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Celebrating conformity: preserving Henry Doelger's midcentury post-war suburb

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Celebrating conformity: preserving Henry Doelger's midcentury post-war suburb

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CELEBRATING CONFORMITY:

PRESERVING HENRY DOELGER’S MIDCENTURY POST-WAR SUBURB

BY

Christopher Eric Purcell

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 2018

Copyright 2018

Christopher Eric Purcell

ii
Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to thank the School of Architecture at the University of
Southern California for accepting me into the Master of Heritage Conservation program.
Through the program, I have been able to embark on a fulfilling career dedicated to preserving
the stories of those that matter. Second, I would like to thank my thesis committee. Trudi
Sandmeier, thank you for helping me refine my chosen topic and for staying on top of everything
as I embarked on my thesis. It was not an easy process, but you helped tremendously. Thank you
to Katie Horak for not only being extremely resourceful in developing my thesis and for
providing invaluable information, but also for teaching a wonderful course in the Master of
Heritage Conservation program that solidified my decision to pursue a profession in
preservation. Finally, thank you, Jay Platt, for supplying your professional expertise and
thorough insight regarding preservation planning at the municipal level. Besides assisting me in
completing my thesis, your knowledge has given me the tools necessary to begin a meaningful
career in preservation planning. Last, but certainly not least, I would also like to thank my
parents, Scott and Anna Purcell, for continuously supporting me during graduate school and
throughout the entire thesis process. This thesis is dedicated to you both.

iii
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... ii
List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. v
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................ vii
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ viii
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1 - San Francisco Housing: A Brief History ..................................................................... 3
Early Residential Developments ................................................................................................. 3
Federal Policies for Homeownership .......................................................................................... 4
Early Bay Area Merchant Builders ............................................................................................. 7
Chapter 2 - Daly City and Henry Doelger’s Westlake: A History ............................................... 22
Daly City’s Early History ......................................................................................................... 22
Westlake .................................................................................................................................... 26
Chapter 3 - Greenmeadow, Palo Alto ........................................................................................... 44
Greenmeadow History .............................................................................................................. 44
National Register of Historic Places Designation ..................................................................... 51
Greenmeadow: Preservation ..................................................................................................... 56
Reflections ................................................................................................................................ 62
Chapter 4 - Westlake Historic Resources Reconnaissance Survey .............................................. 64
Westlake Survey ....................................................................................................................... 64
Single-Family Residence Evaluation ........................................................................................ 75
Multiple-Family Residence Evaluation .................................................................................... 77
Commercial Property Evaluation .............................................................................................. 79
Institutional (School) Property Evaluation ............................................................................... 81
Chapter 5 - Preservation Recommendations ................................................................................. 83
Daly City Planning and Preservation ........................................................................................ 83
Regulatory Approach to Preservation ....................................................................................... 86
Grassroots Approach to Preservation ........................................................................................ 93

iv
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 98
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 100

v
List of Figures

Figure 1.1. Advertisement for a Marian Realty Company Home. ................................................ 10
Figure 1.2. Construction photo of Lakeshore Park ....................................................................... 12
Figure 1.3. Floor plan of a typical Galli Plan. .............................................................................. 14
Figure 1.4. Galli residential tract, April 1, 1939. .......................................................................... 15
Figure 1.5. Construction of Stonestown Apartment Buildings. .................................................... 17
Figure 1.6. The first Doelger house, located at 1427 39th Avenue in San Francisco. .................. 19
Figure 1.7. 1940 image of John and Henry Doelger in a San Francisco development. ................ 20
Figure 2.1. Map of Daly City with Westlake shaded in red. ........................................................ 28
Figure 2.2. 1950s San Francisco Chronicle advertisements for the community’s first model
home ...................................................................................................................................... 29
Figure 2.3. 189 Glenwood Avenue, the first model home in Westlake, today. ............................ 30
Figure 2.4. Image of residences in Westlake under development, ca. 1950. By this time, Doelger
was constructing five houses a day. ...................................................................................... 33
Figure 2.5. Advertisement for the Westlake Shopping Center. .................................................... 34
Figure 2.6. Various advertisements for the Westlake Community in the 1950s .......................... 36
Figure 2.7. Image of Westlake Bowl. ........................................................................................... 38
Figure 2.8. Westmoor High School, ca. 1960s. ............................................................................ 40
Figure 3.1. Advertisement highlighting the community-oriented development. .......................... 50
Figure 3.2. 343 Shasta Drive. An example of a non-contributor. ................................................. 54
Figure 3.3. 3901 Nelson Drive. A contributor with exceptional integrity. ................................... 54
Figure 3.4. Page from the Eichler Guidelines drafted by Page & Turnbull for the City of Palo
Alto, 2018. ............................................................................................................................ 58
Figure 4.1. Map of the surveyed area, outlined in red. ................................................................. 65
Figure 4.2. Single-family residence at 20 Westmont Drive. ......................................................... 75
Figure 4.3. Single-family residence at 76 Fairmont Drive. .......................................................... 75
Figure 4.4. Multi-family apartment building at the intersection of Poncetta Drive and South
Mayfair Avenue. ................................................................................................................... 77
Figure 4.5. Multi-family apartment building at the intersection of Bel Mar Avenue and Park
Plaza Drive. ........................................................................................................................... 77

vi
Figure 4.6. Commercial property at 46 Park Plaza Drive. ............................................................ 79
Figure 4.7 Former bowling alley at 99 Southgate Avenue. .......................................................... 79
Figure 4.8. Doelger Art Center. .................................................................................................... 81
Figure 4.9. Doelger Art Center. .................................................................................................... 81
Figure 5.1. Example of possible design guidelines for Westlake based on the existing building
forms in the community. ....................................................................................................... 91
Figure 5.2. Example of an e-plaque for the first model home in Westlake .................................. 95
Figure 5.3. Example of a social media campaign raising awareness of Westlake. ....................... 97

vii
List of Tables

Table 3.1. Summary of the Eichler Quest Committee’s evaluation criteria. ................................ 55
Table 4.1. Streetscape images. ...................................................................................................... 67
Table 4.2. Examples of single-family residences in the study area. ............................................. 69
Table 4.3. Examples of multiple-family residences in the study area. ......................................... 70
Table 4.4. Examples of commercial properties in the study area. ................................................ 71
Table 4.5. Examples of institutional properties in the study area. ................................................ 72
Table 4.6. Summary of findings. .................................................................................................. 73
Table 4.7. General characteristics of each property type. ............................................................. 74
Table 4.8. Single-family residence evaluation criteria. ................................................................ 76
Table 4.9. Multiple-family residence evaluation criteria. ............................................................. 78
Table 4.10. Commercial property evaluation criteria. .................................................................. 80
Table 4.11. Institutional (school) evaluation criteria. ................................................................... 81

viii
Abstract

During the 1920s and 1930s, merchant builder Henry Doelger made a name for himself
through his modest single-family one-story-over-garage residential developments. It was in the
Outer Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco that Doelger purchased his first parcel of land – the
first of what would become thousands of seemingly endless rows of period revival bungalow
built by Doelger in San Francisco. The culmination of his career, however, transpired in the
1940s and 1950s in a small unincorporated community just south of the City and County of San
Francisco. With high aspirations, Doelger embarked on a new residential development in Daly
City that was to be named Westlake. Working with noted architects and building designers of the
era, Doelger constructed single-family residences, apartment complexes, restaurants, public
schools, and commercial buildings. It was through his affordable post-war development of
Westlake that Daly City grew and attracted thousands of new residents to what became the most
populous city in San Mateo County as of 2018.
Today, Doelger’s legacy is largely forgotten by the general public. While the community
still reflects its original nature, it is imperative to study Westlake through the lens of a
preservationist, as Daly City does not currently have a historic preservation ordinance or
program. With rapidly increasing costs of living due to excessive demand for higher density
housing in the Bay Area, Daly City is constantly threatened with redevelopment, placing
Westlake at extreme risk for demolition and integrity degradation.
This thesis aims to identify the origins of merchant builders and the typical single-family
house in the San Francisco Bay Area, while also providing a scholarly background on Henry
Doelger and his significant association with the Bay Area. The thesis will proceed to draw from
a local case study, Joseph Eichler’s Greenmeadow tract in Palo Alto, to gather resources, tools,
and reflections necessary to preserve Doelger’s Westlake community. Finally, the thesis will
provide a significance and integrity analysis of the Westlake community to supply Daly City
with an overview of the significance of Westlake, as well as several approaches that may be
pursued to preserve the post-war community.

1
Introduction

There are a number of post-World War II residential developments in California that
have been identified as possessing historical significance. Today, several developments in
Southern California, such as Lakewood, Panorama City, and a number of residential projects in
the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, represent the significance of residential mass-
production following the war.
1
However, these types of developments appear to be less known
and identified in Northern California. As these developments approach and surpass the age
established by the National Register of Historic Places as the threshold to obtain historical
significance, now is the time to analyze these post-war suburbs for potential significance.
However, this is not an easy task. Several cities, including Daly City, lack a preservation
ordinance. Additionally, most cities boasting a preservation ordinance in the Bay Area focus
much of their attention on preserving pre-war buildings and structures.
2
Significant post-war
communities that contributed to the population explosion of the Bay Area following World War
II, such as Henry Doelger’s Westlake in Daly City, face irreversible deterioration in the face of
redevelopment and new construction. While previous literature has focused attention on the
significance behind post-war suburban communities in California, none have identified Westlake
and, on a larger scale, Daly City’s role in accommodating the emerging post-war middle-class,
nor the impact of merchant builder Henry Doelger on the San Francisco Bay Area.
3
In order to
reverse this trend, this thesis supplies a case study for preserving a post-war community in Daly
City, which can subsequently be applied to several other post-war suburbs throughout the San
Francisco Bay Area, such as Fremont, San Leandro, and Union City.
The first chapter will introduce the history of homeownership, focusing largely on the
rise of the middle-class following World War II. While the supplied information will encompass
the entire United States, a great deal will be focused specifically on California and the San
Francisco Bay Area. Next, a history of concepts in homebuilding will be provided. The chapter

1
Los Angeles Conservancy, “1950-1960: Suburban Metropolis,” accessed August 23, 2018,
https://www.laconservancy.org/explore-la/curating-city/modern-architecture-la/history-la-modernism/1950-1960-
suburban-metropolis.
2
Based off an analysis of several Bay Area cities’ preservation programs and historic resource inventories, including
the City and County of San Francisco, City of Palo Alto, City of Oakland, City of Berkeley, and City of San Jose.
3
See California Department of Transportation, Tract Housing in California, 1945-1973: A Context for National
Register Evaluation, 2011.

2
will conclude with a summary of significant merchant builders working in the San Francisco Bay
Area. The second chapter will introduce the history of Daly City and, more specifically, the
history of Henry Doelger’s Westlake project. Since Daly City is a comparatively young city in
the Bay Area, the history will provide novel information on its development and will illustrate
how Westlake contributed significantly to the population increase in San Mateo County during
the 1950s. This chapter will be followed by a chapter discussing prolific merchant builder Joseph
Eichler and his Greenmeadow post-war residential suburb in Palo Alto, California. In this
chapter, a brief history of the development, as well as a background on its rise as a historically
significant district in Palo Alto will be discussed. This information will act as a case study to
inform readers on how to preserve Doelger’s community of Westlake. Chapters 4 and 5 will
include a method of evaluating and surveying Westlake for potential historical significance, as
well as different processes one can utilize to be proactive in the conservation of the community.
In all, this thesis will provide the fundamental information necessary to preserve Westlake in
Daly City, while also supplying broad information on preservation techniques that can be utilized
in post-war suburbs elsewhere.

3
Chapter 1 - San Francisco Housing: A Brief History

The San Francisco Bay Area has a long history of tract housing with roots established in
the early 1900s, long before the introduction of post-war housing developments.
4
This first
chapter illustrates the various programs that helped the emerging middle-class population
achieve homeownership prior to and shortly after the end of World War II. This chapter will also
highlight early development processes and several early merchant builders in the San Francisco
Bay Area who experienced widespread real estate success following the massive influx of
residents in California after the war.
5
The chapter will conclude with a biography of Henry
Doelger and his early developments in the City and County of San Francisco.

Early Residential Developments
While plenty of single-family dwellings dotted the urban landscape of San Francisco
since the California Gold Rush during the mid-1800s, these typically consisted of individually
constructed residences, or residences constructed in small blocks at a single time. For example,
neighborhoods such as the Excelsior and the Portola District, located at the southern end of San
Francisco, were developed by individual residential builders.
6
However, beginning in the 1920s
and 1930s, large-scale merchant builders began to realize the benefits associated with producing
residential units on a much wider scale. To understand how these builders achieved success, a
discussion of the numerous federal government housing assistance programs is warranted, as

4
For the purposes of this thesis, the San Francisco Bay Area (Bay Area) will refer to the region surrounding the San
Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun bodies of water in the State of California. The Bay Area includes nine counties:
Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. The Bay Area is
home to approximately 7.68 million people and is the second largest region in California, after the Greater Los
Angeles Area. Though it is known internationally for the technological microcosm of Silicon Valley, the Bay Area
is also home to unrivaled natural beauty, a thriving arts and music scene, and an abundance of outstanding
architecture and cultural heritage.
5
Merchant builders are developers who construct residential properties for unidentified buyers. The typical
merchant builder purchases a significant amount of land, subdivides the parcels, then quickly constructs a
standardized tract of residential dwellings in a piecemeal, parcel-by-parcel approach. In constructing several
hundreds of single-family residences at one time, merchant builders were historically able to efficiently limit
construction costs, not only optimizing revenue for each respective builder but also providing affordable housing for
the rapidly expanding middle-class. This process is often referred to as residential “mass-production,” and was
popularized in the Bay Area beginning in the 1920s, becoming widespread by the 1940s and 1950s. All merchant
builders listed in this thesis utilized mass-production to develop residential tracts.
6
Mary Brown, Sunset District Residential Builders, 1925-1950, Historic Context Statement, San Francisco City and
County Planning Department, April 3, 2013, 44

4
these programs provided the financial support necessary for these developers to thrive in a
residential construction industry following a tumultuous national financial crisis.

Federal Policies for Homeownership
Arguably, one of the most important factors in the rise of home ownership beginning in
the 1930s can be attributed to the programs established by the United States Federal
Government. The government’s initial role in assisting widespread homeownership began during
the Great Depression from the year 1929 to 1939. Following a major fall in stock prices on
September 4, 1929, the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929 and, soon, the worldwide
gross domestic produced fell by nearly fifteen percent. The Great Depression had significant
detrimental side effects on the citizens of the United States. Unemployment rose to twenty-five
percent, crop prices fell by nearly sixty percent, and new construction, specifically residential
construction, was significantly slowed nationwide.
7
California was not exempt from the adverse
economic effects suffered via the worldwide economic collapse that originated in the United
States.
During this time, the country also faced an alarming increase in the number of housing
foreclosures as a byproduct of rising unemployment. As an attempt at alleviating the devastating
effects of the Great Depression and to revive the stagnant housing industry, the United States
government, under the leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, introduced the Home
Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) in 1933 as well as the Federal Housing Administration
(FHA) in 1934.
8
Prior to the creation of the HOLC, home mortgages were renewed every five to
ten years, often resulting in foreclosures as residents were frequently unable to secure sufficient
funds to renew. With the introduction of the HOLC, homeowners were able to secure low-
interest home loans through a long-term, fully amortized mortgage.
9
This translated to lower
monthly payments that were uniform in amount and spread over the life of the debt, which

7
Robert H. Frank and Ben S. Bernanke, Principles of Macroeconomics (Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2007), 98;
“World Economic Survey, 1932-1933,” League of Nations: 43.
8
“First Annual Report of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board Covering Operations of the Federal Home Loan
Banks, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, and the Federal Savings and Loan Promotion Activities,” United
States Government Printing Office: Washington, 1934.
9
C. Lowell Harriss, History and Policies of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (New York: National Bureau of
Economic Research, 1951), 1.

5
proved to be a clever solution as foreclosures became less likely and, eventually, decreased in
occurrence.
The second program, the FHA, created in part by the National Housing Act of 1934,
issued long-term housing loans via private lenders with the Treasury of the United States as the
guarantor. Together, with the HOLC, the risk of providing loans to citizens during the economic
depression was reduced for bankers, which led to a subsequent decrease in interest rates and,
additionally, easily fulfilled down payments for homes.
10
Evidence showed this to be extremely
beneficial as it led to significantly reduced down payment requirements, often less than ten
percent of the value of a property, whereas prior to the introduction of these programs, a typical
down payment would be at least thirty percent.
Soon, down payments were reduced to a low enough level and, with new long-term
mortgage payments, home ownership became increasingly attainable for millions of Americans.
Though the HOLC was dissolved in the mid-1930s, the FHA continues to play a significant role
in United States homeownership. Additionally, in 1938, the Federal National Mortgage
Association (commonly known as Fannie Mae) was established as part of the New Deal and
provided additional incentives for mortgage lending by purchasing, as a governmental entity,
FHA mortgages from private lenders.
11

The combination of these programs and the increasing role of the federal government in
the housing industry proved a success. In 1933, the construction of new dwellings was 93,000
units. By 1937, this number had reached 332,000 units.
12
This trend continued well into the
1940s, just prior to the end of World War II and the introduction of the post-war tract
development. In 1940, there were 530,000 dwellings constructed and in 1941, the number rose to
619,000 homes.
13
As expected, the federal government’s actions benefitted the entire country
during a time of extreme need.
Quickly, local builders and developers, along with the FHA, began to heavily promote
these new programs and the emerging concept of affordable home ownership. Descriptions for
model homes and residential developments started to highlight FHA loans and terms in order to

10
Jock Pan, The United States Outer Executive Departments and Independent Establishments and Government
Corporations, 2010, Chapter 6.
11
Kate Pickert, “A Brief History of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” Time Magazine, July 14, 2008.
12
Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin, The GI Bill: A New Deal for Veterans (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2009), 185.
13
Ibid.

6
attract the newly emerging middle-class.
14
In San Francisco, the FHA District Director, D.C.
McGinniss, even wrote a regular column during this time in the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday
“Home” segment.
However bold these efforts were, it still took time for individuals to understand and take
advantage of the benefits of amortized mortgages, and to comprehend the appeal of owning a
single-family home. While it took many years for homeownership perceptions to change, largely
due to the side effects of the Great Depression, a number of early merchant builders in San
Francisco predicted the perception would inevitably be reversed, leading to greater developer
profits. These developers were not wrong; San Francisco building and sales soared to new levels
by the early 1940s.
15

In addition to the various new programs implemented by the federal government, there
were also strong incentives for returning veterans to purchase a home following World War II.
Known as the GI Bill, the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 created the Veterans
Administration (VA). The VA helped veterans returning purchase homes for their families, in
addition to offering dedicated payments of tuition, unemployment compensation, and low-
interest business loans.
16
In residential terms, the GI Bill program acted as an extension of the
FHA program, and fostered easier-to-access home loans for several million veterans. This
program was similarly often listed in home advertisements for residential developments
throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
Following the end of World War II, the San Francisco Bay Area led the nation in
residential construction. The City and County of San Francisco issued 17,000 residential
construction permits by May of 1946, with eighty-five percent of the permits being for owner-
occupancy.
17
These homes were typically affordable to accommodate the recently arriving
veterans, many of whom did not have large amounts of money. Home prices averaged around
$4,500 and rents were around $40/month, though some rather expensive homes reached $10,000
and rents of up to $80/month.
18

14
See ads for Doelger’s Westlake development in Chapter Two.
15
Brown, Sunset District Residential Builders, 28.
16
Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin, The GI Bill, 118.
17
Mary Brown, San Francisco Modern Architecture and Landscape Design, 1935-1970, Historic Context
Statement, San Francisco City and County Planning Department, January 2011, 24
18
“San Francisco Leads in Housing Permits,” Architect & Engineer (May 1946): 29.

7
Early Bay Area Merchant Builders
Not limited to the San Francisco Bay Area, the community development process has
undergone several eras of change from the 1800s to the present. Prior to the early twentieth
century, residential subdivisions were typically small and planned as individual developments.
However, new technologies and infrastructure progress helped improve the development process,
ultimately leading to the concept of the merchant builder used today.
The earliest form of community development emerged in the early nineteenth century.
During this period, early developers, called “subdividers,” purchased and surveyed vacant land,
conceptualized a general plan for the land, platted building lots and roads, and provided general
improvements to the site (typically utilities, curbs/sidewalks, and vegetation). Individual lots
were then sold to homebuyers who would independently construct their own residence.
However, by the twentieth century, subdividers realized they could build their own residential
units on a small number of lots to home prospective homebuyers, which helped market their
developments. This was made possible by documenting a plan that would become a fully
developed neighborhood, alleviating homebuyers’ concerns of fraud during a period of
widespread real estate deception.
19

The next era of homebuilding, generally aligning with the city planning movement of the
1910s, was comprised of the “community builder.” This was the start of real estate developers
that would purchase large amounts of land and develop it according to a master plan. Often,
these plans would be the result of a collaboration between planners, architects, landscape
architects, and engineers. This was also the beginning of larger developments planned adjacent
to schools, commercial corridors, institutional properties, and transportation networks.
Community builders tended to advocate for zoning and subdivision regulations in order to
protect their land value and ensure predictability in the land market.
20

Finally, in the 1920s and 1930s, the merchant builder emerged as the leading developer
type. Taking advantage of the aforementioned federal policies, merchant builders were the first
to apply the principles of mass-production and standardization to residential development. These
developers typically operated on a larger scale than the preceding types of developer, and

19
National Park Service, National Register Bulletin: Historic Residential Suburbs (Washington, D.C.: United States
Department of the Interior, 2002), 26.
20
Ibid., 26-27.

