2020 Actions Taken
Actions Taken 2020
The nominations below were reviewed by the State Historical Resources Commission during the year 2020. Scroll down to view subsequent actions by quarter. New actions are added to the end of this page after each quarterly State Historical Resources Commission meeting. Agendas from past meetings are downloadable in PDF format below on the right sidebar.
January 31, 2020 SHRC Meeting
The following nominations were scheduled for the January 31, 2020 SHRC quarterly meeting at the State Resources Building Auditorium, 1416 9th Street, Sacramento, California. Five nominations were heard by the Commission; three of the nominations scheduled for this meeting were withdrawn from the dais.
Properties nominated to the National Register of Historic Places
Descanso Gardens in La Cañada Flintridge is operated by the nonprofit Descanso Gardens Guild in a public-private partnership with Los Angeles County. Originally the residence of botanical garden creator Elias Manchester Boddy, the gardens are associated with Boddy’s contributions to horticulture in southern California, and home to one of North America’s largest camellia collections. The property is also associated with the Japanese American experience before and after World War II, in agriculture, architecture, and landscape architecture.
Grace Lewis Miller House was built in 1937 in the International Style as a dwelling integrated with a professional studio for teaching a specialized technique of physical exercise. One of Richard Neutra’s most celebrated and publicized projects, the house-studio in Palm Springs is unusual in its rich repertoire of many of Neutra’s signature strategies and exemplifies Neutra’s typical consuming approach to his clients, here a design for a woman whose strong professional goals paralleled her architect’s.
Battery Osgood-Farley amends this Los Angeles coastal naval battery and lookout station's original nomination of a single building, creating a historic district including the central batteries, Osgood and farley, radio compass generator building, base end stations, and naval detection defense stations. Originally listed in 1974, the battery is eligible under Criterion A for its association with the nation's military defense system. In addition to the expanded boundaries and contributors, the nomination revises the Period of Significance to 1916-1944, from original construction of the battery and the date of its decommissioning.
Point Fermin Light Station in Los Angeles is an amendment to a 1972 nomination that only included the lighthouse building, constructed in 1873, expanding the nomination to include a district and seven other contributing resources, including coal house and privy, storehouse, and cisterns. The property is eligible for its architecture, its role in maritime transportation, and for information potential.
Edmund Anderson House was built in 1940 as the Los Angeles home of Edmund Anderson, radio, film and television star best known for his long-standing role as "Rochester" on The Jack Benny Show. The property is directly associated with Anderson's success in the entertainment industry, as the first African American with a regular role on a national radio program, and by 1940, the highest paid African American entertainer in the nation. The property's period of significance extends from 1940 until 1977, the year of Anderson's death. The property is nominated under cover of the African Americans in Los Angeles Multiple Property Document.
Zschokke Cottages is a small district of two vernacular residences with simplified Queen Anne features, located in Palo Alto, Santa Clara County. Intended as working-class residences in the otherwise upscale university town that emerged around Stanford University in the 1890s, both buildings were constructed by Theodore Zsochokke, son of prominent pioneer Anna Zschokke, as speculative income properties. The cottages are simpler in style than many of the more elegant high-style Queen Anne homes, reflecting their role as homes for working people, and retain a high degree of historic integrity in all aspects, and are eligible under Criterion C as work of a master builder, George W. Mosher, in addition to their role in the early settlement and growth of Palo Alto.
Pioneertown Mane Street Historic District , located in San Bernardino County, is a grouping of buildings, structures, and objects with a late 19th century Western vernacular theme, built principally between 1946 and 1966, and intended as a "movie ranch" for television and movie production. Unlike other movie ranches built solely as sets, Pioneertown's buldings also serve commercial uses when not in use as film sets, and provide goods and services to Pioneertown-based film productions. At its late 1940s through late 1950s peak, hundreds of films and television shows were shot at Pioneertown, including The Cisco Kid, The Gene Autry Show, and The Annie Oakley Show.
