulary in the Mediterranean and Spanish styles while working under Neff,
but it would become second nature to him due to his continuous practice in such styles. Also, as
chief draftsman in Neff’s office, Ainsworth gained vital experience in managing a staff of
draftsman and handling very costly commissions. This compounded with his experience in
Marston’s office readied Ainsworth to step out from under the direction of Neff and establish his
own practice in 1927.
Arguably, during the 1920s, the odds were certainly stacked up against a new architect
establishing his own successful practice. In 1927, if a client desired a high style residence
designed in the greater Pasadena area and had enough money to fund the project, seasoned
architects such as Myron Hunt, Wallace Neff, Reginald Johnson, Roland Coate, and Marston &
Van Pelt & Maybury were all willing to design one of the finest houses money could afford.
Given his illustrious career as a draftsman, Robert Ainsworth was surely talented enough to open
up his own practice, but he needed to market his designs to potential clients and, having once
done that, he needed to secure his own paying clientele.
When Robert Ainsworth decided to leave Wallace Neff and open the doors to his own
architecture office, he located in the Braley Building on South Raymond Avenue in Pasadena.
123

Ainsworth was not alone, for the Braley Building housed other architects during this time
including noteworthy architect Frederick Louis Roehrig.
124
Ainsworth did not leave Neff’s office

121
Tuttle, Marston, 74-75.
122
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 126-129.
123
Michigan Technic, (November 1928): 24.
124
Architect and Engineer, Vol. LXIV, No. 3 (March 1921): 106.

33

to open up a practice with a partner or multiple partners. He apparently felt confident enough to
step out into the saturated architectural arena on his own. It is unknown if Ainsworth employed
anyone fulltime when he opened his office. It is also not known if Ainsworth had solicited jobs
while in Neff’s office before leaving, though it is probably unlikely. What is known is that
Ainsworth was able to secure multiple commissions the same year he opened his own practice in
1927. And it is noteworthy that he did not begin his practice by taking on small jobs then
working his way up to larger and more challenging projects. Commencing with his first few
commissions, Robert Ainsworth began his career in full force by producing large, high-style
houses.
One such commission is the “palatial,” noted by the San Marino Tribune, Spanish revival
residence located at 1130 Virginia Road in San Marino.
125
Designed for Minton Cronkhite in
1927, it was set on a lot close to an acre with a professionally designed landscape.
126
One of the
most interesting features of the property is the enormous outbuilding designed by Ainsworth to
house Cronkhite’s model railroads. Minton Cronkhite designed a number of famous scale model
railroads. In 1935 at his San Marino property, Cronkite built a model railroad complete with 150

125
“San Marino line to run at San Diego,” San Marino Tribune, May, 17, 1935.
126
“Residences designed and executed by Robert H. Ainsworth, Architect.”
Figure 1.11: Minton Cronkhite residence. Courtesy of Google Maps.

34

feet of track and scenery depicting, “the wheat fields of the Middle West, the desert stretches of
New Mexico and Arizona and the orange groves of California, flanked by mountain chains.”
127
It
was the central feature of the Atkinson, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad exhibit at the California-
Pacific International Exposition in 1935.
128
Cronkhite was so pleased with Ainsworth’s design
for his first home that he commissioned Ainsworth to design a second house in Rancho Santa Fe
years later. In fact, there are at least seven documented clients, between 1927-1940, who had
Ainsworth design more than one residential commission for them.
129

While Ainsworth continued to design large residential commissions through the 1920s
and 1930s, he also took an active role in designing and promulgating the small house. Shortly
after Ainsworth opened his practice, he and prominent local architects Myron Hunt, Reginald D.
Johnson, and Roland E. Coate formed the “Architect’s Small House Bureau” in 1932 in
Pasadena.
130
Their aim was to improve the design and plan of small houses. During the 1930s,
Robert Ainsworth began actively executing and designing plans for numerous small houses. No
less than six of the small houses Ainsworth designed during the 1930s were published in
newspapers and architecture magazines. In 1936, the Architectural Digest featured two small
houses side by side that Ainsworth designed in Palm Springs.
131
One of the houses was designed
for the Foss Construction Company. Its cubic form blends the style of a ranch home and that of
an adobe house. The second house was designed in a ranch style for R.R. Bush, for whom
Ainsworth had already designed a large English Tudor style home in Pasadena in 1933.
Additionally, both the Architectural Digest and the Architect and Engineer featured Ainsworth’s
design for the Cameron residence in Pasadena completed in 1935.
132
The Cameron house was
designed loosely in a Moderne style and measures just over 1,600 square feet. Foss Construction
Company built all three of these homes. In 1937, the Oshkosh Northwestern Newspaper
published Ainsworth’s plan of a “simply designed white frame house.”
133
The newspaper noted
that, “a rear terrace and a front porch help meet the outdoor living room requirements of

127
San Marino Tribune, May, 17, 1935.
128
San Marino Tribune, May, 17, 1935.
129
“Residences designed and executed by Robert H. Ainsworth, Architect.”
130
Tuttle, Marston, 69.
131
Architectural Digest, Vol. IX, No. 3 (1936): 30.
132
Architectural Digest, Vol. IX, No. 3 (1936): 16-17 and Architect and Engineer, Vol. 140 (1940): 37.
133
“News of what women are doing in clubs, homes and society,” Oshkosh Northwestern Newspaper, November 16,
1937.

35

Pasadena’s climate” and that the kitchen was designed “for a family which keeps no servant.”
134

The paper also noted the Architectural Forum has also published plans for this home.
135
In
addition, the first edition of “New Small homes in California” was published in 1936 that
featured 51 designs; Ainsworth was featured in the book.
136
The Architect and Engineer noted in
their book review of “New Small homes in California” that “all designs shown are of excellent
architectural quality” and that the prospective builder will see “the value of fine architectural
design for the small house.”
137
Ainsworth was one of four architects specifically mentioned in
the book review as being featured in the book, alongside “many others.”
138
Finally, in 1939,
Ainsworth’s design for a small house was featured in a special edition of in California Arts and
Architecture magazine titled the “Small House Issue.”
139
Ainsworth’s design was featured
alongside designs created by prominent architects Richard Neutra and Paul R. Williams.

134
Oshkosh Northwestern Newspaper, November 16, 1937.
135
Oshkosh Northwestern Newspaper, November 16, 1937.
136
Architect and Engineer, (October 1936): 63.
137
Architect and Engineer, (October 1936): 63.
138
Architect and Engineer, (October 1936): 63.
139
“Small House Issue,” California Arts and Architecture, 1939.
Figure 1.12: The Cameron residence. Architectural Digest. Vol. IX. No. 3. 1936.

36

Figure 1.14: House for the Foss Construction Company in Palm Springs. Architectural Digest. Vol. IX, No. 3, 1936.

Figure 1.13: R.R. Bush House in Palm Springs. Architectural Digest. Vol. IX. No. 3. 1936.

37

Despite the fact that Robert Ainsworth designed an array of diverse large and small
residential commissions, he completed only two known apartment buildings before World War
II. Roy MacDonald commissioned Ainsworth to design both the West California Apartments and
the Singer Park Apartments in Pasadena during the late 1920s. We now turn to the West
California Apartments designed in 1927, one of Ainsworth’s first residential commissions, and
what now has become one of his most celebrated residential buildings.

Figure 1.15: The Singer Park Apartments. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.
.

38

Chapter 2: The West California Apartments

“Pictorial Apartment House Situated on West California Contains Eight Residencies
Assembled Under Single Roof.”
140
On Saturday June 9, 1928, thousands of Pasadena area
residents and visitors read the above headline on the cover page of the Local Development
section in the Pasadena Star News. Four large pictures displaying the newly completed
apartment building by Robert H. Ainsworth graced the cover page followed by an article. To
advertise Pasadena’s newest and unrivaled apartment building, the building’s owner also
purchased the entire back page. One year later, California Arts and Architecture Magazine
featured the West California Apartments, admiring its intriguing design and unique plan.
141
Over
the years, the West California Apartments have been cited as an outstanding example of Spanish-
style courtyard housing built in California’s “Golden Age” of architecture. The apartments were
also photographed by famed architectural photographer Julius Shulman and featured in
Courtyard Housing in Los Angeles: A Typological Analysis.
142
The West California Apartments
remain today as one of California’s best examples of Spanish-style courtyard housing and are
arguably still Pasadena’s finest example.
The West California Apartment (WCA) building was one of Robert Ainsworth’s first
commissions and was the first set of apartments he designed when he first established his
practice.
143
Roy MacDonald, a local real estate developer active in Pasadena, presented
Ainsworth the commission for the apartments. By 1927, Ainsworth was more than prepared for
this opportunity given his experience under Sylvanus Marston and Wallace Neff. The WCA were
certainly an exception to the norm for an architect first beginning his practice due to the
commission’s size, typology, and location. It is likely that Roy MacDonald became familiar with
Ainsworth and his skills as a draftsman through Wallace Neff’s office; Neff had designed a
house for MacDonald in 1923.
144
This connection may have been how Ainsworth received the
WCA commission. The WCA would also set the stage for a second apartment building, the

140
“Pictorial Apartment House Situated on West California Contains Eight Residencies Assembled Under Single
Roof," Local Development News section, Pasadena Star News, June 9, 1928.
141
California Arts and Architecture Magazine, (September 1929): 47-49.
142
Stefanos Polyzoides, Roger Sherwood, and James Tice, Courtyard Housing in Los Angeles: A Typological
Analysis, (New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 1992).
143
Ainsworth referred to the 339 West California Apartments as the “MacDonald Apartments”, but since Ainsworth
also designed the Singer Park Apartments were also designed for Roy MacDonald, the WCA name is used.
144
Clark et al, Neff: The Romance, 126.

39

Singer Park Apartments, designed and executed by Ainsworth for MacDonald approximately a
year later. The Singer apartment building is located just one block east of the WCA on California
Boulevard, designed in a Monterey Revival style that complements its sibling to the west. Of the
two apartment buildings produced by Ainsworth, the WCA is superior in its layout, design, and
size. The WCA remains today as one of Ainsworth’s masterworks and as an exemplary model of
a courtyard apartment building in California.

Figure 2.1: The West California Apartments. Photo taken by Julius Shulman. Photo courtesy of © J. Paul Getty
Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10). Accessed August 8, 2017.
(http://rosettaapp.getty.edu:1801/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE174520).

40

Courtyard housing was prevalent in Southern California during the period when the
WCA were constructed. “The bungalow became one of the most effective and successful means
for urbanization in the history of Southern California…it fulfilled the needs and dreams of
millions as a home with which to begin a new life in California.”
145
In fact, Ainsworth’s former
employer and mentor Sylvanus Marston built the St. Francis Court in 1909 on Colorado
Boulevard in Pasadena. The St. Francis Court was the first bungalow courtyard built in the
United States.
146
Ainsworth was undoubtedly familiar with Marston’s St. Francis Court and the
WCA in some aspects pays tribute to both the influence of Marston and his creation of bungalow
courtyard housing. The creation of Spanish-style courtyard housing in California increased in the
early 1920s. Mediterranean and Spanish-style courtyard housing was soon seen all over Southern
California, with some of the greatest examples being built in the area by Arthur and Nina
Zwebell.
147
A number of the Mediterranean and Spanish-style courtyard housing projects
maximized the lots they were built on by constructing as many units as possible. Some of these
courtyard apartments would hug the perimeter of the lot and have very little setback from the
sidewalk. Some of the courtyard apartments also featured underground parking garages to
generate more space to fit more units by eliminating the need for surfacing parking. In addition, a
considerable number of the courtyard apartments were rectangular in design. The size of the
courtyards varied and some apartments had multiple courtyard areas. It is of note that
Ainsworth’s former employer, Wallace Neff, did not complete an apartment building during his
career. This may point to Marston’s courtyard housing design as influential in the design of the
WCA. Certainly, the style of the WCA pays respect to the influence of Neff’s use of the Spanish
and Mediterranean architectural styles. Regardless, the WCA embodied Ainsworth’s own
distinctive approach in creating an apartment building that ultimately ended up becoming one of
his masterworks.
Ainsworth began the design of the apartments located at 339 West California Boulevard
in Pasadena in 1927. At either MacDonald’s request or out of his own invention, Ainsworth
designed the apartment building in an eclectic Mediterranean style. Ainsworth created a two
story, U-Shaped Spanish-style courtyard apartment building, while incorporating other

145
Polyzoides, Sherwood, and Tice, Courtyard Housing, 16.
146
Tuttle, Marston, 41.
147
Polyzoides, Sherwood, and Tice, Courtyard Housing, 64.