8
managed the development of land in its entirety. This included purchasing vacant land, laying
out the planned subdivision, designing the residences (and, sometimes, other associated buildings
such as community centers), building the units, and marketing and selling each property to
prospective homebuyers. By the 1930s, merchant builders perfected the mass-production of
residences (i.e. assembly-line residential construction), with workers often divided into
specialized crews (such as workers focused on framing, workers focused on foundations, and
workers focused on roofing). These builders also took advantage of economies of scale, by
purchasing large quantities of materials for the construction of several hundred residences.
21

Merchant builders were arguably the largest influencers to the character of the post-war
urban environment. They were the first to integrate the suburban ideals of homeownership and
community under an easy and quick real estate transaction. Though merchant builders worked to
achieve personal financial success, the concept of mass-production also meant the working- and
middle-class communities could attain the American dream of homeownership and financial
security.
22

The western region of San Francisco was ground zero for large-scale merchant builders
in San Francisco.
23
Beginning in the 1920s, a number of these merchant builders transformed
extensive sand dunes into thousands of residences on small lots with uniform setbacks.
24
Here,
merchant builders would purchase a large amount of sand dunes at an affordable price (due to
concerns of the land being unsuitable for development), lay out a street grid and development,
quickly construct tracts of single-family residences, and sell the houses for a large profit.
25

Concurrent with the development of San Francisco’s west side, the automobile as a
method of transportation became increasingly popular, providing access to the previously
isolated and inaccessible areas along San Francisco’s west side. In 1920, there were 47,969

21
National Park Service, National Register Bulletin: Historic Residential Suburbs, 29.
22
Ibid.
23
Though still part of San Francisco proper, the west side of San Francisco was often marketed as a suburban
community away from the chaos of the inner city during its initial development.
24
The western region of San Francisco features a grid pattern with most blocks characterized by uniform setbacks of
approximately ten feet. Though merchant builders during the 1940s were interested in an alternative setback
configuration, and were supported by the Secretary of the Associated Home Builders, neighborhood residents
resisted the plan and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors rejected the proposal. See “Building Line in Parkside
Upheld,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 15, 1943.
25
Brown, Sunset District Residential Builders, 33.

9
registered vehicles in the city. However, just ten years later, there were over 146,000 vehicles.
26

With lower costs of producing automobiles, the working- and middle-class residents of San
Francisco were increasingly able to purchase personal automobiles by the mid-1920s, and were
able to purchase homes outside of the urban core, such as in the Sunset District.
Early vehicles tended to be open-top without sufficient insulation from the adverse
weather conditions. When it rained, these vehicles would often leak water into the interior. To
cater to the working- and middle-class residents of San Francisco interested in new housing,
merchant builders began implementing garages into their house plans. This concept resulted in a
ground floor dedicated to a single-car garage, with living spaces above. Since this idea was
relatively novel during its implementation, it quickly became an urban characteristic developed
by merchant builders that defined the western side of the City of San Francisco, and was known
as the one-story-over-garage plan.
27

In addition to federal policies, the typology of the west side, and the rise of the
automobile, several emerging merchant builders operated in the region beginning in the 1920s,
leading to the area’s widespread and rapid development.

The Rousseau Brothers – Marian Realty Company (Est. 1922)
Arthur and Oliver Rousseau, two brothers, founded their real estate development firm in
1922 and named it the Marian Realty Company. The two came from architecture backgrounds:
their father, Charles Rousseau, was a prolific architect in San Francisco and the two brothers
were formally-trained architects as well.
28
Shortly after establishing their development firm, the
brothers embarked on several projects that included large apartment houses, hotels, and office
buildings. They designed their properties in addition to constructing them; this was typically not
something many merchant builders attempted.
29

Following the 1929 stock market collapse, the brothers began to shift their projects as
they were receiving fewer commissions for large-scale projects. The two began to build and

26
Miller McClintock, A Report on the San Francisco City-Wide Traffic Survey, Works Project 6108-5863, prepared
for the San Francisco Department of Public Works, 1937.
27
Brown, Sunset District Residential Builders, 26.
28
Ibid, 50.
29
While some merchant builders hired in-house architecture staff to design their properties, many, including prolific
merchant builder Joseph Eichler, would work alongside outside architects to design their developments.

10
market single-family residential developments in San Francisco.
30
Through a partnership with
the Whitney Investment Company, run by younger brother Oliver Rousseau, the firm began to
develop several single-family residential projects in the western region of the City of San
Francisco.
The Rousseau brothers developed some of the earliest tracts of single-family residences
(starting in the early 1920s) and shaped much of the character and initial development of the
western region of San Francisco.
31
They were also one of the pioneering firms to integrate good
design with good functionality, implementing amenities such as automobile garages, sunken
living rooms, and high-quality laundry machines.
32
The brothers also incorporated whimsical
architectural details and new, inventive fenestration in their later developments during the 1930s.
Many of these developments were designed in a colorful palate of architectural styles including
Storybook, Tudor, Spanish Colonial, and Mediterranean Revival. (Figure 1.1) Through their
developments, the brothers set a formula that would be followed and refined by subsequent
developers in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Figure 1.1. Advertisement for a Marian Realty Company Home. San Francisco Chronicle, April 2, 1932.

30
Brown, Sunset District Residential Builders, 50.
31
During this period of San Francisco’s development, many of the residences constructed by merchant builders were
comprised of modest two-story row houses. This is especially evident in the western region of San Francisco, where
most merchant builders’ projects were concentrated during the 1920s-1940s.
32
“6,000 See New Patio Plan,” San Francisco Examiner, February 4, 1933.

11
Because the brothers were developing homes in a remote area of San Francisco, they
needed to develop strong marketing tactics to be successful. To attract new residents, the
brothers relied heavily on partnerships with interior designers to advertise new model homes – a
tactic that would later be implemented in many of Henry Doelger’s residential developments.
This concept proved to be extremely useful and beneficial, and gave rise to a dramatic increase
in sales of their developments throughout the 1930s.
33

Even though their marketing was successful and the Marian Realty Company was able to
quickly sell hundreds of single-family homes, the firm began to experience mounting debt. In
1933, the brothers filed for bankruptcy and ended their eleven year real estate firm.
34
Today,
many of their properties in San Francisco retain their original whimsical designs and convey
their era of early tract housing in the Bay Area.

The Gellert Brothers – Standard Building Company (Est. 1922)
Carl and Fred Gellert, born in 1899 and 1902, respectively, were two San Francisco
brothers who originally worked as ironworkers until 1921. In 1922, they joined their father,
Charles Gellert, as house painters, where it is presumed they learned much about residential
projects prior to forming a real estate firm.
35
The two lacked a formal education beyond the
eighth grade, but garnered much knowledge on real estate development through their
apprenticeships and via several night classes wherein they learned architectural drawing.
36
The
two were highly self-motivated and driven and, by 1922, had built their first house in San
Francisco.
37

Shortly after constructing this house, the brothers founded their real estate company and
subsequently named it the Standard Building Company. Their first residential development
consisted of twenty-four single-family period revival dwellings – the first of several thousand
residences they would erect in the San Francisco Bay Area.
38
The homes were more often than

33
“Exhibit Shows Artistry of Decorations,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 29, 1932.
34
“Marian Realty Firm Declares Bankruptcy,” San Francisco Examiner, December 29, 1933.
35
Brown, Sunset District Residential Builders, 52.
36
Woody LaBounty, “The Gellert Brothers and Lakeshore Park,” Outsidelands – Western Neighborhoods Project,
accessed October 21, 2017, http://www.outsidelands.org/lakeshore.php.
37
Ken Zinns, “The Tradition Continued: San Francisco’s Sunset District Rowhouse” (master’s thesis, University of
California, Berkeley, 1983), 9.
38
Daniel Gregory, Be It So Humble: The Impact of the Merchant Builder/Land Developer on the Evolution of
Housing in the Bay Area, 1850-1979. University of California, Berkeley, Department of Architecture, February 19,
1979.

12
not high-styled and whimsical in design, and consisted of architectural styles such as Spanish
Colonial and Mediterranean Revival. However, the Standard Building Company quickly
developed rather unadorned residences around the time the FHA program was introduced,
allowing them to quickly develop several blocks of residences for lower construction costs.
39

Similar to other industries during World War II, the residential development industry was
slowed due to redirected resources to the war effort. Consequently, the Standard Building
Company was forced to discontinue any residential projects and, instead, began developing
military housing and defense facilities throughout California.
40
Their final project, the Lakeshore
Park development at the southwest corner of San Francisco, began in the post-war era and was
marketed to upper-middle-class residents.
41
(Figure 1.2)

Figure 1.2. Construction photo of Lakeshore Park, a Standard Building Company residential tract, c. 1940. Photo
from Western Neighborhoods Project via a private donor.

The Gellert brothers employed carpenter crews that typically consisted of fifteen to
twenty carpenters each, and each crew further specialized in a specific house plan.
42
This helped
to maximize construction efficiency and, therefore, helped to raise profits. The firm also

39
LaBounty, “The Gellert Brothers.”
40
Lorri Ungaretti, Stories in the Sand: San Francisco’s Sunset District, 1847-1964 (San Francisco: Balangero
Books, 2012), 57.
41
LaBounty, “The Gellert Brothers.”
42
Brown, Sunset District Residential Builders, 53.

13
produced the massive Serramonte Center in 1966 – a planned community that featured
approximately 10,000 residential units, a shopping center, a handful of public schools, churches,
and open space/community centers.
43

Raymond F. Galli – Galli Construction Company (Est. 1925)
Raymond F. Galli was born in 1896 in San Francisco. He originally worked as a
bookkeeper for a dairy located in Oakland, California, across the San Francisco Bay. However,
Galli utilized this job to save money in order to establish a building company in 1925.
44
A few
years after he founded his firm, Galli Construction Company, his brother, Frank Galli, joined the
company and was in charge of management and administrative tasks while Raymond acted as the
face of the company.
The firm introduced and popularized the “Galli Plan,” as advertised by the FHA in the
late 1930s.
45
(Figure 1.3) The plan was the formal name for the entry layout for houses in which
a ground-floor interior passageway led from the front of the property to a recessed interior
courtyard and stairway, leading to the entrance on the second story. This brought in more light to
the units and created additional livable space. At the same time, it helped to reduce construction
costs considerably.
46
The FHA, thus, embraced the concept and encouraged similar construction
plans for other mass-producing residential builders.

43
“Sunstream’s Serramonte,” San Francisco Examiner, September 18, 1966; For the purposes of this thesis, a
planned community (sometimes referred to as a master-planned or total community) will refer to the concept of a
self-contained residential development that provides neighborhood amenities largely catering to the residents of such
a community. Planned communities typically, though not always, contain single- and multiple-family residential
dwellings and complexes, commercial and retail properties, office space, open/recreational space, and civic
buildings such as schools, libraries, post offices, and/or government institutions. Planned communities are typically
constructed on vacant land in which a developer can comprehensively design the community, including the siting of
buildings and structures, the street design and pattern, and landscape details.
44
Ray Galli, Jr., “The Heritage of Galli Builders,” Galli Heritage, accessed October 15, 2017,
http://www.galliheritage.com/heritage/early_days.htm.
45
The “Galli Plan” is sometimes referred to as the tunnel-entrance plan or the patio plan.
46
Galli, “The Heritage of Galli Builders.”

14

Figure 1.3. Floor plan of a typical Galli Plan. Note the tunnel entrance and courtyard at the bottom left. Photo by
author and adopted from Sunset District Residential Builders.

During the war, Galli developed a number of defense-related projects in the Sunset
District of San Francisco, as well as the City of Richmond to the northeast.
47
However, the
company developed several other projects throughout San Francisco including developments in
Golden Gate Heights, McLaren Park Terrace, Forest Hill, and the Excelsior District. The
company was extremely successful and produced more than 3,000 single-family residences in
the City and County of San Francisco, as well as several additional projects throughout the wider
San Francisco Bay Area.
48

47
Galli, “The Heritage of Galli Builders.”
48
Ibid.

15

Figure 1.4. Galli residential tract, April 1, 1939. Note the “Tunnel Entrance” residences to the right (those without
exterior staircases). Photo from Western Neighborhoods Project via a private donor.

Following the war effort, the City of San Francisco took possession of Galli’s numerous
unimproved parcels in San Francisco via eminent domain. This was done in order to build new
public schools, a community center, and a public library. In doing so, Galli’s firm began to look
elsewhere for new land to build upon. Galli retired in the 1950s, at which point his son took over.
The firm continued to produce new developments, including the initial phase of the Diamond
Heights redevelopment project in central San Francisco. Today, the Galli Construction Company
still builds residences, though most are located in the southern region of the San Francisco
Peninsula.
49

Stoneson Brothers – Stoneson Development Corporation (Est. 1928)
A final large-scale partnership that produced low-cost housing in the San Francisco Bay
Area was the Stoneson Development Corporation. Brothers Ellis, born in 1893, and Henry, born
in 1895, were originally from British Colombia.
50
In the late 1880s, they moved with their
parents to Washington, and worked as carpenters to help support the family.
51
Similar to other

49
Galli, “The Heritage of Galli Builders.”
50
California Death Index, 1940-1997.
51
“S.F. Builder Dies After Brief Illness,” San Francisco Examiner, December 31, 1958.

16
builders of this era, the brothers lacked a formal education, but pursued construction careers
early in their lives.
In 1922, they moved to San Francisco and began working on various small projects for a
number of contractors.
52
Typically, these involved minor home repairs and alterations.
53

However, the brothers soon built their first home, in 1928, through a partnership with Fred
Thorinson, an early friend.
54
The three then purchased a large amount of land near the Mission
District of San Francisco and constructed several single-family Mediterranean Revival
dwellings.
55

The firm reached its peak in the 1930s and the 1940s, producing several single-family
residential tracts primarily near Lake Merced. These homes were usually designed in period
revival styles, similar to other developers of this era. By the late 1930s, the brothers embarked on
a large-scale project in the Lakeside District, where they were producing homes at the rate of one
per day.
56

Similar to other developers, the firm experienced a pause in new developments during
World War II. However, it benefitted from the upswing in housing production that followed the
war to house thousands of returning veterans. In fact, the firm was so popular and successful that
the brothers produced residential tracts throughout the entire San Francisco Bay Area, with large
concentrations in San Francisco, Daly City, and San Mateo.
57

After achieving success through their mass-produced residential tracts, the Stonesons
embarked on their most ambitious and well-known project. In the late 1940s, they
conceptualized the Stonestown development. (Figure 1.5) This San Francisco project was located
on a 110-acre site and contained four ten-story apartment high-rise buildings and twenty-eight
two-story townhouses in addition to a forty-two-acre shopping center and commercial district.
The project was highlighted not just for its new residential and commercial properties, but also
its setting, which was enveloped in nature and open space.
58
The project was designed by noted

52
“Stoneson Brothers Win National Fame for San Francisco Building Projects,” San Francisco Examiner, July 13,
1952.
53
“The Stoneson Brothers and the City They Built,” The Icelandic Canadian, Spring 1960, 33.
54
Caroline Cartwright, “Icelandic Heritage Based on the Life Stories of Henry and Ellis Stoneson and Andy
Oddstadd Jr.,” College of San Mateo Historic Library, 1980.
55
“SF Builder Dies After Brief Illness,” San Francisco Examiner, December 21, 1958.
56
“Henry Stoneson Community Builder,” City-County Record, March 23, 1953.
57
“Two Stoneson Home Areas,” San Francisco Examiner, September 8, 1956.
58
“Henry Stoneson Community Builder,” City-County Record, March 23, 1953.

17
San Francisco architect Angus McSweeney and contained housing for nearly 3,500 tenants. It
opened in 1952 and included 783 apartment dwellings and a refined commercial shopping center.
Accordingly, the project was marketed as a “City Within a City.”
59
Located at the southern
portion of San Francisco, one can argue that the Stonestown project was a response to Henry
Doelger’s Westlake community, which was being developed as a city within a city around the
same period just a few miles south.

Figure 1.5. Construction of Stonestown Apartment Buildings. Photo from the San Francisco Public Library,
Historical Photograph Collection, Photo #AAC-0804.

Henry Doelger – Henry Doelger Building Inc. (Est. 1928)
Henry Doelger was born on June 24, 1896 above his parents’ bakery at 131 Mason Street
in San Francisco, California.
60
Shortly after his birth, the family moved to the Inner Sunset
neighborhood, which, at the time, was still a relatively new and undeveloped community in the
western region of San Francisco. Consisting largely of sand dunes, the neighborhood was home
to his parents’ grocery store, located at the corner of 7
th
Avenue and Hugo Street.
61
Because it
was established during the initial development of the west side of San Francisco and competition
was scarce, the grocery store flourished and allowed the Doelgers to lead a successful life.

59
“Stonestown: A City Within a City,” Architect & Engineer (July 1950): 12-15.
60
San Francisco City Directory, 1896.
61
Andrew Curtin, “Henry Doelger, The City’s Premier Homebuilder Dies,” San Francisco Examiner, July 24, 1978.

18
In 1906, Doelger’s father passed away, resulting in Henry quitting school in the eighth
grade in order to work to provide financial support for his family; he would never return to
school. However, overcoming a lack of formal education, he became an entrepreneur and opened
a hotdog and tamale stand in Golden Gate Park.
62
Doelger quickly learned how to be financially
keen and began saving his earnings with plans of purchasing land from artichoke farmers, which
was affordable because many alleged that the sand-filled land was of no value for development.
In the early 1920s, Doelger purchased his first plot of land, which consisted of an empty
lot located at 14
th
Avenue and Irving Street in the Inner Sunset. According to a San Francisco
Examiner article, Doelger quickly sold the plot of land for “a handsome profit.”
63
This
subsequently led to Doelger’s new fascination with real estate investments. Soon after his first
real estate flip, Doelger purchased additional sandy acreage in the western region of San
Francisco. His second investment consisted of the block bounded by 39th Avenue, Judah Street,
40th Avenue, and Kirkham Street in the Outer Sunset neighborhood, just west of his original
land purchase. It was here, in 1928, that Doelger constructed his first barrel front single-family
residence, located at 1427 39
th
Avenue. (Figure 1.6) Doelger soon built twenty-four more homes
on this land – the first set of what would become thousands of similar-looking “Doelger homes”
throughout the Sunset District.
64

62
Curtin, “Henry Doelger, The City’s Premier Homebuilder Dies.”
63
Ibid.
64
San Francisco Planning Department, “Landmark Designation Report: Doelger Building,” prepared for the City
and County of San Francisco, May 2013, 22.

19

Figure 1.6. The first Doelger house, located at 1427 39th Avenue in San Francisco. Photo from Google Street View
and amended by author.

His first row of Doelger-built homes was designed in the Mediterranean Revival style
with a one-story-over-garage single-family layout. His mass-produced standardized layout
helped limit production costs, allowing him to market the residences to families of modest
means.
65
In fact, the differences between each respective property were limited to the forms of
the parapets, ornamentation along cornices, and window muntin patterns.
66
Doelger would carry
this standardized method of design into his later developments, which would allow him to
proliferate as one of the early tract developers for the middle-class family.
Doelger continued to prosper as a developer well into the 1930s. It was reported by 1934,
his company, Henry Doelger Building Inc., was constructing a home a day. In a way, Doelger’s
rowhouses were analogous to Henry Ford’s Model Ts; both provided mass-produced
manufactured goods at modest prices. Fittingly, Doelger was referred to as the “Henry Ford of
housing.”
67
During this time of success, the company employed a robust number of employees
working out of their office at 320 Judah Street.
68
Included in his staff list were two architectural
designers, John Hunter and O.E. Peterson; a painting/decorating department led by H.G.
Douglas; a secretary named Alpha Porter, and a number of salesmen. Doelger also worked with

65
Patricia Leigh Brown, “Praising San Francisco’s Champion of Conformity,” The New York Times, January 29,
2003.
66
Ibid.
67
Rob Keil, Little Boxes: The Architecture of a Classical Midcentury Suburb, (Advection Media, 2006), 31.
68
The Doelger Building, located at 320 Judah Street, is a recently designated San Francisco local historic landmark.

20
his brother, John Doelger, who was one of the earliest carpenters for the company. John later
served as the vice president of the company.
69

Figure 1.7. 1940 image of John and Henry Doelger in a San Francisco development. Photo from San Francisco
Chronicle, May 5, 1940.

By 1940, Doelger had constructed and sold more than 2,500 homes in the Sunset District,
and had a business of twenty-six employees (designers, sales/administration staff, and draftsmen)
and seven crews of carpenters for a combined total of approximately 300 men.
70
Quickly,
Doelger was recognized as the nation’s largest developer of houses and was marketed as the
developer behind the nation’s fastest selling residences. Quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle,
Doelger states:

The tremendous public interest […] is due to the values to be found in Doelger City.
Since 1926, we have constructed over 1300 San Francisco homes. Public acceptance has
been responsible for this outstanding record, and this public acceptance is due to the fact

69
San Francisco Planning Department, “Landmark Designation Report: Doelger Building,” 25.
70
Brochure: America’s Fastest Selling Homes Are Built by Doelger, 1940; “Doelger Opens New Firm Offices,” San
Francisco Examiner, April 20, 1940.