Burro Flats Cultural District is a Traditional Cultural Property in the Santa Susana Mountain Range. Natural caves and rockshelters are scattered throughout the area. The property is significant for its archaeological sites and natural features described in stories important to the history of the local Native American community, for its remarkable examples of prehistoric Native American rock art that possess high artistic value and are important representatives of the aesthetic and possibly religious values of the Native American groups who created them, and for the district’s association with ceremonial solstice events.
August 14, 2020 SHRC Meeting
The following nominations were scheduled for the August 14, 2020 SHRC quarterly meeting held online via Zoom. This agenda included fifteen nominations to the National Register of Historic Places, including an amendment to a Multiple Property Document, one nomination to the California Register of Historical Resources, eleven California Historical Landmarks, and one Point of Historical Interest.
Properties nominated to the National Register of Historic Places
Bel Vista House was constructed in 1946 as one of fifteen identical homes in the Bel Vista tract of Palm Springs, and remains the most intact. Located on a corner at the southern entry to the original tract, the property is on a main thoroughfare in central Palm Springs surrounded by a residential neighborhood consisting of one-story, single-family residential buildings. The house embodies the distinctive characteristics of residential architecture associated with the modern movement as interpreted by Albert Frey for the desert environment of the Coachella Valley, and is nominated under cover of The Architecture of Albert Frey Multiple Property Submission.
Burro Flats Cultural District is a Traditional Cultural Property in the Santa Susana Mountain Range. Natural caves and rockshelters are scattered throughout the area. The property is significant for its archaeological sites and natural features described in stories important to the history of the local Native American community, for its remarkable examples of prehistoric Native American rock art that possess high artistic value and are important representatives of the aesthetic and possibly religious values of the Native American groups who created them, and for the district’s association with ceremonial solstice events.
Desert Golf Course and its six additional Spanish Colonial revival style buildings constructed between 1925 and 1936 are recognized alongside the National Register-listed Thomas O’Donnell House, Ojo del Desierto (Eye of the Desert), for their role in the development history of Palm Springs. Situated prominently at the base of Mount San Jacinto in downtown Palm Springs, Thomas O’Donnell’s Desert Golf Course promoted the tourist boom in the 1930s that perpetuated the city’s claim as one of America’s leading fashionable winter resorts.
Mojave Road is a well preserved mid-nineteenth century linear transportation corridor linking a series of historically significant springs across a vast expanse of desert basins and ranges. The 76.3 mile long section of Mojave Road through Mojave National Preserve in San Bernardino County follows the approximate route of a centuries old Native American trail system across usually dry Soda Lake, over the Marl Mountains and Mid Hills ranges and across the Lanfair Valley. In 1853, the U.S. Topographical Engineering party of Lt. Amiel Weeks Whipple followed the trail system as part of their Transcontinental Railroad survey. Whipple’s influential and widely circulated survey report resulted in construction of the Mojave wagon road by Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale between 1857 and 1860.
Pasadena Field Archery Range in Lower Arroyo Seco Park is situated between a neighborhood of single-family residences west of the park on the rim of the canyon, and a hiking trail alongside the narrow concrete flood control channel that runs the entire length of the park. The archery range is approximately seven acres consisting of twenty-eight targets and six practice butts. In continuous use since it was created in 1936 by the Pasadena Roving Archers, the property represents the enduring popularity of the sport, especially in Southern California.
St. John’s Chapel, Del Monte is a Late Victorian Shingle Style, traditionally cross-shaped building with a 110-foot high steeple and bell tower. The work of master architect Ernest A. Coxhead, the chapel was constructed in 1891 on a wooded site adjacent to the Hotel del Monte in Monterey and oriented northwest to align with the entrance of the hotel 850 feet away. The rerouting of California State Highway 1 in the 1950s mandated the chapel be moved 560 feet southwest, at which time it was reoriented to a more traditional east-west alignment.