41

Mediterranean elements into the building’s ornament and in the courtyard. Not only were
stylistic elements important in the WCA commission, but the neighborhood and location of the
lot were also specifically selected to build a luxury apartment building. The WCA is located on a
large lot near the corner of Orange Grove Boulevard and California Boulevard, near the heart of
the city’s “Millionaires Row.” Palatial mansions adorned Orange Grove Boulevard at the time
with the world famous Wrigley mansion and the Valley Hunt Club being located nearby. The
WCA fit in seamlessly amongst its lavish neighbors, as, when viewed from the street, it
effortlessly emulated a large Mediterranean style villa. Only a small number of these mansions
remain today due to extensive development on and near Orange Grove Boulevard during the
post-war era. Providentially, the WCA survived the development that took place right beside it.

Figure 2.2: Overhead view of the WCA. Courtesy of Google Maps.

42

Ainsworth set the WCA back fifty feet from the sidewalk providing the apartments a
large green space in front. This amplified the illusion of a single, large Mediterranean Villa set in
a serene garden setting to on looking pedestrians and motorists. The courtyard garden in the
center is the most prominent feature of Ainsworth’s design for the WCA. The layout of the
courtyard controlled the shape of the building, the articulation of each apartment, and how the
buildings occupants would use the landscaped open space. Ainsworth designed the courtyard
with a single walkway that leads into the interior area of the courtyard. The walkway then splits
into multiple paths near the center decoratively tiled, octagonal-fountain that then terminates at
the entrances of each apartment. Due to a lack of permanent seating and open green space, it
appears as if Ainsworth did not want the occupants to gather for long periods inside the
courtyard. Rather, it seems as if Ainsworth designed the courtyard for reflection, whether passing
Figure 2.3: WCA plan drawing by Ainsworth. Note the name of each apartment
for reference. California Arts and Architecture. September 1929.

43

through the courtyard or viewing the courtyard from the multiple windows and porches which he
purposefully integrated into each apartment. By setting the pathways of the courtyard’s interior
space and regulating areas for the residents to gather, Ainsworth controlled the residents’
experience of the interior courtyard.
Crown City Nurseries of Pasadena completed the landscaping of the WCA. Ainsworth
worked with the firm on several subsequent commissions, including the C.B. Piper residence.
148

Olive trees, bougainvilleas, palms, and a variety of succulents, among other plants were
delicately placed throughout the WCA courtyard to create the appearance of a Mediterranean
landscape. The landscaping was an integral feature that complemented Ainsworth’s layout of the
courtyard’s walkway and greenspaces. When completed, the courtyard beckoned the occupants
of the WCA to enjoy and rejuvenate themselves at any time of the year, promising tranquility
and a view of an idyllic Mediterranean garden, all from the privacy of one’s home.

148
Pasadena Star News, June 9, 1928.
Figure 2.4: Pathway to the courtyard. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

44

Figure 2.5: View of the courtyard. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

45

Figure 2.6: Courtyard fountain and the doorway to Apartment #3 in the background. Courtesy of
the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

46

“A heavy tile roof;” noted the Pasadena Star News, “artistically placed doors and
windows; the cool beauties of the patio with its fountain; the broad garden effects of the
courtyard and other interesting and artistic features readily capture the imagination…in one of
the most delightful residential localities of the Southwest.”
149
Ainsworth designed an idyllic
community in an exclusive area of Pasadena that invited occupants to immerse themselves in a
fantasy like setting. The size, location, and setting were tailored towards for a unique clientele
that were able to afford such comforts. Some residents may have only rented the apartments as a
winter retreat while others may have lived at the WCA year round. The draw of a “California
Spanish Lifestyle” while living in a majestic garden setting were not the only compelling reasons
to live in the WCA. As the Pasadena Star News pointed out, “The apartments have the
characteristic of private homes. Each home has its own number, its own public service
conveniences, such as telephone, electric light and gas equipment and other features, not
customary in apartment houses.”
150
Modern utilities and services were a factor in occupants
renting an apartment at the WCA along with not having to maintain the garden area. The
generous size of the apartments was equal to the size of a single family home. When last listed
for rent, apartment #1a located on the eastern front façade showed a square footage of 2,700.
151

Each apartment provided its occupants with all of the features of a large modern home without
the responsibility of homeownership. Ainsworth also designed each apartment with touches of
individuality to allow occupants to feel unique in a shared community environment. “There is
nothing uniform about the appearance of the apartments. Interesting architectural features make
each residence distinctive. Here a doorway is sunk into a broad wall; there the doorway is
centered in a tower like corner. Windows are made pictorial with grills; tiles adorn stairways,
lend color to the fountain.”
152

149
Pasadena Star News, June 9, 1928.
150
Pasadena Star News, June 9, 1928.
151
“339 W California Blvd,” Zillow, accessed February 20, 2017, https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/339-W-
California-Blvd-Pasadena-CA-91105/2101095938_zpid/.
152
Polyzoides, Sherwood, and Tice, Courtyard Housing, 167-168.

47

Figure 2.7: View of the apartments from the courtyard interior. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth
Archive.

48

Ainsworth composed the two story West California Apartments with eight individual
units set in a U-shape around a garden courtyard with a fountain in the center. Stucco walls, a red
tile roof, arched doorway openings, turrets, and balconies are some of the prominent features that
make up the WCA. The two matching apartments set at the front end of the U-shape structure
feature classical Italian ornament. On the first floor, each facade features an entry way flanked
with Corinthian pilasters that support a decorative cornice. Windows open up to either side of
these entryways. On the second floor, pairs of balconies with French doors flank decorative
grillwork. Quoins on each end of the façade serve as a decorative border and provide balance.
Figure 2.8: Front façade of Apartment #1A. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth
Archive.

49

The interior of the courtyard is where the other six apartment entries are located. Here,
the different levels, staircases, balconies, whimsical roofline, and other decorative architectural
elements that Ainsworth placed in the courtyard stimulate the eye of the viewer. Four of the
apartments have open-air sleeping porches enclosed by arches and columns that allow occupants,
when the weather permits, to sleep al fresco. The two rearmost apartments have their entryways
set in diminutive turrets tucked in the corner of the courtyard. Both originally had private patios
set behind the building, but these have since been removed. Within the courtyard, ornamental
ironwork was a key design feature, seen in the guardrails that lined the balconies, in the custom
wrought irons lamps, and in the large iron window grills of some windows. Decorative
woodwork was also incorporated in the ornate arched front doors with turned members placed in
doorways, turned wooden Spanish style balusters that lined smaller windows, and the wooden
beams that sat on corbels on the exterior walls. These beams give the appearance of supporting
the entire load of the second floor. These are just a few of the design touches that Ainsworth
provided to create an exceptional and distinct Spanish flair within the interior of the courtyard.
Figure 2.9: Façade of Apartment #1A and the driveway leading to the garages in the rear. Photo by author.

50

Robert Ainsworth designed each apartment based on a two-story floor plan that
successfully maximizes both comfort and utility. Three bedrooms and two bathrooms, as well as
a basement, were standard in all of the apartments. The floor plan for “Apartment #4,” which is
located near the garages, indicates that Ainsworth designed this specific apartment with the
bedrooms on the second floor and the rooms for entertaining and utilities on the first floor.
(Figure 2.11) The first floor features a living room with a large fireplace, a dining room, a well-
sized kitchen, with a service porch and maid’s bedroom and bathroom adjacent to the kitchen.
The apartment also has a basement for storage. Ainsworth tucked away the maid’s quarters
which are set behind the stairs and accessed through the service porch. Ainsworth placed the
staircase lined with decorative tiles adjacent to the front door, thus facilitating immediate access
to the resident’s area, which contained the three bedrooms and two bathrooms. There is also a
fireplace located in one of the bedrooms. Smooth plaster walls line the interior space throughout
Figure 2.10: A courtyard view. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

51

both floors of the apartment. Some of the rooms featured iron lamps and iron decorative
hardware along with large wood beams set on corbels that lined the ceiling. Ainsworth also
provided ample closet space throughout the apartment and he even included recessed bookcases
in some of the walls.
Figure 2.11: Floor plan for Apartment #4. California Arts and Architecture.
September 1929.

52

Figure 2.12: View of entry hall and stairs, exact apartment unconfirmed. Courtesy of the Robert H.
Ainsworth Archive.

53

When Ainsworth designed the layout of the WCA, he also considered the automobile. As
a growing part of the Southern California lifestyle, automobile ownership in Southern California
soared during the 1920s.
153
“By the end of 1924, approximately 310,000 automobiles – more
than the total number of automobiles registered in the state of New York - were daily entering
Los Angeles.”
154
Ainsworth designated an area to store occupant’s automobiles and he did so in
a clever fashion. Ainsworth placed garages for twelve cars in the rear of the property directly
behind the apartments. The design for the garages composed two sets of six garages; each
located on either side of the two patios of the rear apartments. Occupants accessed the garages by
two driveways that flanked each side of the property specifically; one for each group of six
garages. Upon exiting or entering, drivers may have felt a sense of privacy, privilege, and
glamour. Onlookers from the street may have observed this ritual as the occupants of the WCA
made their way in and out of their secluded villa into the public sphere.
Without question, the WCA displayed Robert Ainsworth’s aptitude for inspired design,
attention to detail, and creative community planning. However, it may be of even greater
importance to indicate what Ainsworth and MacDonald omitted in the design of the WCA to
appreciate the virtuoso and significance behind the design. They could have easily created a
rectangular arrangement and moved the front façade much closer to the sidewalk to create at
least four more apartments of the same size or larger. Or they also could have inserted an
additional two apartments horizontally in the center of the courtyard. This would have created
two separate but smaller and less picturesque courtyards. They could, likewise, have widened the
apartments and reduced the courtyard area, or reduced the size of the apartments to produce
additional units, or split the unit’s top and bottom to double the available apartments for rent.
Any one of these design changes would have maximized the rental income for Roy MacDonald,
but would have created a busier apartment building and compromised the unparalleled design of
the courtyard area. Clearly, Ainsworth and MacDonald both agreed that the design of the West
California Apartments offered an exclusive courtyard housing experience that attracted a unique
clientele. Beauty and design clearly trumped an increase in revenue.

153
Kevin Starr, California: A History, (New York: Modern Library, 2015), 185.
154
Starr, California, 185.

54

Chapter 3: The Robert T. Moore Residence
In 1929, the Who’s Who in California: Directory of Biographical Sketches was published
showcasing “men and women who are, or have been, prominently connected with the history of
California.”
155
The aim of the directory was to “exemplify and perpetuate, in the broadest sense,
California civilization through its chief personalities, and to reflect the spirit, genius, and life of
each section.”
156
The commission of a stately residence located at 582 Meadow Grove Street in
Flintridge, brought together three men who were featured in the directory. Robert T. Moore
commissioned Robert Ainsworth to design his residence in a French Norman revival style.
Charles Gibbs Adams completed the landscape of the residence, who at the time was one of the
leading and most innovative landscape designers in California. Together, these men, with
Ainsworth at the helm of the project, would contribute to the completion of arguably one of
Flintridge’s finest estates at that time. After the house was completed in 1931, at a cost estimated
at $60,000, it was featured in the Architectural Digest.
157
The residence was a bespoke design
that incorporated every wish that Moore could imagine. One of Moore’s chief desires was to
incorporate his adoration for birds both in and outside of his home. This included having space in
his house dedicated to storing his collection of bird specimens. Moore would eventually end up
amassing over 40,000 specimens, now considered the largest Mexican bird collection in the
world.
158

Robert T. Moore was a successful businessman, adventurer, poet, ornithologist, and
philanthropist among many other qualities. He could have held the title of “Pasadena’s Most
Interesting Man” if one had existed during his lifetime. Born in 1882, he was the son of a
wealthy businessman and was well educated throughout his lifetime. He began his college
studies at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature in
1904 and a year later he received his master’s in Comparative Literature from Harvard
University.
159
Moore’s love for literature became a lifelong affair, Moore himself becoming a

155
Detwiler, Who’s Who, foreword.
156
Detwiler, Who’s Who, foreword.
157
Southwest Builder and Contractor, August, 1, 1930, 54 and Architectural Digest, Vol. 8, No. 3, 58-59.
158
“MLZ Bird Collection,” iDigBio, accessed August 11, 2017,
https://www.idigbio.org/portal/recordsets/c2e06358-1f9f-463c-843f-446c0a37fbd0.
159
Herbert Friedmann, “In memoriam: Robert Thomas Moore,” Auk, Vol. 81 (July, 1964): 327.