21
that our homes have consistently offered the quality features that homeseekers are proud
of.
71

The article continues to state that “Doelger City” was “one of the fastest – if not the
fastest” home development in the United States of America.
72

Doelger began working with architectural designers Chester Dolphin and Ed Hageman in
the mid-1940s, and continued to construct thousands of additional single-family homes in the
Sunset District of San Francisco. His insistence on purchasing construction materials, such as
lumber and gypsum, in bulk allowed the company to realize larger profits. By 1947, Doelger
reported having constructed approximately 8,000 single-family residences in San Francisco.
73
In
the following years, Doelger would slowly complete his developments in the City of San
Francisco. However, as the land began to be built out, Doelger embarked on a new project to the
south of San Francisco in Daly City, which he named Westlake.

71
“Home Development in Doelger City,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 15, 1939.
72
The moniker “Doelger City,” referring to the large-scale development of similar looking homes, was often used in
newspaper articles and advertisements for Doelger’s numerous residential developments in San Francisco; “Home
Development in Doelger City,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 15, 1939.
73
Herb Caen, “It’s News to Me,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 11, 1947.

22
Chapter 2 - Daly City and Henry Doelger’s Westlake: A History

Daly City’s Early History
Though the city was not incorporated until the early 1900s, the origins of Daly City,
home to Henry Doelger’s Westlake, date back to the mid-1850s. San Mateo County,
encompassing present-day Daly City, was officially incorporated on April 19, 1856. It was at this
time that the county experienced its first growth and became an established community outside
of San Francisco. The creation of the San Francisco-based Southern Pacific Railroad in the
1860s brought increased population growth to the developing region; by the late 1860s, a
Southern Pacific Railroad route was established from San Francisco to San Jose, passing through
San Mateo County.
74

With the establishment of the railroad, the area occupied by today’s Daly City began to
experience widespread, but sluggish, growth. During this time, small stores, butcher shops,
hotels, a schoolhouse, a church, and a railroad station were established.
75
By the 1890s,
additional modes of transportation, notably various streetcars, were constructed to connect San
Francisco to communities to the south, including those located in San Mateo County.
76

While Daly City contained some smaller businesses, dairies dominated the area’s
industry and economy. These dairies often contained expansive facilities featuring massive
barns, blacksmith workshops, and cooler and steam engines. From the dairies in Daly City, oxen-
drawn wagons would transport products to dairies in San Francisco, which were subsequently
transported and delivered to individual residents.
77
This industry would continue to thrive until
approximately the early 1900s.

1906 Great Earthquake and Fires
On April 18, 1906 at 5:12 in the morning, one of the most significant earthquakes in
California history struck the San Francisco Bay Area. With an epicenter located near San

74
“The San Jose Railroad,” Daily Alta California, October 18, 1863.
75
“History of Daly City,” Daly City, accessed October 21, 2017, http://www.dalycity.com/channel/History-of-Daly-
City/5098.
76
Ibid.
77
Samuel C. Chandler, Gateway to the Peninsula: A History of the City of Daly City (City of Daly City: Central
Services Division, 1973), 63.

23
Francisco, the earthquake had an estimated magnitude of 7.8 and was followed by a number of
major fires throughout the city that lasted several days.
78
Due to ruptured gas lines and damaged
water lines, firefighters were unable to easily extinguish the fires that spread throughout the city,
ultimately resulting in nearly 28,000 destroyed buildings. While many displaced San Franciscans
were housed in refugee shacks across the City of San Francisco shortly after the disaster, many
fled to temporary housing located on the ranches within San Mateo County. One of these ranches
belonged to a man named John Donald Daly, a relatively unknown philanthropist at the time that
later provided a number of services leading to the founding of Daly City.

John Donald Daly
John Donald Daly, born in 1841, moved from Boston, Massachusetts to San Francisco in
1853 with his mother. Thirteen years later, Daly purchased a 250-acre dairy owned by M.
Holenworth, located between Lake Merced Rancho and Mission Road.
79
Shortly after acquiring
the ranch, Daly renamed it the San Mateo Dairy. The dairy produced a large amount of milk and
eggs, and Daly subsequently set up a shop at 1010 Valencia Street in San Francisco to sell and
distribute his products.
80
At the height of the business’ success, Daly employed twelve men to
work on the dairy, some of whom resided on Daly’s property.
Daly quickly became one of the most successful businessmen in the San Francisco Bay
Area. According to an interview with Henry Sundermann, one of Daly’s employees, Daly was
able to conduct preliminary estimations on land quality, size, and condition before engineers
could reach a conclusion. Additionally, Sundermann stated, that Daly had universal knowledge
on numerous subjects, “especially business and science,” even with a lack of formal schooling.
81

After establishing his dairy, Daly continued to flourish in other endeavors. Following
World War I, a man named John Deltorchio became interested in establishing a business in San
Mateo County. Daly, interested in venturing into a new industry, provided funding for Deltorchio
to establish a print shop on Mission Street, which operated continuously for over thirty years.
82

78
“110 Years Ago: Images from San Francisco’s Devastating 1906 Earthquake,” Los Angeles Times, April 18, 2016.
79
Russ Brabec, “The Real Saga of Who Owned the Land that Became the ‘Daly’ Milk Ranch,” The Tattler 33, No.
1, September 2013, 3.
80
The building that housed Daly’s shop is no longer extant.
81
Chandler, Gateway to the Peninsula, 24.
82
Ibid.

24
In doing so, both Daly and Deltorchio were able to reap the financial benefits of operating a
successful business in San Mateo during a time of modest growth.
Daly was also an active community member. During his early years in San Mateo
County, Daly established a bank for the emerging community, donated money to establish the
community’s first library, and became highly involved in local politics.
83
Additionally, just after
the 1906 earthquake and fires hit the San Francisco Bay Area, Daly opened his farm to those
seeking housing, and supplied the refugees with shelter, food, milk, and other resources.
84

It was during this time of emergency that Daly realized his land could be used for better
purposes than just grazing cattle. Daly subsequently subdivided and sold his property in 1907,
excluding roughly four acres located between Mission Street and San Jose Avenue.
85
After this,
Daly relocated his barn from the now subdivided land atop of “Daly’s Hill” to these four acres,
and later built a modest house adorned with flower gardens. Streets were quickly laid out on this
new land, and residences were constructed.
86
Additionally, several temporary homes that were
constructed in refugee camps in San Francisco following the 1906 earthquake were relocated to
this new subdivision.

Daly City’s Incorporation
With the physical beginnings of a permanent community, incorporation as an official
municipality was deemed appropriate. Besides the fact that the construction of buildings
following the 1906 earthquake were done without any building and construction codes, leading
to worries of unsafe buildings, there was also a belief that, with the increase in permanent
residents, incorporation was necessary for the self-protection and advancement of the local
community.
87
Additionally, there were efforts in San Francisco to annex much of San Mateo
County, which alarmed the residents who believed their community would suffer “at the mercy
of San Francisco.”
88
In 1908, an initial petition was circulated which proposed the incorporation

83
“History of Daly City,” Daly City.
84
Kayla Figard, “Daly City Preserves its Rich History Through Historical Museum,” The Mercury News, August 23,
2011.
85
James P. MacGuire, Real Lace Revisited: Inside the Hidden World of America’s Irish Aristocracy (Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), 42.
86
Figard, “Daly City Preserves its Rich History.”
87
There were early hopes of forming a locally-governed city to construct new streets, sewers, water lines, and
drainage systems.
88
Chandler, Gateway to the Peninsula, 79.

25
of the community to the City of Vista Grande. The boundaries of the new city were to stretch
from the City of San Francisco boundary line to the north, to the location of the Buri Buri
Rancho to the south, as well as from the San Francisco Bay on the east to the Pacific Ocean on
the west.
89
Opposition was leveraged against the petition in fears of a city covering so much
acreage of land.
Following the defeat of Vista Grande, a new committee, formed of a group of individuals
living in San Mateo County, began holding large community meetings in order to discuss the
benefits and downsides to incorporation. These discussions wavered between a rural community
that feared urban development, and a city government that would devote their time to the
activities and infrastructure necessary to foster a successful community. On January 16, 1911,
the committee filed for incorporation of the City of Daly City (named in honor of the
community’s friend and local denizen John Daly) with San Mateo County.
90

The Board of Supervisors held a special election on March 18, 1911 to determine the fate
of incorporation, while also electing municipal officers. The ballot for incorporation passed by
an extremely narrow margin of two votes for incorporation. The ballot also named Edward
Freyer as the first mayor of Daly City, and included councilmen Al J. Green, Dennis Quillinan,
Thomas J. Mullins, and Martin Oberhause. Also elected were Ed Knight (city attorney), Ellis C.
Johnson (recorder), Walter J. White (city clerk), and T. Sheehan (treasurer).
91

Shortly after incorporation, a number of bond issues were approved to pave streets, install
sewers and a water system, establish a police and fire department, construct numerous public
schools, and erect an official city hall located at 75 Wellington Avenue (just half a block from
Daly’s former ranch).
92
In 1913, San Mateo County residents voted for a bond issue of
$1,250,000 to construct several new roads, connecting Daly City to several coastside towns. The
bond also included constructing School Street and Spring Valley Boulevard (now 87
th
Street) as
well as the construction of Junipera Serra Highway, providing additional access to and from the
city.
93

89
Today, this includes the cities of Colma, Brisbane, and Daly City.
90
Chandler, Gateway to the Peninsula, 83.
91
Roy W. Cloud, The Story of San Mateo County, California, (Chicago: The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company),
1928.
92
The original city hall is no longer extant.
93
Chandler, Gateway to the Peninsula, 66.

26
By the 1920s, Daly City remained relatively undeveloped, but contained several farms.
Small in size (typically one to two acres), the farms raised livestock and produce such as berries,
tomatoes, and artichokes. During this period, many of the earlier dairies were replaced with these
farms, especially in the area that developed into Westlake. However, by the 1930s, these farms
began to expand, with many raising swine in addition to produce. Referred to as “hog ranches,”
these farms grew in popularity with local farmers as the pigs were able to thrive in the often-
foggy and cold weather.
94
These farms would comprise much of Daly City’s urban character
until its growth following World War II, at which time they were replaced with residential
subdivisions.

Westlake
With little development in Daly City, the community continued to function as a small
town – a refuge from the bustling City of San Francisco to the north. However, the open land to
the south of San Francisco provided opportunity for merchant builders to develop more
residential tracts, as San Francisco was quickly being entirely covered with new residences. In
1945, merchant builder Henry Doelger, realizing this opportunity, purchased approximately
1,350 acres of hog and cabbage farms for $650,000 from the Spring Valley Water Company.
95

Located at the then-remote southwest border of San Francisco, Doelger’s financial advisors
predicted he was making a significant financial mistake. However, against his advisors’ advice,
Doelger continued with the purchase and prepared plans for the new community.
96

Three years later, Doelger proposed to the city council of Daly City the annexation of
approximately 432 acres of this land to Daly City. The issue of annexation was hotly contested,
with some voters arguing against it, claiming it would increase taxes and reduce their home
values. While then-current mayor of Daly City Anthony Gaggero publicly announced his support
for the annexation, former mayor Hugh H. Smith Sr. claimed, “It would be beneficial to the new
territory but detrimental to the old. Everything would move down there and property values in
the now established sections will drop.”
97
In September 1948, approximately nine hundred

94
Chandler, Gateway to the Peninsula, 64.
95
Bunny Gillespie, Images of America: Westlake (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing. 2003), 8.
96
Unfortunately, Doelger destroyed all of his career files, records, and portfolios prior to his death. Consequently,
research on the development of Westlake for this thesis relies heavily on historical accounts, historical newspapers,
and various secondary sources.
97
Daly City Record, July 8, 1948; Daly City Record, July 14, 1948.

27
residents of Daly City signed a petition against the annexation. However, on September 16
th
, the
city council of Daly City decided to place the issue up for a vote on the upcoming November 2
nd

ballot.
To alleviate concerns, Doelger offered a compromise. His proposal included the
annexation in exchange for infrastructure and city improvements provided by his company. This
included a new water reservoir, streetlights, sidewalks, curbs/gutters, a complete water system,
fire hydrants, and a fire alarm system for the city for free. In addition to these improvements,
Doelger offered the city an option to purchase ten acres of his land for a price of approximately
$2,000 per acre, far below the land’s market value. Doelger’s generous tactics proved
worthwhile. Following a vote, 3,415 residents of Daly City voted for the annexation while 1,790
votes against.
98

For Doelger, the annexation and timing of his new development was just right. With the
new influx of returning veterans and the increase in housing demand during the post-war period,
a new community of affordable houses could not have been more ideal. Contrary to the other
typical post-war suburbs across the country and throughout California that focused solely on
single-family residential dwellings, Doelger wanted to create a complete community – one that
not only contained single-family residences, but also multi-family residential complexes,
commercial buildings, municipal buildings, and vast open space for recreation.
99
Doelger,
essentially, envisioned a “complete community.”
By the late 1940s, Doelger and his company embarked on plans for Westlake. While the
land was relatively distant from the core of San Francisco, it had many of the same
characteristics of the Sunset District – vast sand dunes and hilly terrain – which meant Doelger
had considerable experience and already knew how to easily transform desolate land into a
residential community.
100
Doelger continued to work with Chester Dolphin and Ed Hageman in

98
Gary Gant, “Henry Doelger’s Westlake,” College of San Mateo, January 1982, 4-5 on file at the San Mateo
County History Museum Archives.
99
“Westlake – Big New Housing Development,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 4, 1949.
100
Though the land bordered San Francisco to the north, the hilly and sandy terrain and a lack of transportation
made it difficult to travel to the area.

28
the designs of his residences, in addition to master Modernist architect Mario Ciampi.
101

Doelger’s brother, John, acted as contractor and builder.
102

Figure 2.1. Map of Daly City with Westlake shaded in red. Map from Google Maps.

In 1949, the official groundbreaking ceremony for Westlake was held in Daly City. The
ceremony was attended by Doelger, his wife, representatives of FHA, the Association of Home
Builders, and Daly City Mayor James Paul Green. The first phase ultimately consisted of 680
buildings, and was constructed on a triangular parcel of land southeast of Lake Merced and west

101
While Chester Dolphin was Henry Doelger’s lead architect for several decades, archival research has provided
little information on Dolphin’s life and career.
102
Kayla Figard, “History of Westlake Part 1: Doelger’s Model of a Postwar Suburb,” The Mercury News, October
11, 2011.

29
of Juniper Serra Boulevard.
103
In 1950, just one year after groundbreaking, Doelger opened the
first model home to the public. (Figure 2.2 and Figure 2.3) Designed by San Francisco Bay Area
residential designer Ed Hageman, the house was originally drawn solely for comedic purposes.
According to the designer, Hageman named the design the fish-and-chips style because it
resembled “someplace you’d go up to a counter and buy fish and chips.”
104
However, with its
angled living room window and its outrageously angled butterfly roofline, Henry Doelger, in
search of unusual façades, was fond of the design and approved its construction.

Figure 2.2. 1950s San Francisco Chronicle advertisements for the community’s first model home, designed by Ed
Hageman, now an iconic work of post-war midcentury architecture.

103
“Ground is Broken for Building of Westlake Community,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 4, 1949.
104
Weinstein, “Signature Style: Ed Hageman.”

30

Figure 2.3. 189 Glenwood Avenue, the first model home in Westlake, today. Photo by author.

Ed Hageman, Westlake Building Designer
Ed Hageman was born in 1916 in San Francisco and raised in the Sunset District, not far
from Henry Doelger’s original residential tracts. Hageman graduated from San Francisco
Polytechnic High School, where he took a handful of classes that prepared him for mechanical
drawing. After completing high school, Hageman was awarded a scholarship to the Rudolph
Schaeffer School of Rythmo-Chromatic Design in San Francisco.
105

When Hageman was 21 years old and designing lobby displays for the Fox Theater on
Market Street in San Francisco, he met Doelger during a lunch outing. Doelger, proposing an
$18 an hour salary ($3 an hour more than Hageman’s current salary) asked Hageman if he would

105
The Rudolph Schaeffer School of Rythmo-Chromatic Design was an art school located at 136 St. Anne Street in
San Francisco. The school operated from 1924 to 1984, and was known for its courses in color and interior design;
John Bowman, “Architect Stays Busy at 95,” Whistlestop Express (October 2011): 6.

31
like to work in his drafting department.
106
Hageman agreed and, in 1937, helped Doelger with
designing his remaining residences in the Sunset District of San Francisco.
107

Self-described as a “meat-and-potatoes type of architect,” Hageman was, for most of his
career, a “building designer,” and not an official architect. He never went to architecture school
and learned designing through his partnership with Doelger. Doelger was able to teach Hageman
how to design foundations and how to design residential framing; Hageman, however, provided
his own approach to façade designs and aesthetics.
108

Following World War II, Hageman, having served as an instructor with the Army Air
Corps, returned to San Anselmo, California. At the time, plans for Westlake were being drafted.
However, Doelger’s original in-house designers were unable to come up with handsome facades
for the residences, and Doelger desired more unusual exteriors than he was being provided.
Doelger asked for Hageman’s assistance, and Hageman subsequently prepared approximately
thirty different elevations for Westlake’s residences.
109

After completing the Westlake project, Hageman worked for the Gellert Brothers in their
Laguna Honda development and Ed Burgar, a developer working in Greenbrae, Marin County.
Hagman also contributed to other developments including the Villa Real subdivision in San
Rafael; Peacock Lane, also in San Rafael; and residences on Green Valley Court in the Sleepy
Hollow community of Marin County.
110
Later in his career, Hageman focused much of his work
on remodeling projects, including the remodel of the Richardson Bay Audubon House in Tiburon
and the Whistlestop headquarters in San Rafael, formerly a railroad station (Hageman later
served as a member of the Whistlestop Board of Directors for several years). He also served on
the Marin County Planning Commission, the State Board of Architectural Examiners, and the
State Designers Qualifications Advisor Committee. Finally, in 1984, Hageman was named the
Marin Builders Association’s Construction Industry Man of the Year. Hageman died on May 30,
2015 at the age of 99.
111

106
Dave Weinstein, “Signature Style: Ed Hageman, The Wizard of Westlake, The Concept May Be Nearly Extinct
in the Bay Area, but Ed Hageman Designed Homes for People Who Never Thought They Could Afford One,” San
Francisco Chronicle, July 16, 2005.
107
Brochure: America’s Fastest Selling Homes are Built by Doelger, 1940.
108
Weinstein, “Signature Style: Ed Hageman.”
109
Ibid.
110
Ibid; Advertisement for Paradise Drive, Daily Independent Journal, March 3, 1956.
111
Beth Ashley, “Edward Hageman, Longtime Marin Architect, Dies at 99,” Marin Independent Journal, June 8,
2015.

32
Doelger’s single-family dwellings in Westlake, while mass-produced, were constructed
using only high-quality redwood, extending to the subflooring, exterior siding, and interior walls.
Because Doelger was so prolific, his use of redwood led to the rise in popularity of the
construction material in the following years by similar merchant builders.
112
While constructed
of high quality, there was some controversy surrounding the similar appearance of the residences
throughout Westlake. However, Doelger insisted he was implementing designs that were
“architecturally perfect.” Aligning with the philosophies of merchant building, Doelger
implemented seven basic homes designs throughout the entire community. Nevertheless, within
Westlake, there were approximately 260 variations implemented to differentiate the basic home
design, though this was largely contained to the roof design and main façade elements.
113
The
homes in Westlake, thus, exhibited a variety of façade designs typically derived from period
revival styles, which helped distinguish each residence, though the majority were designed in the
Midcentury Modern style.
114
Doelger’s first tract of residential homes in Westlake was
completed by the close of 1950 and included thirty-two single-family residences at the northern
end of Daly City (included in the surveyed area in Chapter 4). It was reported by this time that
Doelger was constructing five houses a day and employed approximately 1,200 workers.
115

(Figure 2.4)

112
“Doelger Has New Homes of Redwood,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 16, 1954; “Henry Doelger Dies in
Italy – Bay Area Builder was 82,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 26, 1978.
113
This accounts for the high concentration of Midcentury Modern residences in Westlake and the scattering of
other residences featuring period revival ornamentation and design elements.
114
A further illustration and analysis of residential architectural styles is included in Chapter 4.
115
Dean Jennings, “It’s News To Me,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 14, 1952.

33

Figure 2.4. Image of residences in Westlake under development, ca. 1950. By this time, Doelger was constructing
five houses a day. Photo from La Peninsula vol. XX, no. 1, Summer 1979, on file at the San Mateo County History
Museum Archives.

As part of Westlake’s original development, Doelger created the Westlake Subdivisions
Improvement Association (WSIA). Operating as a homeowners association, the WSIA was
tasked with regulating homeowners in Westlake to ensure each maintains their property and does
not alter their property in such a way that the greater community is adversely affected. As part of
the real estate transaction, each homeowner in Westlake was required to be a part of this
association. However, every ten years, a unit was able to withdraw from the association by a vote
of more than fifty percent.
116

In addition to the regulation of continued residential maintenance, the WSIA also
established a Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CCR) document, which codified the
preservation of a white-only community, similar to other residential developments of the era.
However, after the 1968 Fair Housing Act outlawed racial restrictions in housing, the WSIA
focused solely on maintaining aesthetic standards, focusing much of their attention on the
preservation of the palm trees Doelger planted on each property’s lot.
117
The association proved
controversial with new residents in later years and was largely dissolved by the turn of the
twenty-first century.
118

116
Gant, “Henry Doelger’s Westlake,” 9-10.
117
The palm trees had a life span of approximately 25 years. Consequently, most of them have since been removed.
118
Carol Lloyd, “Westlake Wars/Residents in a Daly City Subdivision Fight Their Homeowners Association,” San
Francisco Chronicle, December 10, 2002; Carol Lloyd, “The Myth of ‘Privatopia’/Do Private Residential
Governments Mean the End of the American Dream?,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 17, 2002.