Vernon School sits in a fallow field surrounded by orchards, just north of the confluence of the Feather and Sacramento Rivers in Sutter County. Established as a gateway to the gold fields, Vernon (later Verona) became a fishing village populated by Native Hawaiians brought to California by John Sutter as laborers. The 1863 building was constructed in a simplified Folk Victorian style, of wood boards nailed to a wood frame, on wood piers with concrete footings. A community resource, the schoolhouse was also used for church services and other meetings. Vernon School is nominated under cover of the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in California, 1850 -1970 Multiple Property Submission.
Whelan, John, A., House is a two-story single-family residence in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. The building was constructed in 1896 for shipwright and speculative real estate developer John A. Whelan as part of a row of four similarly designed houses, later known collectively as the Four Seasons Houses. Constructed as Whelan’s personal family home, the house identified as Winter for the applied snowflake centerpiece relief on its front façade is a fine example of the Queen Anne architectural style that dominated residential development in the neighborhood as it was filling out in the late nineteenth century.
Latinos in Twentieth Century California MPS (Amended) adds the Chicano Moratorium in Los Angeles County as a new context. The Chicano Moratorium sought to redirect Mexican American energies toward fighting for social justice at home and in turn redefine the nature of Mexican American patriotism. While the Chicano Moratorium was technically short-lived—its main organization, the Chicano Moratorium Committee, existed from late 1969 to early 1971—its significance was far reaching. Moratorium activists assumed a key leadership role in the Southern California antiwar movement. Their ideology helped push the Latino civil rights movement toward cultural nationalism. Their protest actions were groundbreaking, culminating in the march and rally of August 29, 1970, the largest mass protest of Mexican Americans in history to that date. While that dramatic rally began in exuberance and hope, it ended in violence and tragedy, vividly illustrating the problem of police brutality, which Chicano activists had vigorously critiqued. The Moratorium Committee disintegrated shortly thereafter, leaving an important legacy in the realms of Latino political activism and thought.
Chicano Moratorium March December 20, 1969 from Five Points Memorial in the City of Los Angeles to Obregon Park in unincorporated East Los Angeles drew attention to the historic contributions of the Latino community to the United States military in past wars and to the disproportionate sacrifices of the community in the Vietnam War. The success of this march garnered public support and attention for the Chicano movement and subsequent Chicano Moratorium marches.
National Chicano Moratorium March August 29, 1970 in unincorporated East Los Angeles—from East Third Street in front of the East Los Angeles Civic Center down Atlantic and Whittier Boulevards to a rally in Laguna Park—channeled anti-Vietnam War sentiment to draw attention to domestic issues affecting the Chicano community. The peaceful rally turned into a major conflict between protestors and police officers and sheriff’s deputies. The violent outcome, including the death of prominent journalist Ruben Salazar, convinced many Chicano activists and community members to focus on the unique struggles of the Chicano community and was a milestone for organizing the Chicano community around struggles for equality.
Brown Beret Headquarters (Latinos in 20th Century California Multiple Property Submission) is a two story mixed use building located in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. Originally constructed in 1923, the building became the headquarters of the Brown Berets, a militant community group that advocated for equal opportunity for Chicano/as, from June 1969 until June 1970, during the period of the Chicano Moratorium.
Nisei VFW Post 8985 (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in California Multiple Property Submission) is a one-and-two-story International Style building located in downtown Sacramento, designed by A.E. Kimmel and Roy Swedin. The building was constructed as the Flower Garden, a restaurant operated by Black entrepreneur Phelix Flowers, and also functioned as a lodge for African American Elks club members. In 1954, the building was purchased by Sacramento's Japanese American Citizens League for use as a Veterans of Foreign Wars post established by Japanese-American veterans.