55

poet and subsequently founded the Borestone Mountain Poetry Awards.
160
Arguably, his
greatest legacy was his work as an accomplished fox breeder and as an ornithologist. For the
later he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Occidental College.
From 1911–1916, Moore edited Cassinia, the journal of the Delaware Valley
Ornithological Club.
161
During this time, Moore founded the Borestone Mountain Fox Company
in Maine in 1915, establishing himself as one of the foremost silver fox breeders in the United
States. Eventually, Moore would expand his fox ranch in Maine to over 1,400 acres.
162
By 1921,
the Borestone Mountain Fox Company was touted as "the leading ranch in North America" as
Moore, “has made a study of the breeding methods employed in the development of our famous
race horses and registered livestock and has applied them to the improvement of foxes.”
163

Moore was an active participant of several fox breeder’s associations and competitions while
also producing publications on raising and breeding foxes.
164
In 1923, Moore created a second
forty-eight acre Borestone ranch in Big Bear Valley.
165
Moore’s other business ventures included

160
Friedmann, “In memoriam,” 329.
161
Friedmann, “In memoriam,” 327.
162
Detwiler, Who’s Who, 504.
,
163
“The Silver Fox Ranch at Lake Tahoe, CA,” California Fish and Game, Vol. 7 (1921): 165.
164
Detwiler, Who’s Who, 504.
165
Detwiler, Who’s Who, 504.
Figure 3.1: Robert Moore with his specimen collection. Photo from
the Auk. Vol. 81. July 1964.

56

serving as the managing director of Moore Securities Company and Eastern Finance & Securities
Company in Philadelphia, and the Reduction & Mines Company in Guanajuato, Mexico.
166

Moore amassed great wealth that allowed him to pursue his hobby turned life’s work in
ornithological studies. In the later part of the 1920s, Moore and his family moved to Pasadena
where the occupied a large Mediterranean revival house near the present day neighborhood of
Bungalow Heaven.
167
Moore still retained his Borestone Mountain ranches. While in Pasadena,
Moore became deeply involved with the local community of ornithologists and was granted the
honorary title of “associate” at the Department of Vertebrae Zoology at the California Institute of
Technology in 1929; Moore would hold this position until 1950.
168
Moore was also an intrepid
adventurer and loved being in the field observing birds and collecting species. He was a talented
mountaineer, and he and his fellow companions were the first to ascend the 5,300 meter
Ecuadorean stratovolcano Sangay; they also collected specimens along the way.
169
When Moore
and his team climbed Sangay in 1929, it was only one of Ecuador’s ten peaks over 5,000 meters
to have been ascended. Moore’s articles, The Mt. Sangay Labyrinth and Its fauna and Gonzalo
Pizarro's Trail to the Land of Cinnamon and Its Denizens, were among the first publications that
reported on the life of birds in the Andes.
170
Moore’s interest in Ecuador subsequently led him to
serve from 1934 to 1938, “as chairman of the Galapagos Commission which laid the groundwork
for the eventual establishment of an international effort for the conservation of the natural history
of the Galapagos and for the founding of a research station in those Ecuadorian islands.”
171

Upon Moore’s return from Ecuador in 1929, his focus in ornithological studies turned to
those located in Mexico.
172
Moore began an undertaking to compose a physical record of
Mexico's diverse bird species; Moore himself travelling to Mexico nine times between 1933 and
1948.
173
He hired Chester C. Lamb to serve as his chief collector in Mexico from 1933 to 1955;
Lamb collecting some 40,000 specimens on Moore’s behalf.
174
Moore financed the whole

166
Detwiler, Who’s Who, 504.
167
Detwiler, Who’s Who, 504.
168
Friedmann, “In memoriam,” 327.
169
Friedmann, “In memoriam,” 327.
170
Friedmann, “In memoriam,” 328.
171
Friedmann, “In memoriam,” 327.
172
Friedmann, “In memoriam,” 328.
173
Friedmann, “In memoriam,” 328.
174
“Moore Lab of Zoology - History,” Occidental College, accessed July 25, 2017, http://www.oxy.edu/moore-lab-
zoology/history.

57

operation of specimen collecting while simultaneously keeping his entire specimen collection out
of the public’s eye, as Moore, “was inclined to be overly possessive of it.”
175
Such a collection,
its true significance possibly unknown to Moore at the time, would form, “an invaluable record
of Mexican biodiversity from a time before habitats were cleared for forestry and agriculture.”
176

His collection and ornithological studies formed the basis of his co-authorship of the regarded
publication, Checklist of Mexican Birds and Biotic Provinces of Mexico. Moore would discover
at least six new species of birds and over thirty subspecies during his lifetime.
177
He also
produced over eighty scientific papers during his lifetime.
178
Moore would not have been able to
amass such a collection if he did not have adequate storage and the ability to guard it closely,
given his personality. Whether Moore anticipated amassing such a large collection, the square
footage of his residence was almost prophetic in this manner. It was to architect Robert
Ainsworth that Moore turned to for the design of his large and theatrical residence.

175
Friedmann, “In memoriam,” 328.
176
“Moore Lab of Zoology,” Occidental College, accessed July 25, 2017, http://www.oxy.edu/moore-lab-zoology.
177
“ITIS Advanced Search and Report,” ITIS, accessed July 25, 2017, https://www.itis.gov/advanced_search.html.
178
Friedmann, “In memoriam,” 329.
Figure 3.2: Robert Moore in the field. Photo courtesy of the Moore Lab of Zoology.
Accessed August 4, 2017. (https://moorelab.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/frozen-
volcanoes-and-flaming-hummingbirds/).

58

When Moore commissioned Robert Ainsworth to build his house in 1930, Ainsworth had
only established his practice three years earlier in Pasadena.
179
By the time of the Moore
commission, Ainsworth’s office had completed at least ten major residential commissions in the
greater Pasadena area.
180
It is probable that even more commissions were completed by
Ainsworth, as there are wide gaps in his office records. Moore selected a large lot at 582
Meadow Grove Street in Flintridge, within walking distance of the Devil’s Gate Reservoir in the
Arroyo Seco Watershed below the lot. Ainsworth was commissioned to design a French Norman
revival two-story house with a basement level that set on the edge of a hill. The design of the
home was created to take full advantage of the site and the immediate views of the Arroyo Seco
and beyond. The design provided ample living and recreational space for the Moore family,
while specifically providing Moore with generous room for his specimen collection. The square
footage of the house is reported at just over 8,600 square feet.
181
Given that the house’s basement
level is only partially finished, the Moore residence is much larger than its reported square
footage.
The French Norman style that Moore had Ainsworth design the residence in may not
seem as the most appropriate design selection for Moore, given his new interest in South
America when the commission began. However, Moore was from Maine where he would have
been aware of such revival styles as French Norman. Furthermore, Moore was a resident of
Pasadena before the commission began. He would have been familiar with residences completed
in the French Norman or English revival style designs, which shared similar design
characteristics. As the late California historian Dr. Kevin Starr explained, “…for despite the pre-
eminence of the Mediterranean mode, Southern Californians had other preferences as well…as
can be expected from a community priding itself on its Anglo-Saxon ancestry.”
182

The current size of the lot is reported at 1.58 acres, but it was much larger when
Ainsworth completed the Moore residence. Southwest Builder and Contractor stated that the site
was three acres before construction began.
183
Landscape blueprints from 1931 display the portion

179
Southwest Builder and Contractor, August, 1, 1930, 54.
180
Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.
181
Southwest Builder and Contractor, August, 1, 1930, 54.
182
Starr, Material Dreams: Southern California, 205.
183
“582 Meadow Grove St.,” Zillow, accessed August 3, 2017, https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/582-Meadow-
Grove-St-La-Canada-Flintridge-CA-91011/20906662_zpid/.

59

of the lot that was to receive landscaping. The blueprints show that the southern portion of the
landscape was bound by Berkshire Place and then extended eastward, terminating at La Canada-
Verdugo Road. Eminent domain diminished the eastern portion of the lot when the 210-freeway
extension was built. The landscape also extend further to the west and north, this portion of the
lot being sold off for residential developments. It is highly conceivable that Moore’s property
line extended beyond of what is shown on the blueprint. What can be deduced is that the area of
the lot that received landscaping appears to be double the size of the current lot, putting his
landscape at minimum three acres.
The landscaping was an integral part of the residence, incorporating Moore’s affection
for nature and birds into a hands-on experience for his family and guests to enjoy. Moore hired
landscape architect Charles Gibbs Adams to complete the exceedingly detailed landscape of his
residence. Charles Gibbs Adams graduated from the landscape architecture program at the
University of California, Berkley. Adams went on to establish his own landscape architecture
Figure 3.3: Overhead view of the Moore residence. Courtesy of Google Maps.

60

office in Pasadena in 1917, working with celebrated architects such as Bertram Goodhue and
Julia Morgan.
184
Shortly after opening his office, Adams became recognized for his attention to
detail, his ability to seamlessly blend the house and garden, and his use of California native
plants in his landscape designs. Adams was one of the first landscape architects to promulgate
and use native plants.
185
Adams was also one of the first landscape architects to promote the
patio as a core of the garden area for family activities.
186
Some of Adams’s residential landscape
commissions included landscapes from the Cecil B. DeMille and W.K. Kellogg estates, with the
most renowned being a landscape for William Randolph Hearst, for whom he worked with
architect Julia Morgan to landscape the 127-acre site for Hearst’s Casa Grande.
187
The result was
and still is one of California’s great designed landscapes. In addition to receiving large, stately
commissions, Adams also actively wrote on and promulgated the importance of the patio garden.
The landscaping in direct proximity to the Moore residence clearly reflects Adams’s
interest in native California plant species, the patio, and the fusion between nature and the
residence. Photographs featured in the Architectural Digest of the front façade and rear elevation
reveal Adams use of native California plants and trees, carefully placed by him to reveal a
“natural” look.
188
This approach was in stark contrast to the ever-popular Mediterranean style
gardens of the period that mimicked those of Spain and Italy, in both style and species. A large
patio was the central focus of the Moore residence’s backyard, set between the rear elevation of
the home and the steep drop of the property that descended below near the Arroyo Seco
Watershed. The patio was the main outdoor gathering place for the family and served as the main
lookout point. One of the most interesting aspects of the landscaping in close proximity to the
residence is the use of the large flagstones set on the patio floor, the driveway, and pathways
around the Moore residence. The flagstones used outside of the home are the same flagstones
that Ainsworth used on the interior main floor hallway, although there they have been polished,
leveled, and grouted. This provides a visual connection between the landscape and the inside of
the home. The use of flagstone throughout the property in a cohesive manner evokes a sense of

184
Jere Stuart French, The California Garden: And the Landscape Architects Who Shaped It, (Hong Kong: Dai
Nippon Printing Co, 1993), 106-107.
185
French, California Garden, 106-107.
186
French, California Garden, 106-107.
187
Peter James Holliday, American Arcadia: California and the Classical Tradition, (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2016), 230.
188
Architectural Digest, Vol. 8, No. 3, 58-59.

61

antiquity as if it had existed before the residence was built and that the home was designed
around it. The flagstone floor could be interpreted to have been the floor plan of a medieval
dwelling or ancient stone landscape. Adams’s landscaping in close proximity to the residence is
only a small portion of the much larger landscape located below the hill from where the
residence is located.

Figure 3.4: Partial view of the main entrance gate and front façade. Architectural Digest. Vol. 8. No. 3.

62

The surrounding landscape is where we are able to witness the creativity of Adams’
talents, the landscape in relation to Ainsworth’s design of the residence, and how vast Moore’s
budget actually was. The landscape blueprint reveals that Moore’s affection for birds and nature
were the focus of Adams’s design for the grounds on the outskirts of the residence. Adams
incorporated a network of nature trails among the property’s existing trees, such as oak, and
plants that he left in place. One of the trailheads started near the front façade of the house and
descended into the ravine below. A stream, run by a circulating pump, began near the entrance of
the trail and terminated at a pond to the south. The source of the stream started next to a bridge at
the top of the trail and was created by Adams to appear as “a natural spring” under the bridge.
189

The “streamlet,” as Adams named it, passed under several “rustic bridges” as the trail wound its

189
Charles Gibbs Adams blueprint for Moore residence landscaping, property of current owner.
Figure 3.5: Partial view of the patio area off the rear elevation. Architectural Digest. Vol. 8. No. 3.

63

way down, ending at a “naturalistic pond” with an island in the center.
190
The pond was
surrounded by several “tropic birdhouses” with multiple “rustic benches” available for seating.
191

Before descending down to the pond area, the trail split just beyond the bridge near the streams
source to reveal another separate trail. This trail lead to the northwest corner of the property
where an octagonal structure labeled as a “rustic wild bird conservatory” was constructed. Along
the western portion of the landscape where these features and trails were located, Adams
distributed, “colorful native shrubs (California Holly, Blue Mountain Lilac, Golden Fremontia’s,
etc.) to be planted as if by nature among present chaparral.”
192

190
Charles Gibbs Adams blueprint for Moore residence.
191
Charles Gibbs Adams blueprint for Moore residence.
192
Charles Gibbs Adams blueprint for Moore residence.
Figure 3.6: A section of Charles Gibbs Adams’ landscape blueprint showing the nature trail, stream, pond,
and aviaries. Courtesy of the owner of the Moore residence.