34
In conjunction with his residential development, Doelger began construction on the
centerpiece of the new community – the Westlake Shopping Center.
119
(Figure 2.5) According to
a 1950 San Francisco Chronicle article describing the new development, the shopping center
was predicted to cost $15,000,000 and would occupy approximately forty acres on Highway 1, to
the west of Junipero Serra Boulevard. It was noted that the shopping center was the “largest
planned shopping and recreation center in the West” and would, ultimately, contain a
medical/dental office, a post office, two anchor department stores, a theater, a ballroom, several
tennis courts, a church, a bowling alley, a 2,500 car parking lot, and several stores and shops.
120

The shopping center was successful early on and was expanded shortly after its completion. The
expansion was designed by architect Lloyd Gartner and was completed by March 1956, adding
an additional forty stores to the center. The total cost of the addition was estimated to be
$5,000,000.
121
“With more than 70 shops and services, Westlake Shopping Center offers a
complete one-stop shopping center for the convenience of residents of Westlake, Daly City,
Coastside, and northern San Mateo County,” stated the Daly City Record.
122

Figure 2.5. Advertisement for the Westlake Shopping Center. San Francisco Chronicle, 1950.

119
The shopping center was originally called the Town and Country Shopping Center; Keil, Little Boxes, 18.
120
“Doelger Begins Work on Westlake Shopping Center,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 21, 1950.
121
“Westlake Shopping Center Addition Under Construction,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 26, 1955.
122
Westlake section of the Daly City Record, September 17, 1958.

35
In 1951, Westlake contained approximately 5,000 residents, comprising approximately a
third of Daly City’s entire population. Continuously growing, in 1951, Doelger’s first apartment
complex opened in the community. Named the Country Club Apartments, advertisements for the
complex highlighted the affordability factor of the residential units. Prices for the new
apartments ranged from just under $60/month for a studio to just under $80/month for a two-
bedroom unit. However, Doelger also ensured that the apartments were furnished with high-
quality amenities. Amenities included quality light fixtures, the “finest” hardwood floors,
“attractively designed bathrooms,” and large picture windows.
123
Similar to his single-family
residences, the apartment houses in Westlake were designed in the Midcentury Modern
architectural style, though some implemented Colonial, Asian-influenced, and other
ornamentation.
In the following years, Doelger produced several different model houses, which were
further differentiated through various facades, though the homes shared the same basic layout.
Below is a selection of model homes advertised in local newspapers:

123
Advertisement for Westlake, San Francisco Chronicle, April 22, 1951.

36

Figure 2.6. Various advertisements for the Westlake Community in the 1950s from San Francisco Chronicle.

In 1954, Doelger prepared plans for a Catholic church in Westlake. The church, located
on Elmwood Drive, between Alemany Boulevard and Southgate Avenue, was designed by

37
architect Vincent C. Raney, AIA, and cost $350,000 to construct.
124
Also in 1954, Doelger built
a new medical building for the community, located at 48 Park Plaza Drive. The property
formally opened to the public on October 1, 1954 and housed twenty-one doctors and dentists,
several medical and x-ray facilities, as well as eight additional retail stores.
125
Doelger later
relocated his company’s headquarters to this office building.
By 1955, nearly 13,000 people called Westlake home, with Westlake largely the factor
behind the population increase Daly City was experiencing. Prior to the development of
Westlake, in 1940, Daly City contained around 10,000 residents. Twenty years later, in 1960,
Daly City boasted approximately 45,000 residents.
126
Arguably, it was Doelger and his
seemingly outrageous vision to develop a community so far from San Francisco that allowed
Daly City to proliferate as an affordable residential community. There were also articles
published, including several by noted San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, that
highlighted Doelger’s success in Westlake. By 1959, Doelger had constructed 23,600 homes
throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, mainly located in San Francisco and the community of
Westlake in Daly City.
127

Besides attractive affordable housing, Westlake also benefitted from a robust
transportation network during the era of auto-centric planning. In 1955, Interstate 280, a fifty-
seven-mile north-south interstate highway, opened and connected San Jose to San Francisco,
passing through Daly City. The new highway provided access for residents of Westlake to the
employment centers located in San Francisco to the north and Santa Clara County to the south.
Westlake was also directly connected to the City of San Francisco via Alemany Boulevard
(renamed to John Daly Boulevard in 1973).
128
The increased affordability factor of the personal
automobile allowed an even greater number of working- and middle-class families to purchase a
new home in Westlake, away from the urban bustle of San Francisco, but close enough to their
places of employment to the north and south.
As part of the plan for the Westlake Shopping Center, in 1958, a bowling alley was
constructed at its southern end.
129
(Figure 2.7) At a cost of $1,000,000, the bowl, named

124
“New Catholic Church for Westlake,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 20, 1954.
125
Advertisement for Westlake Medical Center, San Francisco Chronicle, October 1, 1954.
126
United States Decennial Census, 1960.
127
Herb Caen, “Dept. of Useless Information,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 8, 1959.
128
Bunny Gillespie and Dave Crimmen, Then & Now: Daly City, (Charleston: SC, Arcadia Publishing, 2011, 88.
129
The bowling alley structure is still extant, though it has been significantly altered and now houses a retail store.

38
Swanson’s Westlake Bowl, consisted of thirty-two lanes as well as a bar, restaurant, and banquet
hall.
130
The bowling alley was designed by architect William Watson and run by Brunswick. At
the time of construction, Westlake contained nearly 18,000 residents and it was argued that a
large proportion of them were bowlers; the bowling alley hosted many Westlake bowlers for
several decades.
131

Figure 2.7. Image of Westlake Bowl. Photo from Daly City’s Golden Jubilee Anniversary on file at the San Mateo
County History Museum Archives.

Doelger also embarked on several larger projects to complete the total community:
primary and secondary schools. In order to design affordable yet high-quality educational
facilities, Doelger created a partnership with prolific San Francisco Bay Area Modernist architect
Mario Ciampi. As part of the collaboration, Ciampi designed several public schools in Westlake,
including Westlake School (1950), Olympia School (1955), Westmoor High School (1957),
Vista Mar School (1958), and Fernando Rivera Elementary School (1960).
132

Mario Ciampi, School Architect
Mario Joseph Ciampi was born on April 27, 1907 in San Francisco, California. After
graduating from high school in 1925, Ciampi started an apprenticeship with the architecture firm
of Alexander Cantin and Dodge A. Riedy, who had worked alongside noted San Francisco Bay

130
“Westlake Gets New Bowl,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 13, 1958.
131
Ibid.
132
Kayla Figard, “History of Westlake Part 1: Doelger’s Model of a Postwar Suburb,” Pacifica Tribune, October 11,
2011.

39
Area architect Timothy Pfleuger on the Pacific Telephone Building in San Francisco.
133
Ciampi
later attended the Harvard Graduate School of Design as a Special Student (1930-1932) as well
as the prestigious Beaux Arts Institute in Paris (1932). Ciampi also studied at the San Francisco
Architectural Club and earned his license to practice architecture in 1935.
134

In the mid-1950s, Ciampi was still a relatively unknown architect when Doelger hired
him to design the public schools for Westlake. In total, Ciampi designed five schools for
Westlake, and eventually gained significant prominence following their completion; he was
awarded two of the five honor awards by the American Institute of Architects in 1959, one of
which was for his Westmoor High School in Westlake.
135
His schools in Westlake, designed in
the Midcentury Modern architectural style, were celebrated and admired for implementing novel
structural systems that integrated clerestory lighting and left large planar wall surfaces
incorporating intricate and detailed artwork in relief.
136

Ciampi later designed the Berkeley Art Museum and the Newman Center for the
University of California in the 1960s. He won another AIA Honor Award for his Junipero Serra
Overpass along Highway 280, and became a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in
1960. Ciampi also worked on several planning projects including a master plan for the
University of Alaska, the Jefferson High School District in San Mateo County, and St. Mary’s
College in Moraga. Most noteworthy was his work as the consultant in charge of San Francisco’s
1963 downtown plan.
137
For this, Ciampi received the National Award AIA for the beautification
of Market Street.
138
Mario Ciampi died on July 6, 2006 in San Rafael, California.
139

133
“American Telephone and Telegraph Company (A, T and T), Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, Office
Building, San Francisco, CA (1923-1925),” Pacific Coast Architecture Database, accessed March 8, 2018,
http://pcad.lib.washington.edu/building/3591/.
134
Biographical Note, Mario J. Ciampi Records, Environmental Design Archives, College of Environmental Design,
University of California, Berkeley.
135
Biographical Note, Mario J. Ciampi Records.
136
“Post-war Schools Portfolio I: Mario Ciampi, FAIA,” ARCCA: Q4, 2004, 36.
137
The American Institute of Architects, “Mario Joseph Ciampi,” The AIA Historical Directory of American
Architects, accessed March 8, 2018, http://public.aia.org/sites/hdoaa/wiki/Wiki%20Pages/ahd1007738.aspx.
138
Biographical Note, Mario J. Ciampi Records.
139
Shelly Meron, “Kentfield Architect Helped Develop S.F. Downtown Plan,” Marin Independent Journal, July 14,
2006.

40
Ciampi’s School Designs
Beginning with the Westlake School in 1950, Doelger constructed Olympia School (now
the Doelger Art Center) in 1955, Westmoor High School in 1957, Vista Mar School (now
Marjorie H. Tobias Elementary) in 1958, and Fernando Rivera Elementary School in 1960.
140

The schools were designed in the Midcentury Modern style with unique design features such as
folded plate roofs and glass curtain walls.
Among his most noteworthy schools in Westlake was Westmoor High School. (Figure
2.8) Designed by Ciampi and constructed by contractors Theodore G. Meyers and Sons at $14.72
per square foot, plans for the extravagant campus were almost cancelled due to extreme budget
cuts of the Jefferson Union High School District in the mid-1950s. However, the “glass palace”
was completed in 1957 and was featured in several trade and architectural magazines. The school
won several awards, including an AIA Honor Award for the work of architect Mario Ciampi in
1959, as well as an honorable mention for architecture and landscape design by the Architectural
League of New York in 1960.
141
It was described in a newspaper shortly after opening for the
1957 school year:

Figure 2.8. Westmoor High School, ca. 1960s. Photo from the Architectural League of New York's 1960 National
Gold Medal Exhibition of the Building Arts.

140
Figard, “History of Westlake.”
141
Architectural League of New York, “1960 National Gold Medal Exhibition of the Building Arts,” 1960, 59.

41
Thousands of panes of sparkling glass; jutting, angular architecture; brilliant splashes of
bright oranges, yellows, blues and green; landscaped patios virtually inside the
classrooms, decorated with ultra-modern mobiles and statues. And the spanking-new
plant is crowned by more than 33 of the largest curved precast solid cement barrel vaults
in the world, according to its designers. Already well-known since it has been features in
trade and architectural magazines, it has been called the “most spectacular” school to
open for classes this year. And Westmoor’s 1152 students, who live on the North
Coastside and the Westlake and Broadmoor areas of Daly City are justly proud of their
new school.

[…]

One of the most spectacular features is the glassed-in hall that runs completely around the
school. Located high on a plateau above the city, the school is buffeted by winds and
hidden by fog much of the winter. The glassed-in halls will protect the students from the
weather, still give an outdoor feeling. The only classroom walls in the plant not of glass
are those between rooms themselves.

[…]

Another spectacular feature of the school is the landscaped patio areas glassed in at one
end of a room in each wing. The west wall of the library is glassed off to look onto the
small court.
142

Other contributors to the high school included Paul W. Reiter, associate architect;
Lawrence Halprin, landscape architect; Isadore Thompson, structural engineer; Buonaccorsi &
Murray, mechanical engineers; Anne Knorr, muralist; and Ernest Mundt, sculptor. According to
architect Mario Ciampi, it was estimated that the full site development cost approximately
$81,000.
143

Doelger’s company continued to construct several commercial properties throughout
Westlake. In 1965, the Lyon’s of Westlake restaurant opened in the eastern end of the Westlake
community. An advertisement for the new property describes the 24-hour service restaurant as
enhancing “the already fabulous community of Westlake” and illustrates the “distinctive
geometric-patterned roof” that is “combined with the use of native stone, glass and wood.”
144

Lyon’s, located at the intersection of Alemany Boulevard (now John Daly Boulevard) and

142
Bill Shands, “Glass Palace for Red School House,” San Mateo Times, October 4, 1957.
143
“Plan Saving at Westmoor School Site,” San Mateo Times, July 24, 1956.
144
Advertisement for Lyon’s of Westlake, San Francisco Chronicle, February 5, 1965.

42
Poncetta Drive, adjacent to the 280 Freeway, acted as a gateway to the new and rapidly growing
Westlake community.
Westlake eventually boasted over 6,000 homes, 3,000 apartments, and several shopping
and community centers in addition to various schools, offices, restaurants, and several other
smaller buildings.
145
The community was considered to be one of Doelger’s greatest
contributions, and helped Daly City emerge as one of the best-known post-war residential
communities.
146
The project was completed by the mid-1960s, at which point Doelger sold off
most of his remaining undeveloped land along the San Mateo County coast.
147

Through the development of Westlake, Daly City was transformed from desolate land to
a bedroom suburb. In 1961, then-current city manager Edward Frank described Daly City as
primarily a residential community, with residents working throughout the County of San Mateo
and San Francisco. Daly City also contained a high proportion of children. By the early 1960s,
the city contained over 8,400 students in public schools for kindergarten through eighth grade,
and 3,600 students were enrolled in public high schools in Daly City.
148

Highlighting the city’s rapid transformation from a rural to a residential community, in a
1961 article, the San Francisco Examiner wrote, “The gambling rooms and bookies joints from
Daly City have been replaced by quiet streets, schools, and comfortable, middle-class tract
homes.”
149
Reflecting the middle-class character, by the mid-1960s, Daly City contained a
number of residents with gross annual incomes under $2,000 and over $20,000. However, a large
proportion of residents earned an income in the $6,000 to $15,000 range.
150

While Daly City had been largely transformed into a residential community as a result of
the development of Westlake, the city continued to grow. By 1970, Daly City contained
approximately 66,900 residents, with estimates reaching 70,000 in 1972 and 75,800 in 1975. In
1973 the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system opened a new stop in Daly City.
The heavy rail BART system provided an additional connection for residents of Daly City to
their workplaces in San Francisco, and was the southern terminus of the system on the Peninsula

145
San Francisco Planning Department, “Landmark Designation Report: Doelger Building,” 35.
146
Henry Doelger Dies in Italy – Bay Area Builder was 82,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 26, 1978.
147
“Doelger Sells Coastside Acreage,” San Francisco Examiner, October 8, 1969.
148
Edward Frank, “Growth of Daly City is Phenomenal,” Redwood City Tribune, August 3, 1961.
149
Walter Blum, “High-living Past of a Tranquil Suburb, Daly City,” San Francisco Examiner, November 19, 1961.
150
Chandler, Gateway to the Peninsula, 133.

43
until 1996.
151
Though continuously expanding, Daly City “remained a community of homes and
shopping centers.”
152
However, other industries also emerged during this period of growth. In the
mid-1960s, the Mary’s Help Hospital opened. The hospital consisted of a ten-story building with
services including medical, surgical, maternity, pediatric, and emergency care. By the 1970s, the
city also contained over 1,500 local businesses in retail centers spread throughout the city,
including within the Westlake neighborhood.
153

As of 2018, Westlake and Daly City still embody the characteristics of a postwar
suburban community. Daly City today contains a labor force of approximately 47,600, with
nearly fifty-one percent of Daly City’s employed labor force working in San Francisco and about
seventeen percent working in either Daly City or neighboring South San Francisco. Similar to
when Westlake was original developed, Daly City’s retail sector dominates the city’s economy,
with three main shopping centers comprised of the Westlake Shopping Center, Serramonte
Center, and a commercial corridor along Mission Street.
154
Westlake, in particular, still largely
reflects its original Doelger-era development. Still extant are Doelger’s original single- and
multi-family residences, commercial properties, churches, schools, and community centers.
Though Daly City, and the greater San Mateo County, has continued to grow in both size and
population, Westlake remains a microcosm of intact midcentury architecture. A survey of a
portion of the Westlake community is discussed in Chapter 4.

151
Bay Area Rapid Transit, “BART Historical Timeline,” accessed June 19, 2018,
https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/PosterTimeline_v2.pdf.
152
Chandler, Gateway to the Peninsula, 133.
153
Ibid.
154
City of Daly City, Department of Economic and Community Development, Daly City 2030: A Plan for the
Future, accessed June 18, 2018,
http://www.dalycity.org/Assets/Departments/Economic+and+Community+Development/planning/pdf/General+Plan
+Admin+Draft.pdf.

44
Chapter 3 - Greenmeadow, Palo Alto

The Greenmeadow Historic District is located at the southern end of the City of Palo
Alto, in the southeast region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Greenmeadow consists of 243
single-family residences, one multipurpose building, one pool services building, and one
swimming pool constructed by prolific midcentury merchant builder Joseph Eichler. Eichler
Homes, Inc. constructed the Greenmeadow development between 1954 and 1955 on
approximately seventy-three acres of undeveloped land. In 2005, the development was
nominated and listed on the National Register of Historic Places as an excellent and intact
example of one of Eichler’s most well-known residential developments, as well as for being
designed by the prolific architecture firm of A. Quincy Jones and Frederick Emmons.
155

The tract remains an outstanding example of the post-war affordable housing for the
middle-class population. Although today’s home prices no longer conform to Eichler’s vision of
affordable quality living for families of modest means, the community still exhibits the numerous
elements that allowed him to prosper as a merchant builder for the middle-class. Additionally,
Greenmeadow illustrates a specific approach to conservation that may be applied to other post-
war tract housing developments, including Westlake.

Greenmeadow History
Joseph Eichler was born in New York City in 1900 to a family of modest means, and was
raised in a traditional household. He later attended New York University, where he received a
business degree and proceeded to begin a career on Wall Street.
156
While he was well-equipped
for a career in finance, he realized during his time as a financial officer for his wife’s (Lillian

155
National Register of Historic Places, Greenmeadow, Palo Alto, California, National Register #04000862; The
National Register is the official Federal list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects significant in
American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture. National Register properties have significance
to the history of their community, state, or the nation. Nominations for listing historic properties come from State
Historic Preservation Officers, from Federal Preservation Officers for properties owned or controlled by the United
States Government, and from Tribal Historic Preservation Officers for properties on Tribal lands. Private individuals
and organizations, local governments, and American Indian tribes often initiate this process and prepare the
necessary documentation. A professional review board in each state considers each property proposed for listing and
makes a recommendation on its eligibility. National Historic Landmarks are a separate, more selective designation,
but upon designation, NHLs are listed in the National Register of Historic Places if not already listed.
156
Paul Adamson and Marty Arbunich, Eichler: Modernism Rebuilds the American Dream (Layton, UT: Gibbs-
Smith, 2001), 44.

45
Eichler) family’s business that this type of work was unfulfilling.
157
Despite this, in 1925, the
two moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and Eichler continued working for the family’s
business. Eichler eventually became the chief financial officer for the company on the West
Coast and worked for twenty years while growing resentful of his career.
158

In 1943, the Eichler family moved to a Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian, the Bazett
Residence, in Hillsborough, California, located to the north of Palo Alto.
159
Living in a residence
designed by Wright had a profound effect on Joseph Eichler. His firsthand experience in a
Usonian cultivated a dream of building homes that would incorporate many of the same design
features that could produce feelings of positive emotions through specific and precise residential
layout and design for the middle-class family. According to Eichler, Wright’s attention to detail
and function were so strong that everyday life could be transformed into a work of art.
160
In the
same way, Eichler wanted to produce this positive, life-altering effect through contemporary
architecture.
When World War II drew to a close, millions of veterans began flooding back to the
United States in need of housing. While tract housing in the San Francisco Bay Area had already
been established through the early merchant developers within San Francisco, the need for
housing after the war would require development on an unprecedented scale. California would
experience population growth at a rate unparalleled by any other state, attracting new residents
due to its robust post-war economy.
161
To accommodate mass housing, many builders
implemented construction techniques that would produce residences of subpar construction
materials in order to make a greater profit.
162

After deciding to end his long career as a financial officer, Eichler began conceptualizing
a business that would mass-produce residences for the newly arriving Californians built with
high-quality materials wrapped in a unique contemporary design language. In 1947, Eichler
established his first business, the Sunnyvale Building Company, which produced prefabricated

157
Adamson and Arbunich, Eichler, 45.
158
Eichler Historic Quest, Eichler Homes Context Study, 2002, 8.
159
Invoking his adoration of organic architecture, the Usonian home was Wright’s attempt at creating affordable
housing specific to the United States and congruent with the home’s natural setting.
160
Adamson and Arbunich, Eichler, 46.
161
National Register of Historic Places, Greenmeadow, Palo Alto, California, National Register #04000862.
162
John McKinley Mimms, “Gregory Ain’s Mar Vista Housing Tract: An Alternative to the Conventional Housing
Tract,” University of Southern California School of Policy, Planning, and Development, 2011, 3; “Post WWII Tract
Homes,” Fullerton Heritage, accessed April 3, 2018,
http://www.fullertonheritage.org/Resources/archstyles/postww2.htm.