Wilshire Vista West Historic District is a residential neighborhood of 113 contributing and 8 non-contributing buildings in the Mid-City neighborhood of Los Angeles. The residences are two-story multi-family buildings designed in Period Revival, Strealine Moderne, Minimal Traditional and Mid-century Modern styles, built between 1927-1947. The district is significant as a distinct neighborhood of multifamily, principally Period Revival architecture, with a high level of architectural cohesion and historic integrity.
Hugh Edgar Johnson House is significant under Criterion C for its unique combination of Spanish Colonia Revival Architecture with Mayan revival decorative elements on the exterior and interior.The home’s temple-like entryway, decorative windows, and ziggurat porch posts are unique to Fullerton. The interior features a rare California Clay Products Company Aztec-styled fireplace surround. The dwelling is an unusual and outstanding example of the work of notable local building designer and contractor Evan J. Herbert.
Properties nominated to the California Register of Historical Resources
Bucks Bar Bridge is an open-spandrel reinforced concrete bridge over the North Fork of the Cosumnes River, located in El Dorado County. Designed and by county surveyor Frank McCarton and built by contractor Hector Williamson, the bridge is eligible for its role in the development of southern El Dorado County and as a significant example of open-spandrel, reinforced concrete bridge design, despite the fact that neither McCarton nor Williamson were master designers or builders.
Properties nominated as California Points of Historical Interest
Baumann Manor, in San Bernardino County, was built by Samuel Baumann in the Tudor Revival style, using local stone, much of it cut by hand. The cut stones were used to create the exterior walls, three fireplaces inside the house, and a wall around the perimeter of the house, as well as two outdoor fireplaces and a hilltop gazebo behind the house. Within a few years of its 1924 construction, the house was one of the first in the Oak Glen area to have electricity and a crank telephone. Drawn to the area by the taste of a local apple, Samuel and Murle Baumann established an apple farm, and were early promoters of agritourism.
Properties nominated as California Historical Landmarks
California Historical Landmarks Associated with the Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail is a series of amendments to seven existing California Historical Landmarks and two new California Historical Landmarks, all associated with the October-November 1769 expedition of Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portolá through Ohlone territory, all located in what is now San Mateo County, and the expedition's interactions with the Ohlone people. This common historic context provides updated documentation and geographical information regarding the expedition, and the critical role played by the Ohlone in the success of Portolá's journey.
Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail, Quiroste Village (CHL #23 Amendment) renames the existing landmark known as Gazos Creek to reflect that this was the site where the Portola expedition met with Quiroste, leader of an Ohlone village near this site, who provided the expedition with food, tobacco, and gifts, on October 23, 1769.
Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail, Purisima Creek (CHL #22 Amendment) is the Portolá expedition's camp site from October 27, 1769, on the south bank of the creek near its mouth. A nearby Ohlone village was found ininhabted at the time of the expedition's visit.
Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail, Pilarcitos Creek (CHL #21 Amendment) is the site where the Portolá expedition camped on October 28 and 29, 1869. Portolá fell ill at this site, and residents of a nearby Ohlone village visited them, providing the explorers with food.
Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail, Montara Mountain (CHL #25 Amendment) was the site where Portolá's expedition camped on October 30, 1769, at a stream at the foot of Montara Mountain, which blocked the expedition's progress. The expedition located a supply of mussels at the stream, providing a badly needed food supply when the expedition was short on provisions.
Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail, Laguna Grande (CHL #94 Amendment) Laguna Grande was the site where the Portolá expedition camped on November 5, 1769, at a large lagoon, today covered by Upper Crystal Springs Lake. As the expedition broke camp, three Ohlone people approached the expedition with food, inviting them to their village, where Portolá was provided with provisions for the expedition's return trip.
Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail, Cañada De Reymundo (CHL #92 Amendment) is the site where the Portolá expedition arrived on November 11, 1769, after traveling two leagues to a point in this canyon, their first camp of the return trip. At this encampment, visitors from a nearby Ohlone community visited with a gift of food, reciprocated by a gift of beads from Portolá.
Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail, Tunitas Beach (CHL #375 Amendment) The Portolá expedition passed through this area northbound on or about October 27, 1769, en route from San Gregorio to Purisima. The expedition returned to camp at Tunitas Beach on November 17, on its return trip. Due to heavy rains, further progress was impeded, so camp was made at this point.
Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail, Bean Hollow is a new landmark, site of the Portolá expedition's penultimate campground before the end of the expedition, on November 18, 1769.
Ohlone-Portolá Heritage Trail, Año Nuevo is a new landmark, site of the Portolá expedition's November 19, 1769 campsite near the point of Año Nuevo at a creek near the ocean. Prior to making camp, they passed through the Ohlone village of Quiroste, inhabited upon their arrival, but abandoned upon their return.
Harada House is a two-story residence in Riverside, built sometime before 1887. From 1915 it was purchased by Jukichi Harada, a Japanese immigrant. The house became the subject of a 1918 landmark Superior Court decision granting the Harada family the right to own the property, challenging an anti-immigrant and racist property ownership law that forbade immigrants from Asia from owning property in California. The property is a National Historic Landmark and is significant for its association with an individual, Jukichi Harada, who had a profound influence on the history of California.
New Albion is the landing site and encampment of Sir Francis Drake's expedition to California in 1579, located in the coast of Marin County. This was the site where Drake met with the Coast Miwok people. The site is a National Historic Landmark and is significant for its association with an individual or group, Sir Francis Drake and the voyage of the Golden Hind, who had a profound influence on the history of California.
November 6, 2020 SHRC Meeting
The following nominations were scheduled for the November 6, 2020 SHRC quarterly meeting, held via Zoom. Eleven nominations for the National Register of Historic Places, and one each for the California Register of Historical Resources, California Historical Landmarks, and California Points of Historical Interest, were heard at this meeting.
National Register of Historic Places Nominations
Chinese Shrimp Camp represents the remains of a shrimp camp occupied by Chinese American fishermen from circa 1870 until circa 1912. The site is located on the eastern edge of San Francisco Bay. At its peak, the camp contained thirty shacks, five wharves, and ten boats. The buildings and structures have been razed, though two earthen jetties remain. As a property type associated with Chinese American labor in the fishing and processing industries, the Chinese Shrimp Camp meets the registration requirements of the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in California, 1850-1970 Multiple Property Submission.
Hotel Menlo is a seven-story, 1914 Renaissance Revival style hotel in Oakland rehabilitated into sixty-six affordable apartments. The building’s massing forms a modified-W shape, with three prominent wings at the upper stories on the main façade on 13th Street. The narrow wings convey the original hotel use and its association with a substantial group of hotels built in the vicinity in the years between the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 and the 1915 Pan Pacific International Exposition. The property is significant for its style, constructed with steel frames and materials and techniques that were coming into widespread use nationwide.
Mission Cultural Center is located in the Mission District, a large and diverse neighborhood in the east-central portion of San Francisco. The reinforced concrete building was constructed in 1947 as a furniture store and converted into the cultural center in 1977. The upper portion of the primary and east façades features a large mural depicting Latino cultural themes. As a property significant for its association with the social and ethnic history of the Mission District as a predominately Latino enclave, along with the development of Latino arts in San Francisco in association with California’s Latino cultural center movement of the 1970s, the building meets the Latinos In Twentieth Century California Multiple Property Submission registration requirements for Cultural Centers in the historic context Making a Life: Latinos in the Arts.
North Beach Historic District, located at the northern entrance to San Clemente on El Camino Real, includes four contributing buildings—Aquarium Café (later OC Fresca), Casino San Clemente, San Clemente Theatre (later Miramar Theatre) and San Clemente Bowling Alley—and the previously listed San Clemente Beach Club (later Ole Hanson Beach Club), all Spanish Colonial Revival in style. Collectively referred to as the amusement center, the buildings reflect city founder Ole Hanson’s intent to develop a beachside community that promoted social welfare with unique public amenities such as generously sized open spaces and a variety of recreational facilities, aesthetically modeled on a romanticized version of California history.