64

On the southern portion of the landscape close to Berkshire Place, Adams created a
“naturalistic aloe garden” consisting of aloe, succulents, and agaves. This area was accessible by
a service road that connected to La Canada-Verdugo Road. Moore had the road installed on his
property to maintain the landscape, and to deliver birds to the main aviary which sat behind the
pond. Near the southeast corner of the property was a, “paved area with seats under pepper
trees.”
193
A separate trail that connected to the service road near the paved area, wound its way
up to the residence near the northeast corner of the property. Here the trail split, with one arm
leading up to a set of staircases that led to the large patio area of the residence and the other to
the garage area. While on the nature trails, one would notice the eucalyptus log steps Adams

193
Charles Gibbs Adams blueprint for Moore residence.
Figure 3.7: Top of the trail located near the front façade. Photo by author.

65

placed throughout the trails along with other features such as a waterfall. To provide a greater
sense of the landscape being both “natural” and secluded, Adams planted, “highly colorful
shrubbery to hide pavement” from the house, along both Berkshire Place and La Canada-
Verdugo Road.
194
The result of Adams’s design was a masterful illusion of California landscape,
blending the existing landscape with his own carefully arranged “natural” features. To the
untrained eye, Moore’s surrounding landscape must have appeared as Southern California’s own
Garden of Eden.
The Moore residence was the center of the property. It was the place where the nature
trails began and ended, where the Moore family entertained one another and their guests, and
where Moore studied and stored his specimen collection. Ainsworth’s design ensured that every
wish that Moore imagined was realized, culminating in an astonishing yet curious dwelling.
Ainsworth designed the house in a French Norman revival style, characterized by a large turret
positioned in the front façade, the juxtaposition of brick and half timbering with plaster, an
asymmetrical façade, large chimneys, and a steep pitched shingle roof with verge boards. Of
note, is that the half timbering was given a hand hewn finish with an adze and many of the
timbers are irregular in size and position to appear as if the home were an authentic medieval

194
Charles Gibbs Adams blueprint for Moore residence.
Figure 3.8: View of the rear elevation and grounds. Architectural Digest. Vol. 8. No. 3.

66

structure. A porte cochere connects the house to a laundry room with an attached one-car garage
with living space contained above. This connected to the main corridor of the second story.
Behind the one car garage was a “drying yard” for the laundry.
195
The beams over the porte
cochere bear a carved decorative floral pattern that Ainsworth designed freehand. Ainsworth also
designed an additional detached two-car garage with second story living space and an exterior
staircase to access it. This living space was designed for Moore’s chauffeur, complete with a
kitchenette and bath. Given that the two story garages appear as miniature medieval houses, the
effect of passing through the large porte cochere is one of entering a medieval courtyard. There
are multiple decorative brick patterns on the exterior of the house, prominently seen in the
central turret, that are laid in positions such as herringbone and dogtooth rows that add to the
medieval appearance. Bay windows with leaded glass, ornate iron gates, and iron exterior
fixtures further add to this appearance.

195
First Floor blueprint of Moore residence, property of current owner.
Figure 3.9: Main gate and front façade. Photo by author.

67

Figure 3.10: Front façade blueprint. Courtesy of the owner of the Moore residence.

Figure 3.11: Rear elevation blueprint. Courtesy of the owner of the Moore residence.

Figure 3.12: View of the turret in the front façade.
Photo by author.

68

Figure 3.13: Porte cochere and main entry door to the right. Photo by author.

Figure 3.14: Garage and rear elevation. Photo by author.

69

One of the notable design requests made by Moore was the need for two garages, given
that most households likely had only a single automobile in 1931. Moore had Ainsworth place
the garages opposite one another in an area of the property where the hill began to drop off. They
were placed very close together due to the location. To solve the dilemma of parking an
automobile in such a tight space, Moore had a mechanically operated turntable installed for his
automobiles directly in front of the garages. The turntable allowed the chauffeur to rotate the car
towards whichever garage he preferred to park in. It is unknown how the exact operation of the
turntable worked or how many automobiles Moore actually owned. Though unconfirmed, oral
history given by Ainsworth’s family states that another property he designed near the Huntington
Library had an automobile turntable as well.
196

196
Nick Osborne, interview with author, 2017.
Figure 3.15: Motor Court located behind the rear facade. Courtesy of the owner of the
Moore residence.

70

Moore and his family could enter into the house through one of several doors on the main
house’s exterior, but the primary entrance is located in the front façade just past the porte
cochere. Ainsworth designed a decorative ogee arch with a floral medallio n that was carved into
to the hewn beams of the covered entryway. Inside, sat a large oak front door with medieval
inspired iron door hardware that opened up to the entrance hall. The entrance hall was covered
with a nonstructural, groin vault that springs from each corner of the room. The north wall that
contained the front door is covered in decorative oak paneling. Above the front door, a carved
grotesque figurehead of a medieval man greeted guests. The appearance of the entrance hall and
the main corridor of the first floor that connected to it further solidified the residence’s
appearance as a medieval castle. Two gothic arches in the corridor were lined with cast stone and
Figure 3.16: Main entry and main corridor of the residence. Note the
continuity of flagstone floor. Photo by author.

71

terminated on carved corbels set between them. The floor is surfaced with large, polished
flagstones that extend to the living room area on the opposite end of the first floor. The corridor
then terminated at the large central turret. Ainsworth designed this as the central component of
the first floor. Which connected all the major rooms and corridors. A circular staircase contained
within it connects the first and second floor of the house. The staircase, with its decorative
wrought iron handrail, gives the effect of being free floating. Underneath the staircase on the
second floor are four cast stone corbels with grotesque figureheads, which Ainsworth designed
freehand. Ainsworth also designed freehand eight wooden corbel brackets with grotesque
figures. These figures support each of the eight beams that make up the octagonal wood celling
of the turret.
Figure 3.17: Entry hall of residence. Note the groin vault and wood paneling.
Photo by author.

72

Figure 3.18: View from the main corridor. Turret in foreground, living room in
background. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

Figure 3.19: Staircase corbel designed by Ainsworth. Courtesy of the owner of the Moore
residence.

73

Figure 3.20: View of turret staircase and ceiling. Photo by author.

74

Also on the first floor is the large kitchen and pantry with a separate octagonal breakfast
room for the Moore family. A servant’s sitting room with an attached porch was located next to
the kitchen near the porte cochere. The two main rooms on the first floor for the Moore family
and their guests were the dining room and the living room. The large dining room opened
directly off the center of the turret. Ainsworth designed the dining room with decorative wood
paneling; some sections are inspired by designs of French cabinetmakers. On the west wall of the
main dining room, Ainsworth created two wood cases with shelfs to hold items such as china.
Ainsworth also produced a floral motif with birds that was carved over the entryway. At the end
of the dining room is a large bay window with leaded glass to provide natural light and to serve
as a lookout point from inside the room.

Figure 3.21: Corbel bracket designed by Ainsworth. Courtesy of the
owner of the Moore residence.

75

Around the corner from the dining room, accessed by a short hall connected to the turret,
was the living room. The exterior of the living room is covered in brick. Ainsworth’s design
elements make this room appear as a diminutive, medieval hall. One of the most prominent
features of the living room is the steep pitch and sheer height of its gable ceiling. Two enormous
wooden truss systems support this and add to the medieval character of the house. Wood beams
with carved floral motifs designed by Ainsworth are set over the bay window at the south end of
the living room and over the glass French doors in the east wall. The bay window is composed of
leaded glass panels, and above it is a round window with colored bottle glass. A large fireplace
was placed on the west wall. The design of the fireplace, as noted by Ainsworth, “is copied from
one in an old Norman-French castle.”
197
While the living room was intended as the central
gathering place in the home for the Moore family and guests, it was designed to present images
of Moore’s adventures and of wild birds to family or guests. In the floor inside the bay window
frame, Ainsworth placed a projection screen which rises out from the floor. This is operated by
large sash weights located in the bay window frame. This gave Moore the ability to project his

197
Note on the back of the picture of the Moore Fireplace, Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.
Figure 3.22: First floor plan. Courtesy of the owner of the Moore residence.

76

own photographs and possibly movies through a small opening in the living room wall. The
projection room with storage cabinets for films is entered through a fire rated steel door located
in the hall. The ability for Moore to present his adventures and bird findings onto a screen shows
the importance that Moore placed on such a luxury. This would be only one of several areas of
the house that Ainsworth designed for Moore to share his admiration for birds.
Figure 3.23: Fireplace in the living room. Design copied from a French castle. Courtesy of the
Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

77

Ainsworth also designed several other rooms on the first floor that were intended for
Moore’s use. Next to the living room located off the hall was a decorative wood paneled library
with built-in bookcases, map storage cabinets, a built-in drop leaf desk, and a corner fireplace
with an Italian travertine surround. Moore had a radio built into one of the closets in the library
along with an RCA control panel with a headphone jack and volume control knob installed near
the fireplace. Two other RCA control panels where installed in the house, one in the dining room
and one in Moore’s master bedroom. Next to the library was Moore’s “workroom” where he
probably worked on his specimen collection. This is the only dedicated workroom located on the
first floor.
198
Both the library and workroom connected to an interior staircase that led down to
“specimen room.”
199
This is located in a section of the residence that extended off the house and
is lower than the first floor. The specimen room sat between the first floor and the basement
level. Of peculiarity is that there was a “trunk passage,” as labeled by Ainsworth in the
blueprints, located between the specimen room and the basement level.
200
Not simply a door that
opened between the basement and the specimen room, it was designed as small room with a low

198
First Floor blueprint of Moore residence.
199
First Floor blueprint of Moore residence.
200
First Floor blueprint of Moore residence.
Figure 3.24: Truss system of the living room ceiling. Photo by author.

78

ceiling, no higher than four feet tall, and the length of the specimen room. This area allowed
Moore to pass items between the specimen room and the basement level and served as an
intermediary storage space. Outside of the specimen room, an exterior staircase led down to the
basement level and was close to the nature trail that led to the aviaries and service road.
The second floor of the Moore residence is where Ainsworth positioned the bedrooms
along with other rooms. Ainsworth designed the master bedroom and Moore’s “daughter’s
room” to be located near the second floor landing of the turret staircase. The Moore’s’ master
bedroom included an attached private bath, dressing room, separate closet, and a fireplace. A
large sleeping porch, accessed only through the Master bedroom, faced southeast allowing the
Moore’s’ to sleep al fresco when the weather permitted. Views of Pasadena City Hall and
beyond could be seen from the sleeping porch. The room for their daughter included a private
bath and a dressing room as well as a small private, open-air patio that faced south. The
remaining rooms on the second floor where accessible by the long corridor that extends over to
the port cochere. A guest room and room dedicated for the Moore boys, both with private
bathrooms, connected to the corridor as well as a linen room. Over the porte cochere on the
second floor was a playroom for the children with space dedicated for sewing. At the end of the
corridor, over the laundry room and garage below, were two maids-bedrooms with a shared bath.
A separate staircase, located between the maids-quarters and the guest bedroom, provided the
Figure 3.25: Second floor plan. Courtesy of the owner of the Moore residence.

79

house servants with their own private entrance. It also put them in close proximity to the laundry
and kitchen areas.
Most individuals would have been satisfied with the size and extraordinary design of the
first and second floor, but Moore desired additional space. The poured concrete basement level
appears to have been designed by Ainsworth for two purposes. The first was to contain the gas
heating system, an incinerator whose brick chimney extends past the roof on the second floor,
the plumbing, and main electrical panel of the house.
201
The second was to give Moore
additional space for his specimens. Only one basement blueprint exists which displays what
Ainsworth designed in less than half of the basement level. In the center of the basement, is an
octagonal vault constructed of poured concrete. This sits below the turret directly above it, but
only one of its eight walls is shown on the blueprint.
202
A giant, mechanically operated steel
door, like to those used to guard a bank vault, secured the room. It is unknown what Moore
actually stored in this room, but it is highly plausible that it may have contained some of his most

201
Southwest Builder and Contractor, August 1, 1930, 54.
202
Ainsworth Basement Blueprint of Moore residence, property of current owner.
Figure 3.26: Basement level blueprint showing only a portion of the
level. Courtesy of the owner of the Moore residence.

80

precious bird specimens. The basement blueprint shows that Ainsworth designed a storage room
and a dark room for photography, complete with a washbasin, supply closet, and bottle case.
Near the dark room were two separate rooms labeled as “Hospital A” and “Hospital B.”
203
It is
assumed that the hospital rooms where used for examination of species and possibly for
taxidermy. The four rooms shown on the basement blueprint were located below Moore’s
library, workroom, and the specimen room. The rest of the basement contains four other rooms
and multiple closets. The largest single room in the basement, an unfinished area measuring
approximately twenty-nine feet by fourteen feet, may have been used by Moore to store his
specimens which he kept in large, double stacked zinc containers. It is not known for what
purpose the other the four rooms in the basement were intended.

203
Ainsworth Basement Blueprint of Moore residence.
Figure 3.27: View from inside of the vault in basement. Photo by
author.