46
homes for individuals who already owned parcels of land suited for new dwellings.
163
Following
this, Eichler produced small housing tracts and, in 1949, hired a draftsman to design homes with
an emphasis on the contemporary style in Palo Alto and the neighboring City of Menlo Park.
164

Soon after, Eichler was overseeing all aspects of real estate for his company including land
acquisition, construction, and financing.
In 1953, Eichler broke ground for his Greenmeadow development. By this time, he had
sufficient experience in producing well-designed, mass-produced housing through his earlier
development of hundreds of homes throughout the Bay Area. Though Greenmeadow was still
mass-produced tract housing, it was Eichler’s first foray into upper middle-class housing. In
order to design housing for this clientele, Eichler envisioned and developed homes that were
larger with more rooms and more articulated massing, and boasting a highly sophisticated
blending of natural elements with the machined building materials he used to construct the
residences.
165
Additionally, these homes capitalized on the indoor-outdoor living designs that
Eichler implemented in his earlier developments, and, unique to this development, had a
community building located at the center of the subdivision in order to foster a “total
community.”
166

Most important and unique to the Greenmeadow development was the focus on internal
planning, including the ‘T-shaped’ residence plan. This involved defining the bedroom wing and
living areas as separate, distinct volumes. The kitchen was located at the center of the dwelling.
The living room walls, however, would offer a high degree of transparency, which would allow
the kitchen occupant to see the outside space just as much as all the internal spaces. Front doors
were located between the garage and kitchen, eliminating a common feature of tract homes – a
back door connection. Additionally, these homes implemented a second bath, which allowed the
creation of a master suite within each residence.
167
Through these design ideas, Eichler was able
to further enhance quality living in residential tract development.

163
Eichler Historic Quest, Eichler Homes Context Study, 10.
164
Adamson and Arbunich, Eichler, 46-47.
165
National Register of Historic Places, Greenmeadow, Palo Alto, California, National Register #04000862.
166
Margaret Feuer, “Eichler and His Houses: 1945-1955,” Palo Alto Stanford Heritage, November 1, 2013.
167
Based on a collection of Greenmeadow floor plans, JE 14-19; National Register of Historic Places,
Greenmeadow, Palo Alto, California, National Register #04000862.

47
Greenmeadow Architects
To provide and promote high-quality residences, Eichler enlisted noted architects of the
era to design his buildings. For Greenmeadow, Eichler worked with master architect A. Quincy
Jones and his partner Frederick Emmons in designing the residences for the first two phases of
the Greenmeadow development. Early in his career and prior to working with Eichler, Jones
quickly gained national recognition for his early designs for post-war housing.
168
Notably, Jones
designed residences for the Mutual Homes project in the Santa Monica Mountains in Southern
California. Jones also designed Case Study House 24 and won an American Institute of
Architects First Honor Award in 1950 for his A.C. Hvistendahl prototype, which was also named
the “builder’s house of the year” in an Architectural Forum article.
169

For the Greenmeadow development, Jones was responsible for designing not just each
individual residence, but the entire site and community plan as well. In hiring Jones to design the
development, Eichler was able to market his Greenmeadow development as tract housing of
higher quality, while still expressing efficient and affordable values.
170
For example, his carport
designs for the development were located under an extension of the living room roof, which
illustrated an economical approach to refined architectural expression.
Today, Jones is noted as one of the pioneers of the Midcentury Modern architectural
movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In his career, Jones raised the California tract house to new
levels through the integration of the residences to the natural landscape and larger setting. He
popularized the use of new materials in housing construction, as well as the outdoor-oriented
open plan. Similar to Henry Doelger and his team of architects, Jones worked to bridge the gap
between high-quality custom homes and economically produced merchant built homes.
171
This is
still evident in the Greenmeadow district, where the low massing and subdued architectural
elements of the residential tracts emerge gracefully from the surrounding landscape.

168
The California DOT, Tract Housing in California, 101-102.
169
“Archibald Quincy Jones (Architect),” Pacific Coast Architecture Database, accessed January 31, 2018,
http://pcad.lib.washington.edu/person/303/; The California DOT, Tract Housing in California, 101.
170
Lauren Walser, “A. Quincy Jones: Modern Architecture’s Team Player,” National Trust for Historic
Preservation, July 26, 2013.
171
Eungee Cinn and Hayub Song, “An Architect’s Adaptation to the Mass Production System: A. Quincy Jones’s
Tract Houses,” JAABE 14, no. 3 (2015): 563-568.

48
Residential Models
The Greenmeadow residential tract was marketed through six main residential model
types as described in the Greenmeadow National Register of Historic Places nomination:

Model One: Consists of a garage and bedroom wing visible from the front, flanking the
living/dining area toward the back. The bedroom wing side of house is recessed from
street. This model has an eight-foot dead-level roof in front, covering the garage side of
the elevation, with some overhang to the bedroom-wing side. The garage roof overhang
covers the front entry area. The garage forms one side of the entry, while a corner post
supporting the roof forms the other. The front door is recessed and flush with the
bedroom-wing of the house. A second, ten-foot dead-level roof in back covers the garage,
providing some overlap to the garage. Clerestory windows in the gap between these two
roofs provide diffused light to the kitchen/dining area. The garage on one side and corner
and post on the other flank the front entry, and all beams are oriented front to back.

Model Two: Consists of an eight-foot-high dead-level roof in the front. One ten-foot-high
dead-level roof in back covers the living room area, on the garage side. Again, clerestory
(transom) windows between the eight-foot and ten-foot ceilings bring diffuse light into
the back of the house. The garage on one side and corner and post on the other flank the
front entry, and all beams are oriented front to back.

Model Three: Consists of a roof with an articulated pitched which starts with a shed roof
over the garage. The shed roof is eight-foot-high on one side, ten-foot-high on the other,
and features beams oriented right to left. The higher end of the shed roof points toward
the center of the house. The entry is on the garage side of house. A heater room is next to
and flush with the garage and toward the center of the house. The door to the heater
room, camouflaged with the same siding, is visible from the front. The front entry, at the
center of the front elevation, features one small eye-level vertical window. The bedroom
wing side of the home, opposite the garage, is eight feet high. The sideways facing gap
between the two roof pitches, again, provides space for clerestory windows to bring light
into the house. Beams over the bedroom wing are oriented front to back.

Model Four: Like models One through Three, this one has a garage on one side and
bedroom wing on the other. However, it features a single, folded-pitch roof, flat on either
side and with a slight pitch in the center. The slight pitch tops a central recessed entry
that’s winder than in other models. The entry does not recess as far as it does in Models
One through Three. This central recessed entry features standard eye-level kitchen
windows in the very center topped by trapezoidal windows up to the roofline. A front
door is to one side of the windows, close to the bedroom wing. One the garage side, the
beams are oriented right to left. The garage side roof has no overhang. The center section
roof does overhang, but with fascia flush with the garage side of the house.

Model Five: This is the most common model in Greenmeadow. A single, low center-
pitch roof runs the entire width of the front of the house. It features the garage on one

49
side and a concrete block wall on other. And the entry to the home is on the concrete-
block-wall side. Trapezoidal clerestory glass fills triangular gaps up to the roofline.
Beams may be oriented either right to left or front to back.

Model Six: This model has three main elements: a garage and bedroom wing on opposite
sides that flank the central, recessed entry. The central element, recessed approximately
four feet, features standard eye-level windows topped by trapezoidal windows up to the
roofline. The central entry is similar to model four, except that the front door is farther
away from the kitchen windows than on four, and is on the bedroom wing side. The front
door also features a side strip window on the garage side. A single shed roof covers the
garage and center section. The roof is eight feet high on the garage side, and ten feet high
on the bedroom wing side, with side clerestories facing the bedroom wing. A flat roof
tops the bedroom wing. All beams on this model are oriented front to back.
172

Indoor-Outdoor Living
By using a T-shaped plan, Eichler’s Greenmeadow development capitalized on enhanced
indoor-outdoor living. The garage was located separately from the house, which fostered a court
off the kitchen. The bedroom wings extended beyond the living area volume, which created a
terrace at the rear of the residence. Eichler also implemented the use of sliding-glass doors within
floor-to-ceiling glass walls, which allowed passage to the rear terrace from all the bedrooms.
Finally, Eichler utilized street-side concrete masonry walls at the front yard that were bounded
by the garage and bedroom wing, which alluded to the residential atrium – a later feature
designed by Anshen and Allen that would become a characteristic of Eichler residential
developments.
173

In order to further enhance the indoor-outdoor spatial layout, Eichler also focused on the
use of varied construction materials, such as wood and masonry. His dramatically low-pitched
roofs enabled extensive natural light to flow into the residences through clerestory windows
located beneath the eaves. Finally, the street-side concrete masonry walls helped to enrich the
texture of each residence and, at the same time, blended the distinction between landscape and
building.
174

172
National Register of Historic Places, Greenmeadow, Palo Alto, California, National Register #04000862.
173
Based on a collection of Greenmeadow floor plans, JE 14-19; California State Parks Office of Historic
Preservation, “Greenmeadow,” July 28, 2005, accessed March 28, 2018,
http://ohp.parks.ca.gov/listedresources/Detail/N2292.
174
Ibid., National Register of Historic Places, Greenmeadow, Palo Alto, California, National Register #04000862.

50
Community Design
Eichler, as Doelger had at Westlake, envisioned a “total community plan” and did so by
locating a community and recreation building at the center of the development.
175
(Figure 3.1)
The center complex is located on 2.9 acres of land which Eichler Homes created through
increments of space retained from each residence’s parcel. The complex consists of a
multipurpose building, a pool services building, a swimming pool, open natural space, and off-
street paved parking. Seemingly hiding within its setting, the community center is architecturally
similar to neighboring residences and set back far from the street.
176

Figure 3.1. Advertisement highlighting the community-oriented development. San Francisco Chronicle, October 10,
1954.

175
Eichler Historic Quest, Eichler Homes Context Study, 34; The community center now also houses the Montessori
School of Los Altos at Greenmeadow.
176
Based on a site visit conducted on October 12, 2017.

51
Originally, the community center was conceptualized as a key ingredient of healthy
community life. In order to host public gatherings and events, the multipurpose room contained a
kitchen, offices, toilets, meeting rooms, and space for storage. The building itself was designed
not unlike the residences in Greenmeadow – post-and-beam construction, exposed tongue-and-
groove ceilings, full-height sliding-glass doors, flat roofs, exposed ceilings, steel-framed
windows, and concrete masonry exterior walls.
177

Similarly, the pool facilities are well-equipped to foster healthy community life. The
facilities included showers, lockers, and restrooms, in addition to a storage space and office for
staff and lifeguards. The landscape surrounding the community complex consisted of asphalt-
paved walkways, benches, extensive grass, and mature redwood trees. The original landscaping
of the redwood trees was designed by noted San Francisco Bay Area landscape architect Thomas
Church, who also designed the landscape of Parkmerced in nearby San Francisco as well as
several residential projects throughout California.
178

National Register of Historic Places Designation
Fueled by the constant demolition threat to Eichler’s original residences throughout the
Bay Area, in 2001 a volunteer group named the Eichler Historic Quest committee identified and
evaluated all of the regional Eichler developments constructed between 1950 and 1959. All of
the subdivisions were located in the San Francisco Bay Area, with the exception of one located
in the City of Sacramento, just outside the Bay Area. The committee then established a set of
evaluation criteria based on specific design criteria of the Midcentury Modern architectural style
employed by Eichler and subsequently evaluated the districts against National Register Criterion
C.
179

To complete its determination of potentially historic Eichler districts, the committee
identified specific categories for incorporation into Criterion C: overall building proportions,
roof form, exposed beams, exterior siding/trim, entry area/front door, fenestration, exterior
ornamentation, fencing, and garage door.
180
With this criteria in mind, the committee then

177
“Greenmeadow Community Center and Nursery School, 1954,” Palo Alto Stanford Heritage, accessed March 28,
2018, http://www.pastheritage.org/Greenmeadow2008.html.
178
“Greenmeadow Community Center,” Palo Alto Stanford Heritage.
179
Dave Weinstein, “Historic Question: Eichlers in the National Register,” Eichler Network, accessed January 31,
2018, http://www.eichlernetwork.com/article/historic-quest-eichlers-national-register?page=0,1.
180
National Register of Historic Places, Greenmeadow, Palo Alto, California, National Register #04000862.

52
executed a reconnaissance-level survey, which identified the overall integrity of the various
structures as well as the boundaries of each respective development. The committee was, thus,
able to identify specific developments that warranted further research and surveying, with the
ultimate end goal of a historic district nomination for the National Register.
181

Greenmeadow: Character-Defining Features
Character-defining features are the qualities and elements, such as a building’s overall
shape, its materials, craftsmanship, decorative details, interior spaces and features, as well as its
context and environment, that convey historical significance within a defined period of
significance.
182
While the Eichler Historic Quest committee did not explicitly state a list of
character-defining features, the district was nominated for the National Register under Criterion
C, as the midcentury work of Eichler Homes, Inc. with noted architects A. Quincy Jones and
Frederick Emmons.
183

A list of character-defining features as described by the Eichler Historic Quest committee
and interpreted by the author of this thesis would be as follows:

Post-and-beam construction Vertical-grooved redwood plywood siding
Floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall plate glass Flat or low-pitched rooflines
Two-car garages oriented to the street Exposed beams
Clerestory fenestration Extensive roof overhangs
Simplified front elevations Narrow setbacks on sides
Unadorned exteriors

181
These identified developments were those that were determined to be more intact than others.
182
National Park Service, How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation, 2002, accessed January 31,
2018, https://www.nps.gov/nr/publications/bulletins/nrb15/.
183
The period of significance was determined to be 1954-1955, which was the period of development of the
Greenmeadow residential tract.

53
Greenmeadow: Integrity
For the Greenmeadow subdivision, specifically, committee members walked the streets
of the development to evaluate the integrity of each individual residence.
184
Their evaluation
system centered around a point system; alterations would correspond with points. Typically, an
alteration corresponded with one or two points. However, greater alterations, such as replaced
cladding, would correspond with eight or nine points. Should a house total twelve or more
points, the residence would be classified as a non-contributor; eleven points or less would
constitute a contributing residence.
185
For example, one residence in the district exhibited
replaced exterior cladding (eight points) and contained a non-original metal rollup garage door
(eight points). With a total of 16 points, the residence was classified as a non-contributor.
Alternatively, another residence had a small amount of exterior cladding covered with brick
veneer (four points), a non-original window on the main façade (four points), and a non-original
light fixture located near the front door (two points). With a total of ten points, the residence,
while slightly altered, constituted as a contributing structure to the district. See Figure 3.2 and
Figure 3.3 for a comparison of a contributor and a non-contributor, and Table 3.1 for a summary
of the committee members’ evaluation criteria.

184
In order for a resource to qualify as a historic resource, significance must be established and the property must
also retain “historic integrity of those features necessary to convey its significance.” While a property’s significance
relates to its role within a specific historic context, its integrity refers to “a property’s physical features and how they
relate to its significance.” Since integrity is based on a property’s significance within a specific historic context, an
evaluation of a property’s integrity can only occur after historic significance has been established. To determine if a
property retains the physical characteristics corresponding to its historic context, the National Register has identified
seven aspects of integrity. These criteria are also used in evaluations for the California Register: location is the place
where the historic property was constructed or the place where the historic event occurred; setting is the physical
environment of a historic property; design is the combination of elements that create the form, plan, space, structure,
and style of a property; materials are the physical elements that were combined or deposited during a particular
period of time and in a particular pattern or configuration to form a historic property; workmanship is the physical
evidence of the crafts of a particular culture or people during any given period in history or prehistory; feeling is a
property’s expression of the aesthetic or historic sense of a particular period of time; and association is the direct
link between an important historic event or person and a historic property. See National Park Service, How to Apply
the National Register Criteria for Evaluation.
185
National Register of Historic Places, Greenmeadow, Palo Alto, California, National Register #04000862.

54

Figure 3.2. 343 Shasta Drive. An example of a non-contributor. Alterations include a non-compatible garage door,
added windows, and windows in the garage door. Photo from Google Street View.

Figure 3.3. 3901 Nelson Drive. A contributor with exceptional integrity. Photo from Google Street View.

55
Table 3.1. Summary of the Eichler Quest Committee’s evaluation criteria.

Overall Proportions of Residence
Contributing Features Non-Contributing Features
Single story
Horizontal emphasis
Solid planar surfaces contrasting with large
panes of class
Post-and-beam construction
Simple form/details
Integrating fencing with the front elevation
Second-story additions (unless originally two-
stories in height)
Significant room additions at the front
elevation
False pillars and beams, or other false
decorative additions

Roof Form
Contributing Features Non-Contributing Features
Flat and/or shallow pitch
Extensive overhangs
Exposed beams (squared-off and
unornamented)
Visible air conditioning or heating ducts
Large satellite dishes
Atrium covers that alter the original roofline
Changes of roof pitch
Modified beam shapes

Front Elevation/Trim
Contributing Features Non-Contributing Features
Original siding (exhibits modernist design)
Vertical or horizontal lines within exterior
siding
Exterior lighting that is consistent with
modernist principles
Replaced siding/altered cladding (shingles,
stucco, plaster, brick, aluminum, and vinyl
siding)
Applied exterior trim that does not conform to
modernist style language
Non-modernist exterior lighting

Doors and Windows
Contributing Features Non-Contributing Features
Original garage doors
Original fenestration
Flat, unadorned front doors
Ranch-style or roll-up garage doors
Patterns that are not the original lines that
match the lines in exterior siding
Entry features not integrated with roofline
Front doors with applied decoration
New fenestration that is not consisted with the
original style of the residence

56
Typical alterations to the residences included replaced exterior wall cladding, replaced
original front doors and garage doors, non-original fenestration, and room additions/expansions.
The committee evaluated a total of 246 structures for the designation process. 220 buildings were
classified as contributors, and 25 buildings and one structure were identified as non-
contributors.
186
This resulted in contributors constituting ninety-two percent of the surveyed
buildings in the district, far higher than the sixty percent typically used for a district to retain
integrity.
As a largely intact collection of midcentury homes designed by Jones and Emmons, and
developed by noted builder Joseph Eichler, the Greenmeadow residential development was
selected by the Eichler Historic Quest committee to be submitted for a nomination on the
National Register. The district was formally listed as a historic district on the National Register
of Historic Places on July 28, 2005.
187

Greenmeadow: Preservation
Since 2001, new two-story homes constructed in the City of Palo Alto have been subject
to discretionary review via Palo Alto’s Individual Review program. However, new one-story
residential construction and first-floor additions to non-historic homes have been exempt.
Existing preservation tools in the Palo Alto largely consists of single-family residential zoning
regulations, single-story overlay combining districts, individual review process and guidelines
(for the aforementioned new two-story residences and new second-story additions), and historic
review for locally designated historic districts (for compliance with the Secretary of the
Interior’s Standards).
188

City of Palo Alto: Preservation Tools
In the past decade, there have been concerns in the community of new construction
within Eichler districts that lack compatibility with their historic character. As a result of these
concerns, in 2016, the Palo Alto city council initiated the process of implementing new tools to

186
National Register of Historic Places, Greenmeadow, Palo Alto, California, National Register #04000862; It is
highly likely that the extremely high number of contributors is credited to the community’s Architectural Review
and Covenants Committee (AARCC) discussed later in this chapter.
187
National Register of Historic Places, Greenmeadow, Palo Alto, California, National Register #04000862.
188
Information gathered from attending a Palo Alto Historic Resources Board meeting on October 12, 2017.

57
specifically address Eichler tracts through the Eichler Neighborhood Design Guidelines.
189

Through this, the City of Palo Alto enlisted the preservation firm of Page & Turnbull to develop
guidelines that “include compatibility criteria for remodels, additions, and new construction
within the City’s Eichler neighborhoods” and “address common scopes of work such as new
building additions, façade changes, moving/lifting buildings on lots, and new construction of
developable sites.”
190
Additionally, the project involves the consideration of whether there
should be accompanying changes to the City’s current zoning regulations.
As of the production of this thesis in 2017 and 2018, the Eichler Neighborhood Design
Guidelines are currently in draft form. (Figure 3.4) The guidelines are outlined as follows:
I. Introduction: goals and purpose, how to use the guidelines, and methodology
II. Eichler neighborhoods history and architecture: brief history and current conditions
III. Guidelines for maintaining, repairing, and/or replacing materials
IV. Guidelines for altering or adding to residences
V. Guidelines for designing and building new residences
VI. Guidelines for site improvements: accessory structures, landscape, and paving
VII. Appendices

189
Palo Alto currently contains two Eichler districts listed in the National Register (Green Gables and
Greenmeadow), although neither are listed on the city’s local register.
190
City of Palo Alto, “Long Range Planning: Eichler Design Guidelines,” March 19, 2018, accessed March 28,
2018, https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/depts/pln/long_range_planning/special_projects/eichler_guidelines.asp.

58

Figure 3.4. Page from the Eichler Guidelines drafted by Page & Turnbull for the City of Palo Alto, 2018.