Pioneer Oil Refinery, an inactive refinery in Santa Clarita dating from the nineteenth century, comprises two buildings and nine structures. Associated with the birth of the commercial petroleum industry in California, this rare remaining example of an early oil refinery exemplifies the distinguishing characteristics of the type and period, as well as the technological breakthroughs of the 1870s. Standard Oil Company (later Chevron) rehabilitated the refinery in 1930 for interpretive, educational use. Research indicates that Pioneer Oil Refinery is one of the oldest remaining oil refineries in the state, if not the nation.
Donaldson Futuro is a structural reinforced fiberglass polyester plastic portable home, meant to be easily moved to a desired site, usually by helicopter. Noted for its ellipsoid shaped shell which characterizes its space-age Futuristic architectural style, the Donaldson Futuro is significant as an example of America’s collective confidence as a leader in space flight, technology advancement, and economic prosperity, and for the extensive restoration of a fragile and rare property type. The location in the San Jacinto Mountains is reminiscent of the mountainous setting and general environment comparable to Finnish architect Matti Suuronen’s original design intent.
Buon Gusto Sausage Factory is a 1948 Streamline Moderne/International Style building associated with San Francisco’s Italian-American heritage.
Benicia City Cemetery is one of the oldest municipal cemeteries in California, containing the graves of numerous persons who made outstanding contributions to the history of the city and region, including Benicia's early settlers.
King Edward Hotel is a significant example of early 20th Century Beaux Arts hotel/commercial architecture, the long-term location of the King Eddy Saloon, a business important to the history of downtown Los Angeles, originally operating as a semi-secret "speakeasy" bar during Prohibition.
Oakland Auditorium was the most important site for conventions and events in the city of Oakland from its construction in 1913 until the opening of the Oakland Coliseum in 1966. Its unique design with four primary facades, terra cotta sculptural reliefs and and hinged-arch roof truss system were the result of collaboration between architect John Joseph Donovan, sculptor Alexander Stirling Calder, and engineer Maurice C. Couchot.
Santa Cruz Island Amendment expands the existing historic district to include a portion of the island not included in the original nomination boundary and newly identified sites on the island, accompanied by updated historic context.
Properties nominated to the California Register of Historical Resources
Granite Grammar School is a Spanish Colonial Revival style schoolhouse constructed in 1915, designed by architects George C. Sellon and Alden W. Campbell, for the Sacramento County community of Folsom, named for the community's well-known granite quarries. The school integrated contemporary ideas about school design intended to improve light and ventilation while providing multi-function space.
Properties nominated as California Historical Landmarks
Donaldson Futuro was the first Futuro to arrive in California, the only Futuro in the state until 2015, and the only Futuro in California to have obtained a building permit for residential occupancy. The first serially produced plastic house and the first all-structural glass-reinforced polyester house in California became a notable icon in California space-age architecture. Following the 2002-2004 exterior restoration in San Diego, the Futuro was relocated to a remote site north of Idyllwild followed by an extensive 2004-2012 interior restoration. In recognition of owner Milford Wayne Donaldson’s restoration effort and resulting preservation of this fragile resource, essential to saving the building and raising the profile of the entire family of similar buildings, the property is identified as the Donaldson Futuro.
Properties nominated as California Points of Historical Interest
Cambria Chinese Temple is a small board-and-batten wooden building constructed between 1892 and 1895 that served as a central temple and community space for the Chinese community of Cambria and San Luis Obispo County. The building was relocated several times on its lot. The building is significant as a rare surviving example of late 19th century Chinese religious architecture, significant to the Central Coast region where Chinese settlement was sparse compared to California's major cities.