81

The Moore commission was certainly one the largest houses that Ainsworth completed
and most likely his most expensive commission. Undeniably, the originality that went into the
design of the residence’s’ countless decorative features, which Ainsworth designed freehand, are
of his highest caliber. The Moore residence remains one of Ainsworth’s grandest residential
designs, highlighting his ability to create a residence that was elegant in style, yet maintained an
aura of mysteriousness. Ainsworth provided an enchanted atmosphere when designing the
residence for Moore and his family; closely related on one hand to its surrounding “natural”
environment and to another that was imported from the distant lands that Moore visited. Visiting
the Moore residence today, it is easy to imagine the calls of tropical birds resonating throughout
the ravine while taking a stroll on the nature trails, or imagining the evenings spent in the “great
hall” while Moore provided his own “picture show” for family and friends. Significantly,
Ainsworth’s office was able to handle multiple, large commissions during the same year the
Figure 3.28: Robert Moore’s specimen collection and zinc storage containers. Of note, Moore donated his specimen
collection to nearby Occidental College and the collection is accessible at the Moore Lab of Zoology building. Photo
taken at the Moore Lab of Zoology. Photo by author.

82

Moore residence was completed in 1931. One such commission was the C.B. Piper residence,
which when completed became one of Pasadena’s finest Mediterranean style residences.

83

Chapter 4: The C.B. Piper Residence
In 1931, Robert Ainsworth designed a substantial Mediterranean-style villa for C.B Piper
and his family in the Oak Knoll neighborhood of Pasadena. Many of the houses in the Oak Knoll
neighborhood not only had considerable square footage set on large lots, but some of
California’s most prominent architects including Charles and Henry Greene, Reginald Johnson,
and Myron Hunt had designed houses in the Oak Knoll neighborhood. In addition, Ainsworth’s
two mentors, Sylvanus Marston and Wallace Neff, both completed several homes in this locality.
Oak Knoll became a haven for high style houses and to a certain extent, became a proving
ground of sorts for architects to exhibit their design skills. The Piper commission provided
Ainsworth with the opportunity to confirm that his talent was equivalent or superior to his
mentors and peers, and he seized it. When Ainsworth finished the Piper house, the Architectural
Digest and the Architect and Engineer featured it in multi-page spreads, validating not only
Ainsworth’s talent, but also his growing reputation. Ainsworth’s imaginative, yet calculated
design along with his engineering achievements are what make the Piper residence exceptional.
Figure 4.1: Partial overhead view of the Piper residence. Photo from Dreamhomes.com. Accessed August
2, 2017. (http://www.dreamhomesmagazine.com/Home135117.html).

84

Located at 860 Fairfield Circle, the Piper residence immediately became an icon of
Mediterranean living, and the “California Dream” reflected vividly from its soft apricot colored
walls. At over 10,000 sq. ft. in size, Ainsworth designed the enormous residence for Mr. and
Mrs. Clarence Piper and their five children. The Piper residence imposed itself like a gatekeeper
on the northern main entrance of Pasadena’s southernmost and arguably wealthiest areas. C.B.
Piper selected the lot due to its unobstructed views of the San Gabriel Mountains due north and
views that looked across the Oak Knoll area to the east and to the south.
204
Photos from the
feature in the Architectural Digest show the San Gabriel Mountains and Lake Avenue in the
background.
205
(Figure 4.5) Motorists making their way to and from the Oak Knoll neighborhood
on Lake Avenue, one of Pasadena’s most trafficked streets, could not have overlooked the Piper
residence. The Piper house is located at the first, main multi-intersection stop when entering Oak
Knoll from South Lake Avenue. At this intersection Lake Avenue branches into several streets,
appearing from overhead as if an octopus were stretching its tentacles throughout the Oak Knoll.

204
James R. Ferguson, “A Hillside Home In Pasadena,” Architect and Engineer, 113 (April 1933): 21.
205
Architectural Digest, Vol. 9, No. 1, 16-18.
Figure 4.2: Advertisement featuring the Piper residence. Architectural Digest. Vol. 9.
No. 1.

85

Figure 4.3: Overhead view of the Oak Knoll Neighborhood in Pasadena. Courtesy of Google Maps.
Figure 4.4: Piper house location where South Lake Avenue branches into several streets in the Oak Knoll
neighborhood. Sanborn Map Company. 1931. Courtesy of USC Libraries. Accessed August 2, 2017.
(https://libraries.usc.edu/databases/digital-sanborn-maps-california).

86

On the corner where the Piper residence sits, the topography within the Oak Knoll
neighborhood becomes vastly different from that of the flat lands to the north. Arroyos and
rolling hills become the framework for high style, stately residences which occupy the
neighborhood. Lush, Mediterranean-style gardens further bolster the allure of the residences. The
Piper villa epitomized a lavish Mediterranean lifestyle that fit well with the romantic nature of
the other houses in the neighborhood. In essence, Ainsworth provided for the Pipers a residence
that evoked the feeling of an authentic Italian residence set in one of Pasadena’s most idyllic
landscapes. More importantly, what set the Piper residence apart from the other homes within the
neighborhood was Ainsworth’s unique four level design and its multiple landscaped levels in
relation to the site and the views it afforded.

Figure 4.5: Partial view of the front façade. Lake Avenue and the San Gabriel Mountains in the distance.
Architectural Digest. Vol. 9. No. 1.

87

Three main considerations went into Ainsworth’s design of the multi-level Piper
residence. One consideration was the site selected for the residence and the view the site
afforded. Another consideration was the size and layout of the house in relation to how it would
serve the Piper family and their guests. Possibly the most important consideration for C.B. Piper
was the mechanical equipment incorporated into the house, as C.B. Piper was, “most exacting in
his requirements and considerable planning was done to achieve the desired results.”
206

The site for the Piper house posed a formidable challenge for Ainsworth. C.B. Piper
purchased a 300-foot deep lot that was sloped, sitting between two streets that had a 30-foot
difference in height on the lot.
207
Ainsworth decided to embrace the severe slope instead of
resisting it. The lot was excavated, filled, and graded, with the earth dug deeply so that a
multilevel house could fulfill the needs of the Piper family.
208
Ainsworth not only designed the
Piper house with multiple levels, but he used the difference in elevation to provide several
distinct levels of green space for the family to delight in.
Ainsworth designed the house with three distinct outdoor levels accessed by several
exterior staircases. The first exterior staircase of the house was placed next to the garden by the

206
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 23.
207
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 21.
208
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 21.
Figure 4.6: View of the front façade from Fairfield Circle. Architect and Engineer. Vol. 113. April 1933.

88

north elevation of the living room wing on the first floor of the house. From here, one could take
the exterior staircase down below to a large, landscaped area with grass that connected to the
expansive terrace Ainsworth placed over the garage on the basement level. Two additional
exterior staircases were accessible from this level, one that directed individuals down to another
large, landscaped area with grass below and another staircase that led from the terrace above the
garage to the driveway. Ainsworth’s design afforded the Pipers and their guests different views
of the landscape that surrounded their property, as well as a tranquil setting and private outdoor
spaces.
The landscaping of the 0.85-acre lot was essential to support the Mediterranean
romanticism of the Piper villa. Ainsworth worked with landscape architect Harold Rossiter, a
Figure 4.7: Overhead view of Piper residence. Courtesy of Google Maps.

89

graduate of U.C. Berkeley’s landscape architecture program in 1923.
209
Rossiter worked for his
family’s company, Crown City Nursery of Pasadena, where he specialized in landscape
design.
210
Ainsworth and Rossiter worked in tandem on several of Ainsworth’s commissions
throughout the greater Pasadena area. Photos show that Rossiter used a mixture of both native
California species and non-native species.
211
(Figures 4.5 and 4.8) Rossiter carefully placed
Italian cypresses, olive trees, eucalyptus trees, agave plants, and fruit trees among other plants
throughout the grounds of the residence, evoking an eclectic and exotic Mediterranean garden
setting.
212
Rossiter took prudent care when considering the landscaping of each different level of
the grounds.

209
Sigma Phi Epsilon Journal, Vol. 17(1919): 42.
210
Architectural Digest, Vol. 9-1, 16.
211
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 20, 22.
212
Architectural Digest, Vol. 9, No. 1, 16-18.
Figure 4.8: Rear elevation view from Kewen Drive. Architect and Engineer. Vol. 113. April 1933.

90

Ainsworth designed the Piper residence based on a four-level plan; a sub-basement level
connecting to a large garage, a basement level, the first or main floor level, and a second story
level. Large concrete retaining walls enclosed the sub-basement and basement levels in order to
support the four levels and ensure its stability on the site.
213
Ainsworth provided ample square
footage for the Piper family of seven and their guests. The building permit from 1932 shows
the size of the residence at 10,534 sq. ft.
214
For the design of the Piper house, Ainsworth mainly
used an Italian Renaissance-style, but its asymmetrical façade clearly reflects Spanish influence.
Ainsworth also added Moorish elements to the design. The Mediterranean revival style was
popular during the time among many of California’s architects and their elite patrons.
Ainsworth’s adaptation of styles used in the design of the Piper residence may have been normal

213
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 21.
214
“860 Fairfield Circle Building Permit,” City of Pasadena, January 29, 1932.
Figure 4.9: View of the rear elevation, terrace level, and garden. Architectural
Digest. Vol. 9. No. 1.

91

practice among architects, but Ainsworth’s technique was distinctively his own and impressively
captivating.
Ainsworth intended the Piper residence plan and finishes to be, “thoroughly domestic and
inviting, to the entire exclusion of any feeling of austerity or ostentation.”
215
While bold due to
its sheer size, the front façade of the house specifically lacks any lavish baroque or
Churrigueresque elements popular during that period. Ainsworth judiciously refrained from
excessive grandiosity, balancing a subtle, yet provocative exterior. The house was constructed of
wood framing and brick veneer, except for the sub-basement and basement level that are
reinforced concrete.
216
“All brick veneer and such minor portions as were plastered, are painted a
light shade of apricot.”
217
Ainsworth placed large quoins on the exterior corners of the home. A
simple, stone ogee arch marked both the front door entrance and the decorative iron gates in
front of it. A decorative post and lintel stone doorway led into the guest room patio that opened

215
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 22.
216
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 21.
217
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 21.
Figure 4.10: Rear elevation of the Piper residence. Photo from Dreamhomes.com. Accessed August 2,
2017. (http://www.dreamhomesmagazine.com/Home135117.html).

92

off of the front facade. Ainsworth placed iron railings on the top floor balconies extending from
the Pipers living quarters. Functional shutters lined most of the windows. Italian roof tiles which
varied in color, “ranging from dark reds to gun metal,” provided a theatrical appearance, when
juxtaposed against three minaret-inspired chimneys with decorative caps and finials.
218

Ainsworth also designed a tower to encase an elevator that was specifically ordered by Piper.
This peeks up just a few feet above the roofline. Ainsworth’s intent for his design appears to
have been to let the massing of the structure be the focus to spectators, as he only used subtle
ornamentation on the exterior.
The house exhibits an unusual display of mechanical equipment, but given Piper’s
background and the scope of his large budget, it seems he would not have it any other way. C.B.
Piper was an engineer who graduated from Cornell’s Sibley College of Engineering in 1905.
219

He became involved in the grain trade in Canada, eventually becoming manager for the Empire
Elevator Company. In 1915, he published the Principles of the Grain Trade in Western Canada.
Piper went on establish Piper & Co. and wrote several publications on the stock market. Piper
was an educated and accomplished man who became successful in business and investment. To
ensure that the house properly served his large family, Piper invested an extraordinary sum of
money in the mechanical equipment. It no doubt Piper great pleasure as an engineer to have this
innovative machinery inside of his house.
Piper had the financial means to build a large house and required that technologically
advanced mechanical equipment maintained his desired comforts. His exacting requirements for
the house entailed precision heating, a water softening system, a built-in pipe organ, and an
elevator.
220
Ainsworth laid out the plans of the house with each of these requirements in mind. In
his four-part plan, he utilized the sub-basement level to house the core of the mechanical
equipment. On the sub-basement level, Ainsworth designed a room to hold two water softeners
and a six-month supply of salt, a machine room that contained the elevator equipment and
controls, and a room for the heating equipment and boilers.
221
A stair hall connects all four
floors. The sub-basement connected to a large four-car garage and a restroom by means of a

218
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 21.
219
Sibley Journal of Engineering, Vol. 31 (September 1917): 273.
220
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 23.
221
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 23.