It needs to be emphasized, however, that the Eichler Neighborhood Design Guidelines
are to be utilized solely for the purposes of guiding homeowners when constructing new
additions to Eichlers throughout Palo Alto. They are not a form of regulation, as the guidelines
do not have any preservation ordinance support or association.
191
Consequently, the guidelines
do not protect against incompatible alterations to Eichler residences, even those listed on the
National Register. While helpful in guiding homeowners to implement compatible residential
construction, Eichlers in Palo Alto are still at risk for permanent integrity degradation and both
minor and major irreversible alterations.

Greenmeadow Homeowners Association: Preservation Tools
While Greenmeadow is a historic district that is listed on the National Register, it is not
locally designated, and, thus, not subject to the City of Palo Alto’s preservation ordinance.
192

While the Eichler Neighborhood Design Guidelines will apply to the Greenmeadow District, as

191
Interview with Hannah Simonson, architectural historian with Page & Turnbull.
192
City of Palo Alto Historic Preservation Ordinance, Municipal Code Chapter 16.49.

59
well as several other Eichler neighborhoods throughout Palo Alto, new building additions and
alterations are not currently subject to discretionary review in the planning process. However,
Greenmeadow boasts several large and active committees comprised of homeowners who are
dedicated to preserving their Eichler tract, as well as a committed community of homeowners
that are appreciative of the preservation of their community. The district is, thus, largely
protected through community self-regulation practices rather than through the City of Palo Alto
and its historic preservation ordinances.
193

Additionally, while it is not subject to the Palo Alto Historic Resources Board, the
Greenmeadow community is subject to a regulatory framework called Conditions, Covenants,
and Restrictions (CCR).
194
Created in 1954 for the Greenmeadow development, the CCR is a
legal document on file with Santa Clara County that applies to all homes located within the
Greenmeadow tract (there are also CCRs for other neighborhoods throughout Palo Alto, and
other examples can be found throughout the United States). The CCR for the Greenmeadow
historic district are as follows:

1) No lot shall be used except for residential purposes. No building shall be erected,
altered, placed or permitted to remain on any lot other than one detached single-family
dwelling, not to exceed one story in height and a private garage for not more than two
cars.

2) No building shall be erected, placed, or altered on any lot until the construction plans
and specifications and a plan showing the location of the structure have been approved by
the architectural control committee as to quality of workmanship and materials, harmony
of external design with existing structures, and as to location with respect to topography
and finish grade elevation. No fence or wall shall be erected, placed or altered on any lot
nearer to any street than the minimum building set back line unless similarly approved.
Approval shall be as provided in Paragraph 9.

3) The ground floor area of the main structure, exclusive of one-story open porches and
garages, shall be not less than 1100 square feet for a one-story building.

4) No building shall be erected on any building plot nearer than 20 feet to the front street
line, nor nearer than 5 feet to any side lot line, except that the side line restrictions do not
apply to a detached garage located on the rear one-half (1/2) of the lot.

193
Information gathered from attending a Palo Alto Historic Resources Board meeting on October 12, 2017.
194
Only Professorville, the locally designated historic district in Palo Alto, is regulated by Palo Alto’s preservation
ordinance. The ordinance does not apply to National Register districts in Palo Alto.

60
5) No dwelling house shall be erected upon any lot or plot resulting from rearrangement
or re-subdivision of original lots, as shown upon the recorded Map of this subdivision.

6) No noxious or offensive activity shall be carried on upon any lot, nor shall anything be
done thereon which may be or become an annoyance or nuisance to the neighborhood.

7) No structure of a temporary character, trailer, basement, tent, shack, garage, barn or
other outbuilding shall be used on any lot at any time as a residence either temporarily or
permanently.

8) No fowl or animals, other than household pets of the usual kind and in a reasonable
number, shall be, or be suffered to be, kept or maintained in said tract.

9) The architectural control committee is composed of Joseph L. Eichler, John Harlow
and Valley Title Company of Santa Clara County. A majority of the committee may
designate a representative to act for it. In the event of death or resignation of any member
of the committee the remaining members shall have full authority to designate a
successor. Neither the members of the committee nor its designated representative shall
be entitled to any compensation for services performed pursuant to this covenant. At any
time the then record owners of a majority of the lots shall have the power through a duly
recorded writeen [sic] instrument to change the membership of the committee or to
withdraw from the committee or restore to it any of its powers and duties.

10) The committee’s approval or disapproval as required in these covenants shall be in
writing. In the event the committee, or its designated representative, fails to approve or
disapprove within 30 days after plans and specifications have been submitted to it, or in
any event if not suit to enjoin the constructions has been commenced prior to the
completion thereof, approval will not be required and the related covenants shall be
deemed to have been full [sic] complied with.

11) These covenants are to run with the land and shall be binding on all parties and all
persons claiming under them for a period of twenty-five years from the date these
covenants are recorded, after which time said covenants shall be automatically extended
for successive period [sic] of 10 years unless an instrument signed by a majority of the
then owners of the lots has been recorded agreeing to change said covenants in whole or
in part.

12) Enforcement shall be by proceedings at law or in equity against any person or
persons violating or attempting to violate any covenant either to restrain violation or to
recover damages.

13) Invalidation of any one of these covenants by judgment or court order shall in no
wise affect any of the other provisions which shall remain in full force and effect
195

195
“Declaration of Restrictions, Conditions, Covenants, Charges and Agreements Affecting the Real Property
Known as Greenmeadow,” Santa Clara County Recorder, 1954.

61
While these regulatory measures were enacted shortly after the Greenmeadow project
was constructed, they still apply today. When any new construction or residential remodels are
initiated, the project sponsor must submit their plans to the Greenmeadow Architectural Review
and Covenants Committee (ARCC). The ARCC is a voluntary committee board that has been
given the responsibility of reviewing all project plans prior to the permitting process initiated
through the City of Palo Alto. Other functions of the ARCC include notifying the Historic
Resources Board of ARCC findings following project review, maintaining contact with the Palo
Alto Building Department, staying up-to-date with the city’s zoning and regulations that affect
residential construction and remodeling, acting as a resource for residents in Greenmeadow to
meet the listed CCRs, while assisting the Historic Resources Board as needed to solve any
conflicts between proposed projects/plans and the CCRs, as well as educating the Palo Alto
community on ARCC’s responsibilities and the benefits of implementing and abiding by
CCRs.
196
Thus, while the Greenmeadow historic district is not protected by city ordinances, it is
protected through the active participation of the Greenmeadow community, which has proved to
be more powerful than designation as a historic district.
In attending a Palo Alto Historic Resources Board meeting, I learned the level of
commitment necessary to maintain the character of the Greenmeadow Community. Penny
Ellson, Chair of the Greenmeadow Civic Affairs committee, illustrated that there is absolutely no
regulation of properties within the Greenmeadow National Register historic district via the
Historic Resources Board, besides what is regulated by the single-story overlay zone (not limited
to historic districts, thus not regulated by the Historic Resources Board).
197
However, the ARCC
maintains a strong hold within the community not only by utilizing the CCRs to guide new
construction and remodels to be compatible with the Eichler neighborhood, but also through
strong community support. Ellson stated that the neighbors highly respect one another and,
should an issue arise, the only protection against an incompatible addition or remodel would be
through a community member pursing litigation. As an example, a new building was constructed
near the Eichler-built community center. The new project was largely compatible with the

196
“Architectural Review and Covenants Committee,” Greenmeadow Community Association, accessed March 28,
2018, https://greenmeadow.org/about/#committees.
197
Palo Alto Historic Resources Board meeting, October 12, 2017.

62
neighborhood, and after working with the ARCC and the Palo Alto Historic Resources Board,
the project faced few obstacles and was quickly approved by the City of Palo Alto.

Reflections
The Greenmeadow National Register Historic District serves as a fine example of the
process one may utilize in order to protect and conserve a unique post-war suburban
development through local strategies. First, the point-based evaluation system provides the
fundamental yet simple initial step necessary to evaluate a large residential development’s
potential historical significance. By conducting windshield surveys and, as appropriate,
conducting intensive surveys for historic landmark designation, one can easily identify those
physical resources that retain enough original features, elements, and design motifs to convey
significance. With the point-based system used in conjunction with surveying, one can easily
transform non-contributing features and alterations into easy-to-understand findings. These
findings, determining which properties have the potential to become designated historic
resources, can subsequently be easily explained to the general public and the local city
government.
This process next establishes the potential for achieving greater community support.
Often, communities are overwhelmed and perplexed when historic district nominations arise; it
is not uncommon for a property owner to question why their property was determined to be
historic, or argue against the designation process.
198
By providing the local community a simple
and easy-to-understand evaluation system, there is a potential to garner community support more
easily. Also, by providing information, such as the significance of post-war, mass-produced,
unadorned Modernist residences, the general public may begin to understand and appreciate the
significance of living in such a community. This is especially relevant to Westlake, which
contains a very similar, albeit currently less iconic, development tract.
Besides the evaluation process, the Greenmeadow case study also illustrates inherent
shortcomings associated with National Register protection at the local level, as the
Greenmeadow Historic District does not currently have local protection like the Professorville

198
Aaron M. Dougherty, “The Devil’s Advocate Guide to National Register Listing,” August 26, 2013, accessed
April 2, 2018, https://savingplaces.org/stories/the-devils-advocate-guide-to-national-register-listing/#.WsLhk63My-
o; Gary Roberts, “How Historic Districts Can Hurt Homeowners,” San Diego Union-Tribune, March 14, 2018.

63
Historic District in Palo Alto does. Fortunately, the Greenmeadow Architectural Review and
Covenants Committee (ARCC), as well as direct community input, has helped to provide a
method of preservation in the face of incompatible and irreversible building alterations, as well
as new construction. Through architectural review and analytical dialogue with the City of Palo
Alto, the Greenmeadow community is informally secured against the current risks facing
Westlake in Daly City (irreversible alterations, altered streetscapes, redevelopment and
construction, and demolitions). Though the ARCC is most active in minimizing incompatible
additions and new construction, the ARCC also has the ability to streamline the development
process. As noted in a previous example, when buildings constructed in or adjacent to the
Greenmeadow Historic District conform to the ARCC’s standards, the ARCC has the ability to
provide support for gaining city council approval. Thus, a committee similar to the ARCC can
help protect a historic community while also providing additional benefits as an indirect
byproduct. As highlighted by the Chair of the Greenmeadow Civic Affairs committee during a
Palo Alto Historic Resources Board meeting, this preservation activism has historically been the
key factor in retaining the historic nature of Greenmeadow.
In addition to the ARCC, the City of Palo Alto has begun to seek other processes and
methods for continued protection of historic districts. Currently in draft form, Palo Alto has
worked with an outside preservation consultant to produce historic design guidelines, which will
apply to all Eichler tracts throughout the City. Because these are not formal regulatory measures,
a similar approach in Daly City would work well for Westlake. By identifying key features of the
development, Daly City can similarly develop guidelines tailored to the Westlake community,
ideal as a first step towards preservation in a city without a preservation ordinance.
These preservation processes and techniques are further discussed and described in
greater detail in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 of this thesis.

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Chapter 4 - Westlake Historic Resources Reconnaissance Survey

With the Greenmeadow case study as an example of how to approach preserving post-
war communities, the final two chapters of this thesis focus on implementing preservation
processes and techniques in Westlake.

Westlake Survey
Methodology
In October of 2017, the thesis author conducted a preliminary survey of the Westlake
neighborhood. The reconnaissance (windshield) survey included a concentration of single-family
residences at the north end of Westlake in addition to several multiple-family residential
complexes, and institutional and commercial properties further to the south.
199

The approximately 0.42 square mile survey area was generally defined by Lake Merced
and the City and County of San Francisco to the north, Skyline Boulevard to the west, Southgate
Avenue to the south, and Highway 280 to the east.
200
(Figure 4.1) A total of 839 resources were
surveyed, comprised of 777 single-family residences, fifty-one multiple-family buildings
(typically arranged as garden apartment clusters), eight commercial buildings (including two
complexes, two restaurants, two office buildings, one freestanding commercial building, and one
gas station), two church properties, and one formerly public school.

199
Whereas an intensive survey includes documentation of each individual resource, the provided reconnaissance
survey included driving through the survey area and documenting overall district features and characteristics,
property types, architectural styles, alterations, and patterns of development.
200
The provided boundaries were selected to include the earliest tracts constructed in Westlake, as well as the
centerpiece of the community, the Westlake Shopping Center, and several other commercial and institutional
properties important to the early development of Westlake.

65

Figure 4.1. Map of the surveyed area, outlined in red. Map from Google Earth and amended by author.

Research presented in Chapter 2 was utilized to identify Westlake tracts associated with
the development of Westlake and, to a greater extent, Daly City. The research also provided the
basis to assess historical significance of the study area. In doing so, consideration was given to
the history of the community, the community’s association with master developer Henry
Doelger, and the community’s potential architectural merit and association with master architect
Mario Ciampi.
Westlake appears to be significant under California Register Criterion 1 for its
association with the local social and community development of Daly City and the greater San
Francisco Bay Area.
201
Prior to Westlake’s development in the 1940s, Daly City remained a
quiet, rural community just outside of the bustling City of San Francisco. When fully developed,
Westlake significantly influenced and contributed to Daly City’s initial widespread population
increase, which was sustained throughout subsequent decades. Today, Daly City is the most
populous city in San Mateo County.
Though a few institutional properties were designed by master Modernist architect Mario
Ciampi, the surveyed district contains several hundred properties lacking an association with
Ciampi. Because Ciampi designed few buildings in the surveyed area, and because not all of

201
A later intensive survey could identify select residential tracts to define smaller historic districts and/or individual
properties eligible for individual listing in the California Register (such as the original “Fish and Chips” model
home).

66
these properties are intact, the surveyed area did not appear eligible for listing in the California
Register under Criterion 3 (design).

Westlake Overview
Westlake is characterized by its proliferation of single-family residences, most two
stories in height, though there are several single-story residences. In addition to the single-family
residences, Westlake contains a number of multiple-family residences, as well as commercial
and institutional properties. (Table 4.1) The residential properties tend to branch off from main
transportation thoroughfares, such as John Daly Boulevard, forming small neighborhoods while
the commercial properties tend to be located along the major thoroughfares. The area also
contains open space, such as Westlake Park to the northern end of Westlake, and the Lake
Merced Golf Club located along John Daly Boulevard and Interstate 280.

67
Table 4.1. Streetscape images. Note the heavy concentration of intact Midcentury Modern properties.
Photos by author.

The Westlake community occupies gently sloping terrain, providing a reference to its
historically sandy and hilly terrain prior to its development. Though some residences are located
along a rectilinear street pattern, Westlake’s overall street pattern wavers between rectilinear and
irregular street layouts. Other features include a number of period signs, such as signage reading
“Westlake” at the intersection of John Daly Boulevard and Mayfair Avenue, and a greenbelt that
runs along the south side of John Daly Boulevard.

68
The community is accessible via a thorough transportation network. Major streets include
Skyline Boulevard, running north and south along Westlake’s western border; John Daly
Boulevard, running east and west along Westlake’s northern border; Interstate 280, running
along the eastern border of Westlake and providing a connection from San Francisco at the north
to San Jose at the south; and California State Route 1, branching from Interstate 280 at
Westlake’s southern end. A Bay Area Rapid Transit station in Daly City provides additional
access via public transportation.

Single-Family Residences
The single-family residential lots in Westlake are nearly all rectangular and
approximately 34’ x 100’ in size, although some corner lots are irregular in shape and larger in
size. Most residences are rectangular in plan, one or two stories in height, and measure
approximately 1,500-2,000 square feet in size. They are set back from the street and accessed via
short driveways. Most houses in the study area contain a single-car garage, some of which have
been converted to living spaces. A majority of the residences are designed in the Midcentury
Modern style, though a number of residences feature French Provincial, Streamline Moderne,
American Colonial Revival, Dutch Colonial Revival and other ornamentation and detailing.
(Table 4.2)

69
Table 4.2. Examples of single-family residences in the study area. Photos by author.

70
Multiple-Family Residences
A number of multiple-family residential apartment complexes are located throughout the
study area, though a concentration is located along the eastern boundary. (Table 4.3) A majority
of them are designed as garden apartments with central courtyards of grass and small
trees/shrubbery. The buildings are typically two- to three-stories in height and rectangular in
plan. A majority of the buildings are designed in the Midcentury Modern architectural style,
though some feature ornamentation derived from period revival styles, including Japanese-
inspired applied decoration or Colonial Revival elements. Garages are located at the rear and
accessed via compact residential alleys.

Table 4.3. Examples of multiple-family residences in the study area. Photos by author.

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Commercial Properties
Several commercial properties, comprised of both shopping centers/complexes and
individual buildings, are scattered throughout the study area. (Table 4.4) Examples of
commercial properties include the Westlake Shopping Center, Southgate Center, Boulevard Cafe
(formerly Lyon’s of Westlake), and the Original Joe’s Westlake. The commercial properties are
located along major transportation corridors, including John Daly Boulevard, Lake Merced
Boulevard, and Southgate Avenue. The commercial centerpiece of the community, the Westlake
Shopping Center, has been extensively altered over time. However, other properties remain
intact and reflect their original Midcentury Modern architecture. As an example of post-war
development, all commercial properties are located along major corridors featuring curbside
parking and off-street parking lots.

Table 4.4. Examples of commercial properties in the study area. Photos by author.

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Institutional Properties
The study area also contains a few institutional properties. (Table 4.5) One example is the
Doelger Art Center (originally Olympia School, 1955), located at 200 Northgate Avenue near the
original residential tracts developed for the Westlake community.
202
The school is designed in
the Midcentury Modern architectural style, and appears to be highly intact. Additional
institutional properties, also featuring Midcentury Modern architectural styles, include a
concentration of church buildings (rectories, religious schools, and chapels) along Elmwood
Drive, north of Southgate Avenue and south of South Mayfair Avenue.

Table 4.5. Examples of institutional properties in the study area. Photos by author.

Contributors/Non-Contributors
Derived from the Greenmeadow case study, the author of this thesis has constructed
tables for each property type that provide general overviews of character-defining features
associated with each respective property type. The first column includes contributing character-
defining features. These features may be utilized in the following discussion on how to best
approach creating a preservation ordinance and/or guidelines for Daly City. The second column
lists non-contributing features, consisting of building alterations.
203
Included in the table in a
third column are points associated with alterations. Each individual non-contributing alteration is
assigned a point based on the deterioration level of such an alteration, similar to how
Greenmeadow was analyzed during the National Register process. Following the table are the

202
The Doelger Art Center houses the Westlake School for the Performing Arts today.
203
The provided list of character-defining features and alterations are for illustration purposes only. In reality, the
lists would be further refined based on an intense survey of properties, community input, and current conditions.

73
provided examples, again, with their associated alterations simplified into the point-based
system, including a total count illustrating whether or not each property retains enough integrity
to convey its significance as part of Doelger’s Westlake development. For the Westlake
community, single-family residences with 0-5 points tend to retain excellent integrity while
properties with 6-10 retain a moderate level of integrity. Finally, properties with 11 points or
higher are no longer intact and do not convey their significance associated with the development
of Westlake.
In addition to those properties with extensive alterations, a number of properties in the
survey area were determined to be non-contributors due to construction dates outside of the
district’s period of significance.
772 of the 839 properties retain a high enough level of integrity to be considered
contributors. (Table 4.6) A strong number of single-family residences were identified as non-
contributors due to extensive alterations. Alterations typically consisted of replaced windows and
some portions of exterior cladding. A cluster of eight apartment complexes was undergoing
major exterior alterations during the site visit in October of 2017. Accordingly, these eight
resources were deemed non-contributing. Four commercial properties were listed as non-
contributors. Two were extensively altered (Westlake Bowl building and Westlake Shopping
Center) and two were constructed outside the period of significance. Finally, one institutional
property (a church) was determined to be a non-contributor due to alterations. See Table 4.7 for a
list of characteristics associated with each property type.
Table 4.6. Summary of findings.
Number of Parcels: 839
Single-Family Properties: 777
Multi-Family Properties: 51
Commercial Properties: 8
Institutional Properties: 3
Contributors: 772
Single-Family Properties: 723
Multi-Family Properties: 43
Commercial Properties: 4
Institutional Properties: 2
Non-contributors: 67
Single-Family Properties: 54
Multi-Family Properties: 8
Commercial Properties: 4
Institutional Properties: 1

Approximate Percentage of Potential Contributors: 92%
Period of Significance: 1950-1965
204

204
The period of significance was determined based on the completion of the first building (a single-family
residence) in Westlake in 1950, and the completion of the final building in Westlake (a commercial property) in
1965.

74
Table 4.7. General characteristics of each property type.

Single-Family Residence Neighborhood and Streetscape Features:
• Uniform setback
• One to two stories in height
• Midcentury Modern architectural style (sometimes with ornamentation derived from
period revival styles)
• Short concrete driveways
• Sidewalks
• Front lawns

Multiple-Family Residence Neighborhood and Streetscape Features:
• Two to three stories in height
• Midcentury Modern architectural style (sometimes with ornamentation derived from
period revival styles)
• Central courtyards with grass and other plants
• Sidewalks
• Rear garages accessed via private alleys

Commercial Neighborhood and Streetscape Features:
• Midcentury Modern architectural style
• Set along prominent street/automotive thoroughfare
• Street parking and parking lots

Institutional Neighborhood and Streetscape Features:
• Two to three stories in height
• Midcentury Modern architectural style
• Campus master plan (for schools)
• Set within residential neighborhoods

Based on the windshield survey conducted, 772 properties in the study area retain a
sufficient level of integrity to convey potential historical significance. The following properties
are select examples of the evaluation analysis based on each respective property type.
205
Property
types included are comprised of single-family and multi-family residential properties,
commercial buildings and complexes, and institutional properties. Each evaluation provides two

205
Most buildings in the survey area contain minimal alterations, typically consisting of altered windows or doors.
For illustrative purposes and to clarify the author’s approach to evaluation, the selected properties are those that best
exemplify high and low levels of integrity.

75
examples to illustrate the appearance of a property retaining a high level of integrity and a
property retaining a low level of integrity.
206
For the purposes of this thesis and evaluation, the
properties appeared to be eligible for listing under California Register Criterion 1 (Events).

Single-Family Residence Evaluation

Figure 4.2. Single-family residence at 20 Westmont
Drive. Photo by author.

Figure 4.3. Single-family residence at 76 Fairmont
Drive. Photo by author.
The property located at 20 Westmont Drive (Figure 4.2) remains one of the few
completely intact properties in the Westlake community. The residence retains its original
overall massing and inward-tilted rooflines. The fenestration, consisting of aluminum sash
windows, remains intact. The cladding appears to be original as does the garage door.
Accordingly, the residence appears to be intact enough to convey its significance associated with
the prolific developer Henry Doelger.
Conversely, the property located at 76 Fairmont Drive (Figure 4.3) retains few original
materials. The overall midcentury design and massing has been significantly compromised by
the large incompatible second story addition. Additionally, the property has lost much of its
original cladding, the original windows have been replaced, the original main entry door has
been replaced, as has the garage door. Compared to the properties on either side, the residence at
76 Fairmont Drive is discernible by its extensive alterations. Accordingly, this property would
not retain enough integrity to convey its significance as a property developed by Henry Doelger,
and illustrates the dangers of what can happen in a community without a preservation ordinance
in effect.

206
Since so few institutional properties were located in the study area, only one intact institutional property was
included in the evaluation for illustrative purposes.

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Table 4.8. Single-family residence evaluation criteria.
Contributing Non-Contributing Points
One and two story residence
Original cladding, usually
wood clapboard and/or stucco
Minimal applied decoration
Original planters attached to
the main façade
Original wood panel garage
door
Original roof material, usually
composition shingle
Large room additions visible from the main façade
Extensively replaced fenestration
Replaced wall cladding
Conversion of garage to room
Non-original entry, walkways, and/or balustrades
Replaced garage door
Removal of original landscaping

12
7
4
3
2
1
0.5

20 Westmont Drive – The single-family residence at 20 Westmont Drive remains intact.
It appears the only aspect of the property that has been altered is its original landscaping. Since
landscaping is typically not a contributing feature to a building, the single-family residence is
assigned only 0.5 points in the point-based alterations system.
207
Accordingly, the property
retains an exceptional level of integrity and is able to convey its significance as a post-war
single-family residence constructed by prolific developer Henry Doelger in Westlake.
76 Fairmont Drive – The single-family residence at 76 Fairmont Drive retains little
integrity. Specifically, a large second story addition has been constructed (12 points), all
windows have been replaced (7 points), some wall cladding has been altered/replaced (4 points),
the original door has been replaced (2), the original garage door has been removed (1), and the
residence has lost its original landscaping (0.5 points). In total, the property’s alterations add up
to 26.5 points, significantly surpassing the threshold of 5 points to retain excellent integrity and
10 points to retain moderate integrity. Accordingly, the property retains a low level of integrity

207
Had each individual property been landscaped by a prominent landscape architect, the point would have been
significantly higher. While the shrubs and small palm trees planted by Doelger played a role in its original
development, mainly for marketing purposes, the landscaping is not a significant feature of each building.
Additionally, though the Westlake Homeowner Improvement Association focused significant attention on the
continued preservation of original palm trees on each property, the trees had a lifespan of about 25 years and have,
thus, largely been removed from the community. As such, the removal of original landscaping minimally affects the
integrity of each respective property.

77
and no longer conveys its significance as a post-war residence constructed by prolific developer
Henry Doelger in the Westlake community.

Multiple-Family Residence Evaluation

Figure 4.4. Multi-family apartment building at the
intersection of Poncetta Drive and South Mayfair
Avenue. Photo by author.

Figure 4.5. Multi-family apartment building at the
intersection of Bel Mar Avenue and Park Plaza Drive.
Photo by author.

The apartment building at the intersection of Poncetta Drive and South Mayfair Avenue
retains most of its original materials. (Figure 4.4) The property conveys its association with the
midcentury development of Westlake through its overall massing and proportions. Additionally,
the original flat roof and horizontal emphasis convey its period of significance, the time in which
the community was construction (1950s). Although some original windows have been replaced,
the property’s exterior cladding and doors appear to be intact. Finally, the apartment building’s
central courtyard on the east façade remains intact, though grass has been replaced with synthetic
turf. Accordingly, the multiple-family residence is able to convey its significance as an
apartment house developed by Henry Doelger during the 1950s.
Contrasting with the above apartment house, the property at the intersection of Bel Mar
Avenue and Park Plaza Drive has undergone significant alterations, and is one of a handful of
Doelger apartment buildings that no longer convey its respective significance. (Figure 4.5) The
entire building has been stripped of its original cladding, all original windows have been
replaced with vinyl windows, all doors have been replaced, and the railings have all been
replaced. In fact, the property has been so adversely altered that the only semblance of its
original design is the overall mass and form, including its flat roof.

78
Consequently, the alterations have significantly minimized the feeling associated with the
grouping of apartment buildings along Park Plaza Drive. The properties no longer retain their
original unifying midcentury designs are, instead, differ based on later alterations to each
respective apartment house. The combination of alterations illustrates the consequences of the
lack of a preservation ordinance – a potentially disjointed community of buildings that no longer
illustrate the historic significance of Westlake in Daly City as a mass-produced, high quality
post-war suburban community in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Table 4.9. Multiple-family residence evaluation criteria.
Contributing Non-Contributing Points
Unaltered overall massing
Horizontal emphasis
Orientation towards a central
courtyard
Flat roof and parapet
Original windows and window
openings
Original entries
Intact exterior walkways
Unaltered exterior cladding
Projecting canopies
Exterior additions on the main façade
Upper story room additions
Altered rooflines
Replaced exterior cladding
Altered windows
Removal of select features such as canopies, metal
porch/balcony posts, and window surrounds
Altered/removed courtyards
Replaced doors

10
8
7
7
5
5

4
2

Poncetta Drive and South Mayfair Avenue – The apartment building at the intersection of
Poncetta Drive and South Mayfair Avenue retains a high level of integrity. It appears that the
only alterations to the building and its site are some altered windows. Assigning the point-based
evaluation system, the apartment building scores a total of 5 points. Accordingly, the property
retains a high level of integrity and is able to convey its significance as a post-war multiple-
family residence constructed by prolific developer Henry Doelger in Westlake.
Bel Mar Avenue and Park Plaza Drive – The apartment building at the intersection of Bel
Mar Avenue and Park Plaza Drive is currently undergoing significant alterations. The replaced
exterior cladding (7 points), altered windows (5 points), altered porch enclosures (5 points) and

79
replaced doors (2 points) total 19 points, far surpassing the low/no integrity threshold.
Consequently, the property would not qualify for designation as a historic resource or as a
contributor to a historic district.

Commercial Property Evaluation

Figure 4.6. Commercial property at 46 Park Plaza
Drive. Photo by author.

Figure 4.7 Former bowling alley at 99 Southgate
Avenue. Photo by author.

The mixed-use building at 46 Park Plaza Drive remains an excellent example of an intact
commercial building in Westlake. (Figure 4.6) Original features include the horizontal bands of
fixed and operable aluminum sash windows spanning the perimeter of the building, original
canted storefronts with aluminum sash display windows on the ground level, deep cantilevered
canopies spanning the first and second floors, stucco exterior cladding and stacked Roman brick,
integrated planters, and several original doors. Because the property is located at the Westlake
Shopping Center, which as a whole has been extensively altered in recent years, this property
remains in extreme danger of incompatible alterations and/or redevelopment. Today, the
property conveys its significance as a three-story mixed-use retail and office building constructed
in the 1950s by prolific developer Henry Doelger.
Unfortunately, as of 2018, most of Doelger’s Westlake Shopping Center has been
irreparably altered, including the property at 99 Southgate Avenue. (Figure 4.7) Originally a
bowling alley, the property has undergone several eras of renovations, most recently in 2013.
While the building retains some of its original massing, the original cladding, windows, doors,
and signage have been replaced. Besides archival research, little information on the property’s
history and association with the Westlake community could be gathered from the property itself.

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As such, it no longer is able to convey its significance as a commercial property constructed as a
component of Doelger’s greater Westlake community.

Table 4.10. Commercial property evaluation criteria.
Contributing Non-Contributing Points
Canted storefronts
Plate glass windows
Wood glazed doors
Original exterior cladding
Integrated planters
Auto-centric plan
Large and prominent additions
Replaced exterior cladding
Altered storefronts
Replaced fenestration
Replaced doors
Altered commercial signage
10
5
4
4
2
1

46 Park Plaza Drive – The property at 46 Park Plaza Drive retains a high degree of
integrity. It appears the only alterations to the property are minor sections of replaced cladding (5
points). The storefronts are intact, and the fenestration has not been changed. Compared to the
adjacent Westlake Shopping Center, which has been highly altered since its construction in the
1950s, the commercial property at 46 Park Plaza Drive easily conveys its significance as a post-
war commercial development that was part of the greater Westlake community.
99 Southgate Avenue – Alternately, the commercial property at 99 Southgate Avenue,
formerly a bowling alley designed in the Midcentury Modern architectural style, has undergone
significant changes and alterations. Alterations include single-story room additions (10 points),
replaced exterior cladding (5 points), an altered storefront/entrance (4), replaced fenestration (4),
replaced doors (2), and altered signage (1 point). In sum, the building at 99 Southgate Avenue
totals 26 points, and, based on the point system for alterations, no longer reflects its original
development and significance.

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Institutional (School) Property Evaluation

Figure 4.8. Doelger Art Center. Photo by author.

Figure 4.9. Doelger Art Center. Photo by author.

Originally the Olympia School (constructed in 1955), the Doelger Art Center, located at
200 Northgate Avenue, retains a high level of integrity.
208
(Figure 4.8 and Figure 4.9) The
building retains original features including its overall low massing and flat roof with
overhanging eaves, concrete block construction material, aluminum sash windows, and metal
doors surmounted by aluminum sash transoms. However, it appears that some of the windows
have been painted over in recent years. Overall, the building remains an excellent example of a
public school constructed by Henry Doelger.

Table 4.11. Institutional (school) evaluation criteria.
Contributing Non-Contributing Points
Intact campus plan
Unaltered roofline and parapet
Original exterior cladding
Original metal doors
Original aluminum sash
windows
Reorganized/redeveloped campus plan
Extensive new construction not conforming to the
original campus design
Altered roof forms
Altered cladding
Replaced windows
10
7

5
5
2

Doelger Art Center – The property located at 200 Northgate Avenue retains a high level
of integrity. Besides the addition of paint over several panes of windows along the main façade,
the property retains most of its original features. No major additions, typical of school campuses,

208
The building houses the Westlake School for the Performing Arts today.

82
appear to have been constructed. All original windows appear intact, as do the building’s original
doors. While the addition of paint over the windows does negatively affect the integrity of the
building, it is easily reversible. Since the property contains no major alterations (0 points), the
property is able to convey its historical significance as a public school constructed during the
development of Henry Doelger’s community of Westlake during the 1950s.

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Chapter 5 - Preservation Recommendations

Daly City currently does not have a historic preservation ordinance. However, there are a
number of resources available within the city’s community that can provide the foundation for
preservation in Daly City. This chapter begins by describing the current political and planning
context of Daly City. Following this, several preservation approaches are described that may
assist Daly City in the creation of preservation programs applicable to Westlake and the greater
City of Daly City.

Daly City Planning and Preservation
A comparably young city in the San Francisco Peninsula, Daly City currently does not
contain a preservation ordinance in its municipal code. Consequently, there are currently no local
protections for potential historic resources throughout the entire city. The only potential
protection available is through the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires
properties over fifty years of age in the State of California to be evaluated for potential
significance against the California Register of Historical Resources criteria when planned for
demolition or major alterations.
209

Consequently, Daly City contains no local register of historic resources. Additionally,
there are no sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places. However, the California
Historical Resources Information System’s Northwest Information Center lists two properties
with potential historic value at the local level. This includes Cow Palace (2500 Geneva Avenue)
and Crocker Masonic Lodge (17 Hillcrest Drive). The draft environmental impact report for the
City of Daly City General Plan Update illustrates additional resources that may be determined
eligible for listing as historic resources:
Other properties throughout the city might be determined eligible for listing as historic
resources upon further review and analysis. For example, the City of Daly City contains
numerous buildings and structures that are at least 45 years old (constructed before 1967),
and as such, may qualify as historic resources if other criteria apply and if they retain

209
California State Parks Office of Historic Preservation, “CEQA and the California Register: Understanding the 50-
year Threshold,” CEQA Case Studies, September 2015, accessed August 18, 2018,
http://ohp.parks.ca.gov/pages/1071/files/VI%20Understanding%20the%2050-year%20Threshold.pdf.

84
sufficient physical integrity to convey their historic associations. […] These buildings
have not yet been comprehensively surveyed either individually or as a group.
210

Thus, according to this description, several of the illustrated properties in Chapter 4 have
the potential to qualify as potential historic resources and/or districts.
Under Chapter 17.45 of the City of Daly City’s municipal code, the city council has
established a design review committee for the city. Appointed by the mayor, the committee
reviews building and/or site plans for major new construction, reconstruction, alterations, and
remodels that is in the “best interest of the public health, safety and general welfare of the
community.” However, this review is limited to residential developments of four or more
dwelling units, new commercial properties over 2,000 square feet in area or new commercial
properties located on sites greater than 2,500 feet in area, and new industrial developments
visible from off-site locations. Additionally, new residential construction, besides that which is
listed above, are exempt from design review when the following is satisfied:
1. Three-story homes shall provide structural articulation at the front elevation. This may
be accomplished by a minimum ten-foot recess to the third floor or by recessing one-third
of front elevation vertically.

2. Structural additions onto any existing home, other than pre-fabricated sunrooms, shall
match the design style of the home, including siding material, roof pitch and material,
paint color, trim, and window design.

3. The side yard setback for any proposed addition shall match the existing setback of the
wall adjacent to the addition.

4. Each floor of any new home shall, on all four elevations, receive horizontal trim as a
visual separation between floors, a variety of exterior materials, and color variation, so as
to reduce the bulk and mass appearance of the home. New homes providing a parapet
wall at the front elevation shall provide the wall in a design quality complementary to
those of existing homes, if such walls exist.

5. All new pedestrian entrances and garage doors shall be inset at least twenty-four inches
unless matching an existing garage door at the front of the home.

6. Any proposed exterior elevation shall incorporate two-inch nominal dimension trim at
all window, door, and other openings. All homes with siding shall incorporate corner
trim.

210
Dyett & Bhatia, City of Daly City General Plan Update, Draft Environmental Impact Report Volume I, October
2012, 3.4.

85
7. All new windows at the front elevation shall provide window grilles, unless
determined by the planning division to be in contradiction to the proposed architectural
style of the home.

8. Garage doors shall be controlled by automatic garage door opener. The garage door
shall complement the door style found in the adjacent neighborhood, including the
provision of window grilles, unless determined by the planning division to be in
contradiction to the proposed architectural style of the home.

9. The entire driveway of any new home shall receive pavers with a decorative band.

10. Plywood and vinyl siding shall not be permitted unless proposed on a dwelling which
incorporates these materials.
211

Thus, design review for Daly City is extremely limited with respect to potentially historic
properties in the Westlake community.
Under Chapter 2.18 of the Daly City municipal code, Daly City has established a five-
member planning commission comprised of local residents. Appointed by the Daly City city
council, each planning commission member serves a term of three years, with one member
chosen by the commission to serve as chairman of the planning commission for a term of one
year. The functions of the planning commission are as follows:
A. To prepare and recommend for adoption by the council, a comprehensive, long-term
general plan and any amendments thereto or revisions thereof, for the physical
development of the city and of any land outside its boundaries which, in the commission's
judgment, bears relation to the physical development of the city; and to include in the
general plan such of the elements described in the planning law of the state, or any other
elements, as may be required in the commission's judgment;

B. To prepare and recommend for adoption by the council specific plans based on the
general plan as may be required, in the commission's judgment, for the systematic
implementation of the general plan;

C. To hold hearings and recommend for adoption by the city council any and all matters
as to zoning and subdivision matters as may be authorized by this code, by any ordinance
adopted by the city, and by such applicable state laws;

D. To perform such duties as may be authorized by such laws as are not in conflict with
the provisions of this code;

211
Chapter 17.45 – Design Review, City of Daly City Code of Ordinances, updated March 28, 2018, accessed June
16, 2018, https://library.municode.com/ca/daly_city/codes/code_of_ordinances.

86
E. To perform such other duties as the council may require pertaining to planning.
212

Not limited to Daly City, a number of additional preservation community groups,
museums, and non-profit associations exist to work towards the preservation of the greater San
Francisco Peninsula. The History Guild of Daly City/Colma and the Daly City History Museum,
located at 6351 Mission Street in Daly City, was formed in 1983 to share the history of Daly City
through preserved documents and artifacts. The History Guild has published a newsletter, the
Tattler, for over twenty years, and presents public history events five times every year. The
organization is currently run by Mark Weinberger, president; Dana Smith, vice president and
museum director; and Richard Rocchetta, vice president.
213

The San Mateo County Historical Association, located in the old San Mateo County
Courthouse building in Redwood City (now the San Mateo County History Museum), was
founded in the 1930s by Roscoe Wyatt, manager of the San Mateo County Chamber of
Commerce, and Dr. Frank Stanger, a history instructor at San Mateo Junior College. The San
Mateo County Historical Association raises awareness of the history of San Mateo County
through several resources. The association provides a number of educational programs, catering
to local schools, as well as family and adult programs. It also carries out a number of
presentations and workshops at the History Museum, and contains a modest museum comprised
of artifacts from throughout the development of the San Mateo County. Additionally, the
association contains an extensive archive with a number of local collections, books, photographs,
and publications, including Dr. Frank Stanger’s La Peninsula newsletters, which have been
published twice a year since the 1940s.
214

Regulatory Approach to Preservation
Local Laws and Preservation Ordinances
According to the National Park Service, there are three potential issues that may arise in
communities lacking a preservation ordinance: inappropriate alterations to buildings and sites,

212
Chapter 2.18 – Planning Commission, City of Daly City Code of Ordinances, updated March 28, 2018, accessed
June 16, 2018,
https://library.municode.com/ca/daly_city/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=TIT2ADPE_CH2.18PLCO.
213
“About,” History Guild of Daly City/Colma & Daly City History Museum, accessed June 16, 2018,
http://www.dalycityhistorymuseum.org/pages/about.html.
214
“About Us,” San Mateo County Historical Association, accessed June 16, 2018,
http://www.historysmc.org/about-us.

87
inappropriate alterations to the streetscape, and construction of out-of-character houses and
businesses.
215
For Daly City, this is especially true. Residences in Westlake, as illustrated in
Chapter 4, are beginning to undergo irreversible alterations and remodeling. Incompatible second
story additions are compromising the integrity not just of each respective property, but of the
community as a whole. Even those that appear to be modest alterations, such as replaced
windows, will potentially lead to a detrimental impact on a neighborhood formerly united by its
shared time and feeling. Today, Westlake is in the early stages of losing its unique large-scale,
midcentury, post-war character.
Similarly, Westlake’s streetscape has continuously been transformed. Many of the
residences in Westlake no longer contain their original small-scale trees and plantings. Many
have had their lawns removed and paved with concrete. The boulevards running through the
community have been widened and center medians altered. Though Westlake still contains some
original signage dating from the 1950s, other signage is no longer extant. Finally, new
construction has significantly compromised large segments of the community. Most evident is
the Westlake Shopping Center, which has undergone several expansions in addition to major
exterior alterations and demolition. The shopping center no longer reflects its original
midcentury character and, instead, conveys a more contemporary aesthetic common in shopping
centers throughout California.
216

In order to stop continued physical degradation of the community, the citizens of
Westlake and other local preservation supporters, such as the History Guild of Daly City/Colma,
should communicate with local elected officials to discuss the features that make Westlake
unique. This may include the low-scale, uniform setbacks, and midcentury details that
encompass the single-family residences.
217
Doing so will highlight key aspects of Westlake that
come together to create a community unlike any other in California.
A preservation ordinance for Daly City should encompass several aspects: a public
purpose, the creation of a local preservation commission, the creation of a process for historic
district and landmark designations, the creation of criteria for commission design review,

215
National Park Service, “Local Laws as Neighborhood Guardians: Need a Neighborhood Guardian?” accessed
February 28, 2018, https://www.nps.gov/tps/education/workingonthepast/guardian.htm.
216
Analyzed during a site visit on October 15, 2017.
217
The above point-based evaluations include brief lists of potential character-defining features that make Westlake
unique.