93

hallway. The elevator also connected the living quarters above to their automobiles on the lowest
level. Piper insisted that the heating system and its controls incorporated the latest technology so
as to keep the home’s temperature at whatever setting desired.
222
To achieve this, Piper ordered
two industrial boilers with a 200-gallon hot water storage tank. One boiler would provide heat
and hot water for the service portion of the house and the other boiler serviced the living and
guest quarters. Piper chose this system to allow one boiler to be shut off if the main living
quarters were not occupied while the family was away. Both boilers were interchangeable and
capable of serving either area and operated by timed thermostats.
223
The Architect and Engineer
emphasized the fact that the, “heating registers are ingeniously recessed in the walls with small
grill openings for circulation.”
224
After Ainsworth designed the sub-basement to hold the
necessary mechanical requirements demanded by Piper, Ainsworth then turned to the design of
the upper three floors that would serve the needs of both the Piper family and their guests.

222
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 23.
223
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 23.
224
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 23.
Figure 4.11: The boiler room. Architect and Engineer. Vol. 113. April 1933.

94

The basement level of the Piper residence accommodated the servants quarters. It also
contained the laundry room, a large playroom for the children, held Mr. Piper’s office, and
provided ample storage space. Ainsworth provided the three bedrooms for the servants to be in
close proximity to Piper’s office. The playroom opened up to the large grass area in the backyard
and the concrete terrace set directly on top of the four-car garage. The pipe organ, which sat in
the living room above on the first floor, had a machine room dedicated in the basement for its
mechanical systems. The most striking feature of the basement is a tunnel that Ainsworth
designed to run underground below the porte cochere and driveway located directly above the
tunnel. Due to the slope of the site, the tunnel opens and up to a secluded enclosed garden area
on the side of the house. (Figure 4.12) The servants may have used this small green space, which
was separate but in close proximity the Piper family, during their off time as a private retreat.
Not shown in either periodical article, but which does appear in the Sanborn Map in 1932, is a
guesthouse at the rear of the property.
225
The guesthouse connects to the private garden with
access into the tunnel to the basement level. The guesthouse and sub-basement level likely
account for the discrepancy in square footage from the time of its construction until its most
recent sale.
226

225
“Insurance Maps of Pasadena California,” Sanborn Map Company, Vol. 5 (New York: 1931), 542.
226
“860 Fairfield Circle,” Dream Homes Magazine, accessed August 1, 2017,
http://www.dreamhomesmagazine.com/Home135117.html.
Figure 4.12: Tunnel opening to green area. Courtesy of Google Maps.

95

The two upper floors of the main house were dedicated to the Piper family and their
guests. The main floor is accessible from Fairfield Circle at the highest point of the property.
Given the elevation of the lot and the topography of the Oak Knoll neighborhood the east, south,
and north exposures afforded the most dramatic views from the Piper house.
227
To take
advantage of this Ainsworth oriented the main rooms of the two top floors towards these
exposures. Ainsworth related the house to its site, its natural surroundings, and its landscape
features in order for the Piper family to delight in the full potential their property could offer. For
example, given the height of the two upper floors in relation to the difference in height from the
front façade to the rear elevation, views from the rear elevation looking east out over Kewen
Drive into the Oak Knoll are particularly dramatic.
Ainsworth designed the first or main floor of the house around the social and family
functions of the Pipers. The first floor deviated in orientation from the other three levels of the
house due to it having a separate, single story wing that Ainsworth designed to extend off the
main floor on the north end of the residence, to serve as the living room for the Piper family.
This room would be the gathering place where the Piper family and their guests could peer
through a large window to view the San Gabriel Mountains to the north or look eastward toward
the arroyos of Oak Knoll across the terrace located off the living room at the rear.

227
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 21.
Figure 4.13: First and second floor plan. Architect and Engineer. Vol. 113. April 1933.

96

At close to 1,000 square feet in size and lofty in height, the living room was the place for
the family to gather. Here, they would enjoy their robust built-in pipe organ, a “fixture of early
twentieth century life among the wealthy in America.”
228
While there is a clear continuity of the
house’s design on the front façade, the living room wing appears is if it existed before the rest of
the four level structure was built. This wing embodies an ecclesiastical form, appearing like a
diminutive Christian basilica attached to the house. The room’s north elevation features a large,
ogee-arched window designed with Gothic and Moorish influence, flanked by two pilasters with
a decorative medallion above. From the exterior, it appears as if the large ogee window might
function as an entryway into the “Piper Basilica.” On the front elevation of the living room wing,
Ainsworth placed three large Venetian Gothic inspired windows to not only add more light, but
to reinforce the appearance and spirit of its basilical form. Carved and polychrome decorated
redwood beams lined the ceiling, with two beams stretching over twenty feet bridge the width of
the room.
229
A large fireplace with a decorative mantle was designed in proportion to the size of
the room and also to keep it heated. Ainsworth clearly put in a considerable amount of time into
the design of the “Piper Basilica.” Aesthetically, its interior reflects an Italian Renaissance

228
Kanner, Neff Grand Houses, 90.
229
Architectural Digest, Vol. 9, No. 1, 16-18.
Figure 4.14: View showing the living room wing. Architectural Digest. Vol. 9. No. 1.

97

design that ties in thematically with the house as a whole. Its size and form may also allude to a
public display of the Pipers “sacred” family time spent within their own private inner sanctum.
Figure 4.15: Partial view of the living room interior. Architectural Digest. Vol. 9. No. 1.

98

The living room is one of the highlights of the main floor, but Ainsworth also designed
other rooms on the first floor to creatively serve the Piper family and their guests. Entering
through the front door of the Piper residence, guests would immediately notice the decorative
oak paneling that lined the walls of the main hall and ceiling. Ainsworth designed Mr. Piper’s
library with an entry from the main hall and provided it with oak paneling, built-in bookcases,
and a centrally located fireplace. The library had doors to access the terrace off the main floor.
The main floor also contained the kitchen, pantry, and two dining rooms, one for the Pipers and
one for the servants. The design of the guest quarters were also important to the Pipers.
230

Ainsworth designed a spacious guest room near the front façade of the house with an en suite
bathroom and a private porch that faced Fairfield Circle. The porte cochere located immediately
outside of the guest room allowed guests to have covered parking when necessary and their own
entryway to their quarters. Ainsworth also added an additional servants room on the main floor
in close proximity to the guest room in order to accommodate visitors’ own servants.
231

230
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 21.
231
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 21.
Figure 4.16: Partial view of Piper’s library. Architectural Digest. Vol. 9. No. 1.

99

Figure 4.17: View of the main floor hallway. Door in the distance leads to the porte cochere, front
door is to the right of the armchair in the foreground. Architect and Engineer. Vol. 113. April 1933.

100

The top floor of the house is where Ainsworth laid out the Piper family living quarters
with five bedrooms, a sewing room, storage spaces, and a sleeping porch. Dramatic views from
the balcony of the master bedroom looked north and east over the Oak Knoll.
232
Ainsworth
designed an open-air sleeping porch over the porte cochere and provided another angle of views
of the Oak Knoll neighborhood. As a special feature of the house, Ainsworth designed an almost
400 square foot sleeping porch which was large enough to fit the entire Piper family. Cool
summer breezes at night passed through its large east, south, and west facing open-air windows.
Venetian blinds and roll awnings in the room provided both aesthetic and utilitarian functions.
233

Sleeping al fresco not only insured interaction between nature and the occupants of the house,
but also reinforced the perceived health benefits one could receive from a crisp California
breeze. The interior walls throughout the house were parchment colored plaster with the
exception of the aforementioned areas with oak paneling and the second floor walls finished in
wood and painted white.
234

When completed, the Architectural Digest and the Architect and Engineer featured
Ainsworth’s design for the Piper residence. The Architectural Digest likely featured the
residence due to its stylistic qualities and its location. The Architect and Engineer recognized
Ainsworth’s willingness to embrace the extreme slope to the east of the property. It also
recognized his ability to tailor a house around a professional engineer’s requirements for modern
mechanical equipment that would serve his family while keeping social and private functions
separate. Ainsworth did not merely stack floor levels on top of one another aimlessly; he
formulated a design that provided a logical plan, which in turn served the functions of each floor
and its respective occupants. While the house was stately in size, Ainsworth refrained from over
ornamentation and rejected ostentation. The Pipers’ Mediterranean inspired villa and its grounds
embodied the zeitgeist of the “California Dream,” with Ainsworth expressing this ethos through
his own design. The C.B. Piper house should be viewed as an icon of California living at its high
point for the few who could afford such an extravagant lifestyle.

232
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 21.
233
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 21.
234
Ferguson, “A Hillside Home,” 22.

101

Chapter 5: The Kimball Residence

In 1939, Ward and Betty Kimball commissioned Robert Ainsworth to design their
residence in San Gabriel. The Kimballs presented Ainsworth with perhaps the most baffling
circumstance of his career; they had just installed a full-size a train and a passenger car on
railroad tracks at their newly purchased property. The challenge for Ainsworth was not only to
design a residence for the most imaginative animator to ever work for Walt Disney, but to tie in
the residence thematically with the Kimballs railroad.
235
Robert Ainsworth was not just
designing a residence; he was setting the stage for what eventually would become Ward
Kimball’s own private theme park.
The Kimballs hired Robert Ainsworth to design a house that reflected their interests in
western culture. The Kimball residence was constructed at 1616 Ardendale Avenue (later
changed to 8910) in San Gabriel. It sat on nearly two acres surrounded by lush orange groves.
Ainsworth’s design for the Kimball residence is an example of a custom ranch house that
foreshadowed the ranch house craze that occurred in Southern California after World War II.
Ward Kimball described his property as the “Scenic Wonder of the West,” and rightfully so as it
was the first property in the United States to have a privately owned, full-size railroad in a
residential backyard.
236
The Kimball property is where Walt Disney found inspiration for his
own railroad at Disneyland and the property holds parallels to the theme park itself. It is where
Ward Kimball designed Disney animated characters in his personal studio for more than sixty
years and where his Dixieland jazz band, The Firehouse Five Plus Two, would gather to practice.
Ainsworth’s design for the residence and property was the linchpin that connected the Kimballs’
interest in western culture into a cohesive entity. The western ranch, the railroad, and the orchard
were all stitched together thematically by Ainsworth’s calculated layout of the property and its
design. When guests visited the Kimball property, they were transported to another world; a
place where they could experience life in the “old west” aided by Ward’s eccentric touch. Here,

235
Michael Broggie, Walt Disney's Railroad Story: The Small-scale Fascination That Led to a Full-scale Kingdom,
Fourth ed., (Virginia Beach, VA: The Donning Company Publishers, 2014), 52.
236
Broggie, Disney’s Railroad, 56.

102

Ainsworth had attained one of his greatest milestones; he laid the foundation for Ward’s very
own “Frontierland” approximately fifteen years before Disneyland opened in 1955.
Ward Kimball was an original member of the “Nine Old Men,” the core group of
animators first hired by Walt Disney. Ward’s career with Walt Disney Studios spanned from
1934 until 1973, and he is remembered as an innovative and eccentric animator.
237
Ward’s first
break into animation with Disney was the two-minute “soup scene” he designed for the 1937
Disney film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
238
Disney ultimately cut the scene from the final
production of the film due to length restrictions. Although Ward’s first professional animation
scene was cut, he went on to produce some of Disney’s most memorable animated characters
including Jiminy Cricket, the Cheshire Cat, the Three Caballeros and the Mad Hatter.
239
In
addition to animation, Ward had an interest in western culture and railroads. He was lifelong
railroad enthusiast who spent his free time collecting and tinkering with his toy train collection,

237
Lucas O. Seastrom, "Animated Contrarian: Celebrating Ward Kimball's Centennial Year," The Walt Disney
Family Museum, February 18, 2015, accessed July 5, 2017, http://www.waltdisney.org/blog/animated-contrarian-
celebrating-ward-kimballs-centennial-year.
238
Seastrom, “Animated Contrarian.”
239
Seastrom, “Animated Contrarian.”

Figure 5.1: Disney animator Ward Kimball. Accessed August 6,
2017. Photo from (http://wardkimball.tumblr.com/archive).
Permission Pending.

103

one of the largest private collections assembled.
240
Yet, the apogee of Ward’s passion was
arguably his collection of full-size railroad equipment in his backyard. Ward and his wife Betty
both began building this early on in their relationship. “On his first date with Betty, he had taken
her to a rail yard to measure a box car. They were preparing to build a home in 1938 when he
decided to buy the last remaining passenger coach from the Carson and Colorado Railroad to
house his growing model train layout. For $50 he bought an abandoned 3-foot narrow-gauge
passenger coach that the Southern Pacific had operated in the Owens Valley… A year later, he
bought a 2-6-0 1881 steam engine that was being scrapped by the Nevada Central Railroad.”
241

Ward and his friends installed three-foot narrow gauge train tracks that the railroad would
operate on. The Kimballs ultimately named their locomotive the “Emma Nevada,” and their rail
line the "Grizzly Flats Railroad."
242

240
Broggie, Disney’s Railroad, 12, 44.
241
Bob Pool, "Railroad hits end of the line," Los Angeles Times, May 12, 2007, accessed July 04, 2017,
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/may/12/local/me -trains12/2 .
242
Broggie, Disney’s Railroad, 52.
Figure 5.2: Grizzly Flats railroad on the Kimball property, September 1938. Photo taken before the Kimball
residence was completed. Accessed August 7, 2017. Photo from (http://www.oerm.org/3-foot-gauge-grizzly-
flats/).

104

The Kimballs selected their 1.7-acre lot due to its size, shape, and its natural
surroundings. The lot appears like the letter P when viewed from above, with the largest width of
the property running east to west parallel to Ardendale Avenue at 200 feet, with a 499 foot depth
extending north and south.
243
The railroad tracks ran almost the entire length of the property
from Ardendale Avenue and terminated at the rear of the lot. (Figure 5.4) Ainsworth began
preliminary designs for the single story ranch house in February 1939 and he began drawing
blueprints shortly thereafter. Ainsworth took into consideration that the grounds of the Kimball
property previously served as an orange grove. An initial clearing took place for the area where
the house, front and back yard, garage, and driveways are located. Blueprints show that
Ainsworth kept a portion of the existing orange trees when he designed the layout of the lot and
the mature oaks on Ardendale Avenue that encased the home.
244
Professional photos of the

243
University of California, Santa Barbara, “Robert Henry Ainsworth papers relating to the Ward Kimball house,
1937-1941.” Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum. Call Number: 0000217.
244
University of California, Santa Barbara, “Robert Henry Ainsworth papers.”

Figure 5.3: Overhead view of the Kimball property. Courtesy of
Google Maps.

105

Kimball house taken in 1941 display sycamore trees planted in front yard along with other
shrubs. (Figure 5.5) The landscaping of the residence contained plants and trees that were native
to California’s landscape. Ainsworth used the landscape of the residence to reinforce the theme
of the west and to provide an authentic backdrop to a fantasy-like setting.
Figure 5.4: Layout of the Kimball Property drawn after the house was built; likely drawn by Ward Kimball.
University of California, Santa Barbara. Architecture and Design Collection. Robert Henry Ainsworth papers
relating to the Ward Kimball house.
Figure 5.5: Partial view of front facade of Kimball residence. University of California, Santa Barbara.
Architecture and Design Collection. Robert Henry Ainsworth papers relating to the Ward Kimball house.

106

Because Ward was a devoted fan of railroads and western culture, it was appropriate that
the Kimball house should identify stylistically with the west. Ainsworth designed the large,
single-story California Ranch-style house with a rustic appearance, giving the house a sense of
permanence beside the old orange and oak trees on the lot. Ainsworth placed the house east of
the railroad tracks with the front façade of the house facing Ardendale Avenue. He designed the
house to sit nearly eighty feet behind a rustic, timber fence that surrounded the “Kimball Ranch.”
To the untrained eye, the house and the property appeared as a western settler’s ranch; the only
apparent modern addition being the circular driveway in front of the house. Ainsworth’s design
for the ranch house combined with the Kimballs railroad implied that the Kimballs had arrived to
their ranch by train that made its final stop in their backyard.
Ainsworth’s design of the house successfully demonstrated his ability to address the
wishes of a couple but also the specific needs of each of them as an individual. Ward received
his own personal art studio, workroom, and large detached garage while Betty received a walk in
closet, separate dressing room with a vanity, and a custom kitchen. The current size of the home
is reported to be 3,154 square feet with a small addition to the back of the kitchen constructed
after Ainsworth’s design.
245
With the exception of the kitchen area on the west end, the plan of
the house is a cruciform. Ainsworth designed the house around four main areas: the living and
dining room, the kitchen and laundry, Ward’s personal studio and workroom, and on the east
side of the house a master bedroom, guest bedroom, and a bathroom. Ainsworth designed the

245
“8910 Ardendale Ave,” Zillow, accessed February 27, 2017, https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8910-
Ardendale-Ave-San-Gabriel-CA-91775/20730827_zpid/.
Figure 5.6: Front façade of the house. University of California, Santa Barbara. Architecture and Design Collection.
Robert Henry Ainsworth papers relating to the Ward Kimball house.

107

combined living and dining room, as the largest space in the house, to be the focal point for
entertainment. The west end of the house contains the kitchen, laundry area, a breakfast room,
and an additional bathroom room. Ainsworth provided the Kimballs with a basement for storage
that is accessible from the kitchen. Ainsworth placed Ward’s design studio and a separate
workroom on the north wing of the house.
Ainsworth developed a design for the house inspired by the adobe houses of nineteenth
century Los Angeles and settlers’ houses of the west. The overall massing of the residence is
horizontal, with a prominent porch and asymmetrical massing. The exterior walls were treated
with a smooth white finish to mimic adobe. This aided in creating a unified design that
reinforced the horizontality of the house while also allowing shadows to play across its staggered
design. Ainsworth designed the cross gabled roof with long, low lines and wood shingles that
terminated at its eaves. The roof has a shallow pitch that extends out to shelter the elongated
open porch below. Ward’s studio extends to the right, with a circular chimney extending above
it. A second fireplace is located in the living room. It is indicated by a broad, rectangular
chimney at the back of the house. On the west end is the kitchen, delineated by its board and
Figure 5.7: Layout of the residence. University of California, Santa Barbara. Architecture and Design Collection.
Robert Henry Ainsworth papers relating to the Ward Kimball house.

108

batten exterior. Ainsworth designed the residence to hark back to the early west, like a stage set
through which the Kimballs and their guests could travel back in time by walking through the
halls or sitting outside against its whitewashed walls under the long, sweeping front porch.
The design of the front façade of the house was drawn by Ainsworth in February 1939
and it shows the initial concept for the residence. The architect made only a few changes to his
initial sketch that then culminated into the final design. The most notable of these changes are
the design of the kitchen and the garage. Ainsworth originally designed the kitchen to flow with
the horizontality of the façade and he placed it on the west end of the house. His final design for
the kitchen retained the kitchen in the same location but significantly altered it in appearance. In
his final design, Ainsworth demarcated the kitchen to appear as if it were an addition built onto
the main residence. Ainsworth borrowed from nineteenth century models of the western ranch
house to give an additive quality to the structure, as if the house had evolved naturally over time.
He did this by setting the kitchen back from façade of the main residence, adding vertical board
and batten siding to give it a rustic look, and altered its roofline which in turn added to the
asymmetrical appearance of the front façade. The final design for the kitchen makes it appear as
if it were a “cooking shack” in a Western mining town where one would fetch their grub after a
long day’s work. Ainsworth also changed the design and location of the garage. Ainsworth’s
initial drawing shows a two-car garage located next to the kitchen. For the final design of the
Figure 5.8: Initial sketch of the Kimball residence by Ainsworth. University of California, Santa Barbara.
Architecture and Design Collection. Robert Henry Ainsworth papers relating to the Ward Kimball house.

109

garage, Ainsworth designed a detached three-car garage with an additional workshop space
located behind the house. The garage took on the form of rustic barn, with a shake roof and six-
foot overhanging eaves on the front facade, vertical board and batten siding, and board shutters
on the garage windows. The garage floor had an eleven-foot-long grease pit installed in the
foundation to contain used oil from Ward’s automobiles and most likely, any discarded
lubricants from the railroad equipment. Both of these changes were Ainsworth’s touches to the
design that helped to reinforce the site’s western theme and provide the Kimball Ranch with a
sense of “authenticity.”

Figure 5.9: The Kimball kitchen. University of California, Santa Barbara. Architecture and Design Collection.
Robert Henry Ainsworth papers relating to the Ward Kimball house.

110

Ainsworth provided design touches to the interior of the house that complemented the
interests and aesthetic tastes of the Kimballs. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the living
room and Ward’s art studio. Initial design sketches for the living room illustrate the inspiration
of storybook architecture, specifically showing a strong resemblance to Geppetto’s workshop as
it appeared in the Disney animated film Pinocchio, which by 1937, Ward was helping to
animate.
246
A great open, stone masonry hearth formed the focus of the living room. A built-in
wood storage box with iron hardware flanked the fireplace along with a small built-in bookcase.
Opposite the hearth on the west living room wall, Ainsworth designed a large wood built-in
bookcase flanked by a rustic entry door with ornamental hardware. This door opened up to the

246
Seastrom, “Animated Contrarian.”

Figure 5.10: A dwarf and doodles by Ward Kimball in the job
specification folder. University of California, Santa Barbara.
Architecture and Design Collection. Robert Henry Ainsworth
papers relating to the Ward Kimball house.

111

porch on the front façade. Along with the front door located near the hallway adjacent to Ward’s
studio, this gave two points of entry into the house. The rustic appearance of the living room was
further reinforced by the use of wide plank floor boards, white plaster walls with plank
wainscoting (later changed from an initial stone design), a bottle glass window, a set of French
doors that opened up to the rear patio, and hand-hewn beams that lined the ceiling.
The Kimballs living room bears striking similarities to drawings of Geppetto’s workshop
from Pinocchio. Both have wide plank floors, a large open hearth, hand hewn beams, recessed
books shelves, plaster walls, a bottle glass window, and large iron hinges and hardware. The
initial sketch of the Kimball living room shows a recessed nook in the stone fireplace wall with a
toy cow inside of it. A similar toy cow appears on a shelf in Geppetto’s workshop. Additionally,
Figure 5.11: Partial view of the living room. University of California, Santa Barbara. Architecture and Design
Collection. Robert Henry Ainsworth papers relating to the Ward Kimball house.

112

in Ainsworth’s sketch of the living room in the painting above the fireplace, a small character,
that may perhaps be Jiminy Cricket, is to the left of the man in the painting. Although there is no
proof, an initial unsigned pencil sketch of the living room that bears likeness to a cartoon sketch,
may have been produced by Ward Kimball. While the origin of the design for the living room
remains a mystery, it may be that Ainsworth’s design for the living room was achieved with
Ward’s assistance as Disney released Pinocchio the year after the house was completed.

Figure 5.12: Initial sketch of living room. University of California, Santa Barbara. Architecture and Design
Collection. Robert Henry Ainsworth papers relating to the Ward Kimball house.
Figure 5.13: Second sketch of living room. University of California, Santa Barbara. Architecture and Design
Collection. Robert Henry Ainsworth papers relating to the Ward Kimball house.

113

The other room given special consideration by Ainsworth is Ward’s art studio and
workshop located in the north wing of the residence. A large window that faced north helped
flood the room with sunlight and the gable roof of this wing allowed more light to reflect from
the pitch of the roof and its tall ceiling. The large window also provided views of the San Gabriel
Mountains to the north. Ainsworth placed bookshelves on both sides of the large window to hold
Ward’s books and materials along with additional enclosed storage beneath the window. Wide
plank floors, white plaster walls, plank wainscoting, and large ceiling beams are similar to those
Figure 5.14: Final rendering of the living room #1. University of California, Santa Barbara. Architecture and
Design Collection. Robert Henry Ainsworth papers relating to the Ward Kimball house.
Figure 5.15: Final rendering of the living room #2. University of California, Santa Barbara. Architecture and
Design Collection. Robert Henry Ainsworth papers relating to the Ward Kimball house.

114

in the living room. In the corner of Ward’s studio room, Ainsworth added a whimsical brick
fireplace resembling a beehive, adding to the imaginative character of the room’s atmosphere. A
photograph taken of Ward’s studio in 1941 shows a portrait on the wall of what appears to be the
Mad Hatter that he invented for the Disney film Alice In Wonderland ten years later in 1951.
(Figure 5.19) Ainsworth’s attention to detail and calculated use of space to maximize lighting
created a private workspace that assisted in Ward’s creativity as an artist.

Figure 5.16: Final design of Ward’s studio #1. University of California, Santa Barbara. Architecture and Design
Collection. Robert Henry Ainsworth papers relating to the Ward Kimball house.

115

Figure 5.17: Final design of Ward’s studio #2. University of California, Santa Barbara. Architecture and Design
Collection. Robert Henry Ainsworth papers relating to the Ward Kimball house.

116

Figure 5.18: Corner fireplace in Ward’s studio. University of California, Santa Barbara. Architecture and Design
Collection. Robert Henry Ainsworth papers relating to the Ward Kimball house.

117

Figure 5.19: Ward’s studio, circa 1940. Notice the framed drawing of what appears to be the Mad Hatter. University
of California, Santa Barbara. Architecture and Design Collection. Robert Henry Ainsworth papers relating to the
Ward Kimball house.

118

The Kimball property evolved into Ward’s own private amusement park, which in many
ways was a “Frontierland” that foreshadowed Disneyland. Ward built up his full-size railroad
collection to include a train depot, water tower, and a train barn to house his 1906 box car and
caboose, a 1917 gondola, a 1915 stock car, and a small 1907 switch engine that he named
“Chloe” after his daughter.
247
The heyday of Ward’s train adventures was after 1942 when he ran
the coal-burning locomotive the “Emma Nevada” during his “steam-ups.”
248
Ward had realized
that Walt Disney had not attended one so, “at a backyard party in 1945, Kimball gave Disney a
chance to take the throttle and operate the 1881 locomotive…That's when the Disneyland
Railroad was born…It was at that moment that he (Walt) decided that the trains in the park he

247
Broggie, Disney’s Railroad, 52, 56.
248
Broggie, Disney’s Railroad, 58.
Figure 5.20: The Kimball family and their railroad. Accessed August 6,
2017. Photo from (http://wardkimball.tumblr.com/archive). Permission
Pending.

119

was planning someday had to be real steam trains.”
249
Disney would eventually construct his
own passenger train system to serve as the main transportation system to transport visitors at
Disneyland to the different areas of the theme park. In 1949, Disney gave Ward the train depot
set that Ward had designed for the film, "So Dear to My Heart” and Ward reassembled the
movie prop depot on his property.
250
Disney built an exact replica of this train station with a
water tower as the “Frontierland” train station.
251
In addition, Walt Disney decided to run the
Disneyland locomotive, the C.K. Holiday, on narrow gauge track like Ward’s Grizzly Flats
Railroad.
252
If not for Ward’s train and Walt’s visit to the Kimball Ranch, surely Disneyland’s
beloved railroad would not have been the same. Ainsworth’s design for Kimball Ranch, its
garage, and its layout on the property in relation to the Kimballs’ train defined his theme park as
a whole. The Kimballs and their guests would not have experienced the feeling of a western
ranch and its train station without Ainsworth’s striking design.
Robert Ainsworth’s design for the property combined with the Kimballs’ visionary
alterations, created one of suburban Los Angeles’ most extraordinary properties. Before Ward
Kimball’s death in 2002, he and his wife entertained celebrities for over sixty years. “Countless
famous people have passed through over the years: Walt Disney and Michael Jackson engineered
the train, Wernher von Braun swam in their pool, Rowland Emett slept in the train station, Ray
Bradbury shot a TV series in their backyard, Robert Crumb jammed in their living room with his
band. Every animation notable from Bruno Bozzetto to Osamu Tezuka to Richard Williams has
visited at some point.”
253
Known primarily to railroad enthusiasts and Disney fans, the residence
is one of California’s hidden treasures as dozens of homes in an unassuming suburban
neighborhood now surround it. Ainsworth set the stage for what would become one of the most
remarkable, yet elusive private theme parks in California’s history.

249
Pool, "Railroad hits end of the line."
250
Broggie, Disney’s Railroad, 266.
251
Broggie, Disney’s Railroad, 266.
252
Broggie, Disney’s Railroad, 220.
253
Amid Amidi, "Buy Ward Kimball's House," Cartoon Brew, accessed July 05, 2017,
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/cartoon-culture/buy-ward-kimballs-house-28833.html.

120

Conclusion
After World War II, eliciting his training in “pure design” under Emile Lorch, Ainsworth
would go on to produce and evolve his modern designs. Ainsworth continued to design houses
but began to take on more public and commercial commissions. Several notable commissions by
him in Sierra Madre are the Public Pool building, the Sierra Madre fire station located at 744
Alta Vista Drive, and the Sierra Madre Public Library designed in 1953.
254
Ainsworth also
designed the Hastings Branch Library in Pasadena in 1959. Ainsworth designed Eugene Field
elementary school in Pasadena along with several structures at Pasadena City College (PCC). At
PCC, he and architect Kenneth Wing designed the Music Building, the athletic stadium, three
swimming pools, the baseball field and bleachers in 1955.
255
Ainsworth also completed the
Tournament of Roses office building attached to the Wrigley Mansion. Ainsworth and architect
Edwin Westberg designed the Redeemer Lutheran Church in South Gate thought to be, “the first
church of its size to be built in this county from pre-cast concrete panels.”
256
Eventually,
Ainsworth’s commissions reached as far as Texas and possibly even further. In 1956, Ainsworth
designed an 80,000 square foot warehouse in El Paso, Texas touted as, “one of the lowest, if not
the lowest, costs per square foot on record.”
257
It served as a key distribution point, “for most of
the freight entering this part of Texas.”
258
These are just a few examples of the many
commissions that Ainsworth designed between 1940 and up to 1962.
Ainsworth’s architectural practice, “continued under his sole proprietorship until
November 1962. At that time Robert R. McClellan, who had been an associate of Mr. Ainsworth
for several years, became a principal in the firm which was incorporated under the name of
Ainsworth and McClellan, Inc.”
259
At this point, the firm employed a, “personnel or
approximately twenty five exclusive of engineers” and the firms, “construction cost of
work…totals many millions and has been increasing at the rate of approximately two million
annually.”
260
The firm completed major shopping centers, office buildings, and retail stores such

254
Ainsworth and McClellan brochure.
255
Ainsworth and McClellan brochure.
256
“Pasadena Architects Design New Type of Church,” Pasadena Independent, November 27, 1955.
257
“Pasadena Architect Designs Low Cost Warehouse,” Pasadena Independent, June 10, 1956.
258
Pasadena Independent, June 10, 1956.
259
Ainsworth and McClellan brochure.
260
Ainsworth and McClellan brochure.

121

as Zody’s, Montgomery Wards, and K-Mart. The firm also completed numerous markets for
companies such as Alpha Beta, Ralphs, Safeway, and Vons.
261

261
Ainsworth and McClellan brochure.
Figure C.1: Design for a Montgomery Wards. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.
.
Figure C.2: Design for Earl’s Cafe. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

122

One of the chief objectives of this thesis was to establish a context of Robert Ainsworth’s
architectural career, so that in time, historians, conservationists, and community members may
have an in-depth understanding about the full impact of his executed commissions. All four of
the properties examined hold significance in their original design. Some are also significant due
to their typology, their owners, their landscaping, and due to the events that took place at the
property.
All four of the residences examined in this thesis remain standing today. The WCA
building retains many of its original features. In 2012, the City of Pasadena conducted a study of
historic designed gardens, and the WCA were specifically cited as an example of garden
apartments that “are significant as a local expression of historical European…design influences
that reflect the development of a distinct “Californian” identity that emerged during the
1920s.”
262
The exterior of the Moore residence remains almost completely original and the
interior retains many of its original significant features. The two-car garage has been relocated
and the automobile turntable has been removed due to the construction of the 210-freeway
extension. The exterior of the C.B. Piper residence retains most of its original features, with a
few noticeable alterations. Each of these properties appear eligible for the National Register of
Historic Places.
The Kimball residence has seen the most change since first designed by Ainsworth in
1939. The Kimballs’ altered the exterior and interior of the house over the years of their
ownership. After Ward’s death in 2002, the tracks and railroad was removed with the
locomotives, freight cars, and passenger cars being donated to the Orange Empire Railway
Museum in Perris, CA. The Kimball family sold the house to its current owner in 2010.
According to its original real estate listing description, the property was sold, “in its present as is
condition and mainly for land value only.”
263
Though no development has taken place yet, the
property presently is in need of work and its future remains uncertain.

262
Historic Designed Gardens Final MPD Form, City of Pasadena, 2012.
263
“8910 Ardendale Ave.,” Zillow, accessed July 13, 2107, https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8910-Ardendale-
Ave-San-Gabriel-CA-91775/20730827_zpid/.

123

Obvious areas ripe for further exploration that were touched upon in the thesis are
Ainsworth’s role and development of the small house, a continued search for unidentified
commissions, a thorough examination of his career both pre and post war, and the extent of his
commissions that were completed outside of California, among other topics. A full picture of
Ainsworth’s career would provide a richer context to help combat any potential threats of
demolition or alteration to his commissions in the future.
Several residences designed by Ainsworth have already been demolished, including, the
house Ainsworth designed for Dr. Laertes White in Pasadena in 1928. The house was a designed
in a Mediterranean style and set on the top of a hill close to the San Gabriel Mountains.
According to Ainsworth’s documents, the residence contained twelve rooms and was two stories
high, the basement not included. It is believed that the model of the house in Figure C.3 is the
White commission.
264
The White residence, “featured extensive use of arches atop six foot high

264
Not only does it match the description, but the photograph was located in Ainsworth’s archive and he left notes
on the back pertaining to other commissions that he designed around the same time.
Figure C.3: House believed to have been designed for Dr. Laertes White. Taken from the Robert H. Ainsworth
Archive.

124

columns” and “extensive grill work ornamented the balconies and windows.”
265
The house was
torn down and replaced by a John Galbraith designed house that was constructed between 1972
and 1981. The new build made use of some of the White residence including,” most of the
downstairs, including the furnace room, the cool room and the playroom, as well as the chimney
of the fireplace in the upstairs living room were all part of the original house.”
266
If left still
standing today, the White house may have been considered one of Ainsworth’s masterworks due
to its design and size.
At the time of publication of this thesis, the future of Ainsworth’s Sierra Madre Library is
unknown. When completed in 1955, the 8,500 square foot library was indicated as, “admirably
meeting present civic needs while providing amply for future additions to the building as
anticipated city growth requires,” as Ainsworth designed the library, “for addition of a wing in
the future.”
267
Famed architectural photographer Julius Shulman photographed Ainsworth and
his newly built library just after its completion. (Figure C.4) The current debate centers on
whether to upgrade the building or to move the library out of the building to a new location,
leaving the future use of the building unclear. “A complete upgrade and expansion to the current
building…is expected to cost about $3.8 million, according to city staffers.” Staff is also
suggesting, “to create a combined library-community center to fully utilize the current youth
activity center just down the street…the proposed project is expected to cost about $3 million.”
Staff reports indicated that, “the only way the proposed library and cultural center project would
be feasible…is with the expected $2-$2.6 million the city would get if it sold the current library’s
lot.” For a city and its community members that frequently pride themselves for being a small
town with a tightknit community, the recognition of Ainsworth’s contribution to Sierra Madre
should be at the forefront of the Public Library discussion. Ainsworth served on the Sierra Madre
City Planning commission and was active in the community until his death. At the start of his
career in 1927, he designed the 5,300 square foot two-story, Spanish-style residence located at
189 Sycamore Place in Sierra Madre.
268
He designed his own residence at 601 East Orange
Grove Avenue and his daughter’s and son-in-law’s residence in Sierra Madre as well. As stated
previously, Ainsworth designed the Public Pool building and the one of the city’s fire stations.

265
“1991 House of Design,” Pasadena Showcase House, 15.
266
“1991 House,” Pasadena Showcase House.
267
“Sierra Madre Library Is A Community Center,” Pasadena Independent, October 30, 1955.
268
Nick Osborne, interview with author, 2017.

125

He also designed proposed renderings for the Sierra Madre Civic Center. Eugene Field
Elementary is a block away from the City of Sierra Madre; the Hastings Branch library is a mile
away. Collectively, Ainsworth designed a substantial amount of the public buildings close to
Sierra Madre, all around the same period. Clearly Ainsworth has a role in the history of the built
environment in Sierra Madre and it would seem a worthwhile exercise to determine if keeping
the existing library and expanding it as Ainsworth had originally intended is a feasible and worth
option.
Further research will only serve to strengthen and solidify Ainsworth’s reputation as an
important contributor to Southern California’s built environment, but more significantly to the
greater Pasadena area. It is my hope that in the near future people will proudly declare that they
live in an “Ainsworth” or have an “Ainsworth” building in their city; better yet, an assemblage of
them.
Figure C.4: Robert Ainsworth and the Sierra Madre Public Library. Photo taken by Julius Shulman. Photo
courtesy of © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10). Accessed August 20,
2017. (http://rosettaapp.getty.edu:1801/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE20987 ).

126

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Appendix A:
“Residences Designed and Executed by Robert H. Ainsworth, Architect.”
269

269
Note that the list of residences only spans from 1927 to approximately 1940. The list does not contain all of the
residences that Ainsworth designed during this period. It is not known who created the list, but it was made by a
typewriter and has aged from being stored in Ainsworth’s archive. Courtesy of the Robert H. Ainsworth Archive.

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Abstract (if available)

Abstract This thesis is on architect Robert Henry Ainsworth, whose office was located in Pasadena from 1927 to 1966. The focus is on his career during the years 1922 to 1940, although aspects of his entire career are touched on. From 1922 to 1927, Robert Ainsworth was a draftsman for Sylvanus Marston, then chief draftsman for Wallace Neff. Ainsworth opened his own office in Pasadena, CA in 1927 as the sole principal. He remained the sole principal until 1962, when the architectural firm Ainsworth & McClellan was formed. Most of Ainsworth’s commissions from 1927 until 1940 were residential, and the majority where located in the greater Pasadena area. He designed many large houses during this period but was also active in promulgating and designing small houses. Ainsworth also completed large public commissions between 1927 and 1940, such as the Pasadena Humane Society building and the Grover Cleveland School. Ainsworth had the gift of being able to practice in a broad spectrum of architectural styles, while balancing his client’s wishes with his own inspired designs.

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