88
establishing a process for enforcing design review, and establishing an appeal process for owners
that are denied a certification of appropriateness for their projects.
218
Ultimately, the ordinance
would provide a municipal policy to protect historic properties, establish an objective process for
designating historic properties, protect the integrity of such a historic district and properties
following design review, authorize historic design guidelines, and stabilize communities
currently undergoing significant alterations. Thus, community members and preservationists
should encourage the city to initiate the process of creating a preservation ordinance.
The next step would be to suggest to the Daly City government a possibility for
establishing a new floor-area ordinance regulation to help prevent new large additions or the
construction of out-of-scale residential properties.
219
Though a new floor-area ratio application
for single-family residences in Daly City is included as a task under the Daly City General Plan,
Daly City does not contain a floor-area ratio ordinance to decrease the potential bulk of new
single-family residences constructed in existing communities.
220
This means that the city, and
Westlake, specifically, is under constant threat of redevelopment with out-of-scale residences.
Colloquially referred to as “McMansions,” these overbearing properties tend to replace modest
residences with oversized dwellings that appear too large for its lot. There are examples of this in
several other post-war communities throughout California. For example, in Arcadia, California,
the city has adopted a new floor-area ordinance to regulate “mansionization” and keep pre- and
post-war neighborhoods from further deteriorating.
221
For properties with lots less than 7,500
square feet in size (Westlake’s typical lot size is under 7,500 square feet), residences in Arcadia
cannot cover a floor area of more than 45% of the lot area.
222
This ratio regulation helps mitigate
the potential for new out-of-scale development, as well as out-of-scale additions. Using case
studies, such as the City of Arcadia, Daly City should be proactive in the fight against
mansionization, and refine zoning practices to do so before the community faces widespread
degradation.

218
National Park Service, “Local Laws as Neighborhood Guardians: Contents of the Ordinance Package,” accessed
February 28, 2018, https://www.nps.gov/tps/education/workingonthepast/package_contents.htm.
219
The floor-area ratio is calculated by dividing the residential floor area of any building on the lot by the lot size.
220
City of Daly City, Daly City 2030.
221
Leslie Berestein Rojas, “Arcadia Adopts New Rules to Regulate ‘Mansionization,’” KPCC, accessed March 5,
2018, https://www.scpr.org/news/2016/04/20/59804/arcadia-adopts-new-rules-to-regulate-mansionizatio/.
222
MIG, “Article IX, Chapter 1, Development Code,” prepared for the City of Arcadia, accessed June 18, 2018,
https://www.arcadiaca.gov/home/showdocument?id=8777.

89
According to historic districts expert Pratt Cassity, the “preservation ordinance is nothing
more than local legislation enacted to protect buildings and neighborhoods from destruction or
insensitive rehabilitation…”
223
Counterintuitively, a local preservation law is far more powerful
than a federal preservation law. While federal law typically aids individual preservation work
projects, a local preservation ordinance is what controls incompatible exterior remodeling,
additions, and demolition within an entire historic district. Accordingly, residents of Daly City
should speak with local officials to create such a preservation ordinance to protect the historic
character of their residences, commercial properties, and civic institutions for the long-term
benefit.

Design Guidelines
Design guidelines provide a number of helpful tools: a basis for making objective
decisions, incentives for reinvestment in properties, design review consistency, and property
value enhancement.
224
The design review process typical includes a process wherein owners of
locally designated resources and districts must get approval from a locally appointed
preservation for large exterior alterations and additions. Following commission approval, an
owner will receive a certificate of appropriateness to continue with the project. In order to be
approved, the project application must meet the design review criteria set in the city’s
preservation ordinance.
However, contrasting with the preservation ordinance, design guidelines are typically just
helpful recommendations. The guidelines can help explain and interpret general design criteria
established in the city’s preservation ordinance, they can reinforce the historic nature of a
community, and they can protect public and private investment that may otherwise be threatened
by incompatible development and poorly managed growth. They can also indicate the types of
design approaches a community may encourage or discourage, serve as a tool for architects and
designers, and increase public awareness of design problems and solutions.
225
Alternatively,
design guidelines do not limit growth as they only address the visual impact of specific projects

223
Pratt Cassity, “Maintaining Community Character: How to Establish a Local Historic District,” National Trust
for Historic Preservation, September 2001.
224
Nore V. Winter, “The Benefits of Design Review,” Winter & Company, 2008.
225
Nore V. Winter, “Strategies for Design Guidelines,” Winter & Company, 2008, 4.

90
on the character of a historic district.
226
Additionally, they often do not control how a building is
to be utilized, guarantee all new construction is compatible with a district, or guarantee high
quality construction, as materials are typically not specified in the design guidelines.
227

While Daly City does have design review, it is extremely limited in scope. To address
this, a group of individuals should be gathered to form a design guideline writing team specific
to Westlake. Those well-versed in Daly City’s and San Mateo County’s history would be well-
suited for such a team. This may include historic preservationists and historians, urban planners,
architects, and residents of Westlake and/or Daly City. Or, the community may elect to hire a
preservation consulting firm, as Palo Alto did for Eichler Homes.
228
The first step in constructing
design guidelines for Westlake would involve identifying the district’s character and
understanding the history of the district. This would involve an analysis of its physical
characteristics including the architecture, landscape, and overall site development. Key aspects
of Westlake that should be acknowledged include uniform setbacks, low-scale massing,
midcentury and related architecture, and overall site development, some of which have been
preliminarily identified in Chapter 4. (Figure 5.1) Second, preservation goals and needs should
be outlined. This typically encompasses identifying approaches that would be best suited to the
district, such as rehabilitation. The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of
Historic Properties should be implemented in such approaches.
229

226
While design guidelines may not generally limit growth, they do have the potential to affect significant and large
room additions, which may impact growth on a much smaller scale.
227
National Park Service, “Creating + Using Design Guidelines: What They Can and Cannot Do,” accessed March
3, 2018, https://www.nps.gov/tps/education/workingonthepast/canandcannot.htm.
228
Page & Turnbull, Palo Alto Eichler Neighborhood Design Guidelines, (City of Palo Alto: Palo Alto, CA), 2018.
229
National Park Service, “Creating + Using Design Guidelines: Steps in Writing Guidelines,” accessed February
28, 2018, https://www.nps.gov/tps/education/workingonthepast/writingsteps.htm.

91

Figure 5.1. Example of possible design guidelines for Westlake based on the existing building forms in the
community. New development should be compatible in scale of the front (main) façade with its context and
surrounding buildings. Photo by author.

Third, the team should review similar district guidelines. The Greenmeadow development
in Palo Alto is an excellent case study for the Westlake community, as the two are extremely
similar in nature, both comprised of a midcentury residential community. Finally, the team
should begin the writing process for specific guidelines tailored to the Westlake district. These
should implement the identified characteristics of Westlake, a history of the development, and
photos and similar illustrations to reinforce key ideas behind the creation of design guidelines.
The focus on Doelger’s commitment to high quality redwood construction material, the
relatively simple façades of his buildings, and the post-war suburban housing setting should be
identified. Information pertaining to compatible new construction and additions should be
addressed, as should the treatment of streetscape and landscape features, such as original tract
and commercial signage.

Incentives
There are several incentives that can be implemented in order to encourage preservation.
Most of these relate to preservation costs. The first includes a series of tax credits. According to
the National Park Service, a qualifying structure for a tax credit is “a certified historic structure
[…] that is listed individually in the National Register of Historic Places – OR – a building that

92
is located in a registered historic district and certified by the National Park Service as
contributing to the historic significance of that district.”
230
An example of tax credits relevant to
Westlake properties include the 20% tax credit, available for the rehabilitation of historic,
income-producing buildings. Additional tax incentives can be provided through tax deductions
(such as through the money spent on historic preservation) and tax abatement provided by the
federal, state, or local government.
231

The popular Mills Act program could also be a significant financial incentive for
residents and business owners of Daly City. A statewide program enacted in 1972, the Mills Act
is administered by the local government to provide economic incentives for the restoration and
continued preservation of qualified historic buildings by private owners. Through the program,
owners of historic buildings (those listed on any local, county, state, or federal register) may
qualify for property tax savings of between forty percent and sixty percent each year. To take
advantage of the savings, the property owner must agree to restore, conserve, and maintain their
property in accordance with a signed contract with the local government. The contract, known as
a Mills Act or Historical Property Contract, is executed for a minimum of ten years and is
automatically renewed each year and transferred to new property owners when sold.
232
Should
Daly City create a local register of historic resources and enact a Mills Act program, properties
and/or districts associated with the development of Westlake have the potential to qualify for the
Mills Act program, leading to huge financial incentives for property owners of such properties.
Not only benefitting residents, the program could also provide additional security towards the
conservation of the intact community of Westlake.
Additionally, local governments, such as Daly City, can provide developers incentives
such as permit streamlining and waivers (to bypass a regulation or piece of the city’s building
code), exceptions to specific regulations, or density bonuses. For example, Daly City may
consider streamlining the process of converting a designated historic property into a multiple-

230
National Park Service, “Tax Incentives for Preserving Historic Properties,” accessed April 26, 2018,
https://www.nps.gov/tps/tax-incentives.htm; Though the properties in Westlake may not be eligible for individual
listing in the National Register, the high collection of intact properties could comprise a locally designated historic
district, thereby allowing property owners to take advantage of these tax credits.
231
Phil Rabinowitz, “Encouraging Historic Preservation,” in Changing the Physical and Social Environment,
Community Tool Box, accessed April 26, 2018, https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/implement/physical-social-
environment/historic-preservation/main.
232
California State Parks Office of Historic Preservation, “Mills Act Program,” accessed June 17, 2018,
http://www.ohp.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=21412.

93
unit residence in areas zoned for single-family housing.
233
However, the State of California’s
new Accessory Dwelling Unit laws (SB 229 and AB 494) may preempt this potential incentive,
as it opens areas to allow an additional residential unit to be constructed (such as in single-family
zoned districts), reduces parking requirements, and modifies fees from utilities.
234
As such,
incentives related to streamlining specific processes may need to be revised and amended in the
future based on the existing political climate.

Grassroots Approach to Preservation
Community Pride and Advocacy
Community advocacy can play a significant role in the preservation of Westlake. While
the above approaches involve local officials and regulations, simple community pride can
highlight the significance of Westlake, and begin an ad hoc method of conserving the
neighborhood. Local historians can conduct walking tours to identify the original houses
developed in the district, point out significant buildings (such as the first model home
constructed in Westlake or the Midcentury Modern churches along Elmwood Drive), and
illustrate the necessity behind limiting highly adverse new construction and additions. However,
these tours may also have the ability to acknowledge those properties that have undergone
limited alterations which still preserve the historic character while allowing for some divergence
from each property’s original condition. Walking tours may be modeled after the Chicago
Architecture Foundation’s Chicago Modern, the Los Angeles Conservancy’s Curating the City:
Modern Architecture in L.A., DOCOMOMO NOCA’s Exploring Midcentury Downtown San
Francisco, or the City of Palo Alto’s recent self-guided walking tour of the city’s two Eichler
neighborhoods.
235
The Los Angeles Conservancy, for example, has created the “Spotlight on the
San Fernando Valley” as part of their Curating the City: Modern Architecture in L.A. program to
illustrate sites of significance in a specific neighborhood associated with architecture of the

233
California State Parks Office of Historic Preservation, “Mills Act Program.”
234
California Department of Housing and Community Development, “Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs),” accessed
June 17, 2018, http://www.hcd.ca.gov/policy-research/AccessoryDwellingUnits.shtml#newlaws.
235
Chicago Architecture Foundation, “Chicago Modern,” accessed March 3, 2018,
https://www.architecture.org/experience-caf/tours/detail/chicago-modern/; Los Angeles Conservancy, “Curating the
City: Modern Architecture in L.A.,” accessed March 3, 2018, https://www.laconservancy.org/modern;
DOCOMOMO/NOCA, “Tour Day 2016: Exploring Mid-Century Downtown San Francisco,” accessed March 3,
2018, http://docomomo-noca.org/tour-day-2016-exploring-mid-century-downtown-san-francisco/; Page & Turnbull,
Eichler Walking Tour, (City of Palo Alto: Palo Alto, CA), 2017.

94
modern era. The Spotlight on the San Fernando Valley website contains a summary of the
neighborhood and includes three different public tours that are accessible both virtually on the
web and in person. One of the tours, “Home on the Ranch,” contains information on several
Ranch Houses developed in the post-war era, including several historically significant residential
tracts. Similar to Westlake, the tour contains several residences designed by notable developers
and architects.
236

Second, non-profits, such as the Daly City Historic Museum and the San Mateo County
Historical Association, can come together and form committees dedicated to sharing the distinct
history of the Westlake community. These non-profits can put on exhibits throughout San Mateo
County dedicated to sharing the history of Westlake and its impact on Daly City and San Mateo
County’s development. Further, these non-profits can embark on fundraisers dedicated to the
restoration and continued preservation of properties throughout Westlake.

Public Education
There are several facets one may pursue to take advantage of community activism and
advocacy for preservation. Besides the aforementioned walking tours, Westlake community
members can simply erect signs or plaques on specific buildings throughout the community. For
example, the first model house to be opened in the Westlake development, located at 189
Glenwood Avenue, could include a sign comprised of a brief historical narrative, a historic
image, and information on the greater Westlake community. However, as a backup plan for cases
where this would not be desired or allowed, the Westlake community can also use the internet to
create virtual plaques. As a case study, the Westlake community can look to the Berkeley
Historical Plaque Project (BHPP). The BHPP, established in 1997, honors Berkeley’s legacy by
producing plaques for historic sites. However, a large number of their plaques exist solely online,
illustrating a convenient and affordable method of recognizing historical sites that may otherwise
go unnoticed. The website also contains interactive maps illustrating select locations, historic
photographs, and site histories.
237
See Figure 5.2 for an example that can be used in Westlake.

236
LA Conservancy, “Home on the Ranch,” accessed June 17, 2018,
https://www.laconservancy.org/collections/home-ranch.
237
“Berkeley Historical Plaque Project: Chronicling our City’s History,” accessed April 26, 2018,
http://berkeleyplaques.org/.

95

Figure 5.2. Example of an e-plaque for the first model home in Westlake developed by Doelger. The address links to
Google Maps with the subject property identified. Photo by author.

Alternatively, community members may choose to print flyers and brochures featuring
self-guided walking and/or driving tours, which can be handed out at local libraries and schools.
These informational pamphlets would inform community members of the significance of
Westlake, even if the community is not a formally listed historic district. Finally, community
members may create a “speakers bureau” to present a background on Westlake to local
organizations and social clubs. This may include religious organizations, volunteer societies, or
service organizations. This would be especially relevant for Westlake, as several organizations,
such as Our Lady of Mercy Church, are housed in original Doelger-era buildings.
238
In this
manner, preservation advocates can highlight the significance of Westlake, and may also provide
fundamental information on what it means to become a historic district and why Daly City may
be ready for a preservation ordinance. Regardless, all examples may acquaint the general local
public with the historical significance of Westlake, with the goal of raising preservation
awareness and acceptance throughout the city.

238
Our Lady of Mercy Church is located at 1 Elmwood Drive, included in the reconnaissance survey conducted by
the author.

96
Media
One of the easiest methods of beginning the initial process of preservation today is
through media. An affordable option, a website of the history of Westlake can be developed,
providing historical information to regions beyond the San Francisco Bay Area. However, should
an entire website devoted to the community prove too expensive and time-consuming, a
proactive community preservationist can construct a short historical background on Westlake
and have it listed on Daly City’s official website, or on another organization’s website such as
the Daly City History Museum or the San Mateo County Historical Association. In addition to a
historical background of Westlake, these could provide helpful links to relevant websites, such as
the National Park Service and the California State Office of Historic Preservation to relay
additional information on the importance of preservation in a community. The Westlake
community could also work with organizations, such as the National Trust for Historic
Preservation, to use social media, such as Twitter and Instagram, to showcase why Westlake
deserves preservation acknowledgment and why “#ThisPlaceMatters.”
239
(Figure 5.3) Finally,
these websites could disseminate the aforementioned incentives available to owners of historic
properties, and could further detail additional resources available to these owners should Daly
City enact a local preservation ordinance.

239
“This Place Matters,” National Trust for Historic Preservation, accessed April 26, 2018,
https://savingplaces.org/this-place-matters#.WuJYQy7wZaQ.

97

Figure 5.3. Example of a social media campaign raising awareness of Westlake. Photo from author.

Regardless of which option Westlake pursues, each activity will require a level of
advocacy necessary to put the process in motion. Whether it’s the simple task of developing a
basic website for the local community, or, ultimately, creating a preservation ordinance and
establishing historic resources/districts in Daly City, community members need to proactively
initiate the motion. In order to accomplish this, advocates will need to work with legislators and
policy makers, community leaders, other preservationists, and local businesses and developers to
establish the most ideal preservation guidelines for Daly City. Only then will Westlake be
protected against its eventual demise as an intact midcentury post-war master-planning
community – a place with tremendous significance to the San Francisco Bay Area.

98
Conclusion

Though the San Francisco Bay Area is home to a large number of residences exhibiting
high artistic values, little is known about the residential merchant builders who dotted the Bay
Area landscape with modest yet modern post-war housing. Viewed as “cookie-cutter”
developments with no historical significance, an analysis of such housing and a cross-
comparison to similar developments reveals more than meets the eye. Henry Doelger, with his
residential development company, was able to accomplish what was viewed as the impossible:
constructing high quality and well-designed residential communities for thousands of middle-
class families in areas formerly consisting of practically uninhabitable terrain.
Westlake remains an exciting example of Doelger’s best work. His master-planned post-
war community, consisting of single- and multiple-family residences, commercial properties,
office buildings, and civic institutions, illustrates one of the earliest examples of post-war
developments for the masses. Comparable to the more famous example of Levittown on the East
Coast, Westlake is the home of the first residential subdivision in Daly City, acting as a catalyst
to the city’s successive widespread population growth and development.
Further, an initial look into the community shows that many of the properties remain
intact and convey their midcentury architecture and development history today. Most noteworthy
is the “Fish and Chips” model, akin to A. Quincy Jones’ residences in Joseph Eichler’s
Greenmeadow community in Palo Alto. The “Fish and Chips” home, an excellent example of
Midcentury Modern architecture, has now reached the fifty-year threshold for significance
established by the California Register of Historical Resources. However, with the housing crisis
enveloping the Bay Area, the time is rapidly fleeing to preserve these architecturally significant
properties.
Demolition of Doelger homes is already underway, and it is likely that other homes will
face a similar fate without action. It is possible that Westlake may no longer be able to convey its
significance as an efficient “total community” constructed for the masses of the post-war era.
However, by considering other significant case studies, such as the well-preserved
Greenmeadow development in Palo Alto, there may be lessons for implementing preservation
policies that can help communities currently lacking robust preservation programs and
ordinances.

99
It is with hope that this thesis will identify several of the communities in the Bay Area
that face the ongoing pressures of growth and redevelopment. Now is the time for Daly City to
establish a preservation program, whether through community activism, a preservation
ordinance, or a historical society. Should Westlake’s significance as an early post-war complete
community development continue to be overlooked, the city will quickly lose its unique
character that so many other municipalities were modeled after.

100
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract During the 1920s and 1930s, merchant builder Henry Doelger made a name for himself through his modest single‐family one‐story‐over‐garage residential developments. It was in the Outer Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco that Doelger purchased his first parcel of land—the first of what would become thousands of seemingly endless rows of period revival bungalow built by Doelger in San Francisco. The culmination of his career, however, transpired in the 1940s and 1950s in a small unincorporated community just south of the City and County of San Francisco. With high aspirations, Doelger embarked on a new residential development in Daly City that was to be named Westlake. Working with noted architects and building designers of the era, Doelger constructed single‐family residences, apartment complexes, restaurants, public schools, and commercial buildings. It was through his affordable post‐war development of Westlake that Daly City grew and attracted thousands of new residents to what became the most populous city in San Mateo County as of 2018. ❧ Today, Doelger’s legacy is largely forgotten by the general public. While the community still reflects its original nature, it is imperative to study Westlake through the lens of a preservationist, as Daly City does not currently have a historic preservation ordinance or program. With rapidly increasing costs of living due to excessive demand for higher density housing in the Bay Area, Daly City is constantly threatened with redevelopment, placing Westlake at extreme risk for demolition and integrity degradation. ❧ This thesis aims to identify the origins of merchant builders and the typical single‐family house in the San Francisco Bay Area, while also providing a scholarly background on Henry Doelger and his significant association with the Bay Area. The thesis will proceed to draw from a local case study, Joseph Eichler’s Greenmeadow tract in Palo Alto, to gather resources, tools, and reflections necessary to preserve Doelger’s Westlake community. Finally, the thesis will provide a significance and integrity analysis of the Westlake community to supply Daly City with an overview of the significance of Westlake, as well as several approaches that may be pursued to preserve the post‐war community.

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A survey of the public: preference for old and new buildings, attitudes about historic preservation, and preservation-related engagement

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Conserving Compton: Identifying potential landmarks and recommendations for conservation

Asset Metadata

Creator Purcell, Christopher Eric (author)

Core Title Celebrating conformity: preserving Henry Doelger's midcentury post-war suburb

School School of Architecture

Degree Master of Heritage Conservation / Master of Planning

Degree Program Heritage Conservation / Planning

Publication Date 10/11/2018

Defense Date 09/04/2018

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Architecture,Henry Doelger,Historic Preservation,merchant builders,midcentury,OAI-PMH Harvest

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Sandmeier, Trudi (committee chair), Horak, Katie (committee member), Platt, Jay (committee member)

Creator Email cepurcel@gmail.com,cepurcel@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-86657

Unique identifier UC11675662

Identifier etd-PurcellChr-6811.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-86657 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-PurcellChr-6811.pdf

Dmrecord 86657

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Purcell, Christopher Eric

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA