architecture

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THE MAKING OF BRAINERD JONES

Jeff Elliott 1 Comment

Brainerd Jones designed high-fashioned mansions and simple homes; he was adept with both the old styles and the avant-guarde. If there was any other architect as versatile as this, I do not know who it is.

But he had no formal training. He did not study architecture at any college, nor did he apprentice at a major architectural firm. His only credentials were having worked as a carpenter and a draftsman. Yet there he was at the turn of the century, hanging out his shingle as an architect.

This is the first part of a presentation made at the Petaluma Historical Library & Museum on October 20, 2018, and explains the developments in late 19th century architecture which had the most impact on Jones. Part two covers his background and some of his residential architecture up to 1906.

When Brainerd Jones was born in 1869, America was mainly a nation of plain Greek Revival farmhouses, federal style and assorted regional styles that didn’t travel very far from where they emerged. Builders had limited skills and worked without plans, having previously built nearly identical houses many times before. Builder’s guides and manuals often only contained directions on how to best follow classical principles and apply decorations.

 

Modern American architecture started after the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia as a wave of nostalgia swept the country for the first time. Probably driven in part by escapism from hardships of the ongoing Long Depression, popular books and magazines glorified America’s colonial past with sentimental tales of Revolutionary days of yore, illustrated with drawings of cozy cottages and Elysian farms, where everyone supposedly lived and worked in harmony and fought the heroic cause (the bloody and divisive Civil War had also ended just a few years before, remember). All things colonial became fashionable again, particularly furniture and building styles.

 

Fairgoers also packed a replica New England Kitchen of 1776, where they could interact with players in colonial costumes.

 

Pavilions representing the states, such as this one for Illinois, exposed the limited range of American architecture, where the Gothic style loaded with ornamentation was considered the ideal design.

 

At the fair visitors encountered architecture completely unlike anything back home. Most talked about were the Queen Anne style buildings at the British compound. In England this revival style already had been popular for several years.

 

The “Japanese Dwelling” presented an architectural esthetic with simple, clean lines and the highest craftsmanship; an observer said it was “as nicely put together as a piece of cabinet work.” Inside was an open floor plan without doors or even permanent interior walls. The Atlantic Monthly commented it made everything else look “commonplace and vulgar.”

 

About ten million people attended the fair, the equivalent of 1 in 5 Americans. Victorian Gothic, with its busy gingerbread ornamentation quickly lost popularity as American Queen Anne began evolving as the popular favorite nationwide. This house still has lots of scrollwork but also many of the curvy elements of Queen Anne, including a gazebo wrap.

 

Another transitional Queen Anne, with more curved surfaces and a prominent, irregular roof.

 

In a remarkably short time, Queen Anne evolved into the style we all recognize today, in all its boundless variations. But American Queen Anne lost all relationship to its historic roots; it was popular because it was a new, highly picturesque style.

 

Where the Pacific states were usually slow to adopt new trends from the East Coast, Queen Anne emerged simultaneously throughout the country; this is the 1881 Atherton House in San Francisco.

 

One reason Queen Annes caught on so quickly was because there was now a trade magazine that taught builders how to make those turrets and other unfamiliar elements. American Architect and Building News – which also appeared in the Centennial year of 1876 – did much to standardize construction methods nationwide.

Through the late 1880s and 1890s, Queen Annes sprouted like mushrooms all over San Francisco.

 

 

Let’s rewind back to the Centennial Exposition to meet the birth of Queen Anne’s twin. Now called “Shingle Style,” it was really Artistic Queen Anne, created by a cadre of East Coast architects, particularly the firm of McKim, Mead and White. It mixed the Tudor elements with aspects of the Japanese building. Usually wider more than tall and with a prominent roof, the designs incorporated as many windows as possible and open interiors, which transformed hallways and vestibules from mere circulation corridors into living spaces.

 

Unlike the popular Queen Anne style with its flashy look, these architects were consciously trying to create artistic houses that looked as if they could be centuries old. Plain shingles were sometimes aged in buttermilk or painted the color of moss. These homes had minimal ornamentation; notice here the fine latticework that suggested Asian wicker or rattan. (For more background, see my history of the East Coast Shingle Style, “Behind the Design” with illustrations and footnotes.)

 

In the letters section of magazines like American Architect and Building News and Harper’s, philosophy and aesthetics were hotly debated. For some it was a crusade to forge a unique style of American architecture, while others argued a higher objective was “unity,” which meant in part that a building must be in harmony with its setting.

 

And some designs look ultra-modern even today.

 

These mammoth “cottages” were commissioned by the wealthy families of the Gilded Age living in Newport and elsewhere in New England. This is Elberon, New Jersey, which was the Newport for the nouveau riche.

 

While popular Queen Anne was immediately embraced by San Francisco, it took ten years for Shingle Style to arrive. The city had a reputation as a provincial backwater indifferent to the arts, including architecture. Big commissions for commercial buildings went to firms in Chicago and New York. A. Page Brown opened an office in 1889 on a trial basis and soon found himself swamped with clients. Brown hired Willis Polk, Alexander Oakey and other A-team architects from the East who had been associated with McKim, Mead and White. Bernard Maybeck worked with Brown’s firm on and off for several years.

 

This 1890 card party at Willis Polk’s apartment included Ernest Coxhead, whose designs straddled Shingle Style and the British Queen Anne Style. All of them were with a few years of Brainerd Jones’ age, as was Julia Morgan, who would be studying under Maybeck at UC/Berkeley in the following years. The man on the far right is Soule Edgar Fisher. (Photo: On the Edge of the World: Four Architects in San Francisco at the Turn of the Century, Richard Longstreth)

 

Fisher’s 1892 Anna Head school in Berkeley was firmly in the East Coast Shingle Style, avoiding any ties to popular Queen Anne. Here are some others:

 

A. Page Brown’s Crocker Old People’s House in San Francisco, 1889.

 

Coxhead’s Carrigan House, San Anselmo, c. 1895

 

Coxhead’s Beta Theta Pi Chapter House in Berkeley, 1893

 

Coxhead’s Churchill House 1892 Napa, now Cedar Gables Inn

 

Maybeck house for Charles Keeler, 1895

 

Hearst’s Wyntoon, which involved Willis Polk, Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan

 

Coxhead’s 1890 St. John’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco

 

American Queen Anne and Shingle style architecture are two of the three significant influences on Jones as he began his career. The last element was the news stand. Trade periodicals had taught builders how to make a Queen Anne but in the mid-1880s, general public interest in home design was strong enough to support periodicals. Shoppell’s was the most popular, selling about 10,000 copies of every issue by the turn of the century.

 

George Barber’s pattern books were the other main source for “mail order houses.” More than anyone else, Barber established the American Queen Anne style. His firm sold plans for over 20,000 houses, but it’s likely a far greater number of houses were built without buying blueprints, instead improvised from the floor plans and basic drawing shown in his pattern books.

 

Barber launched his monthly “American Homes” in 1895 to appeal to a wider audience of people who may not be building in the near future. The magazine included poetry and general interest articles with many photographic illustrations.

 

Keith’s Magazine was somewhat like the nerdy Popular Mechanics/Popular Electronics magazines of the mid 20th century. Plenty of DIY projects and technical articles aimed at builders and architects. When Barber’s American Homes ended publication the firm’s designs were featured here.

 

Magazines with enormous circulations such as House Beautiful began presenting readers with more articles about modern trends in residential design. Even Country Gentleman, the oldest magazine aimed at rural America, began running articles about modern architectural design. (This issue is from much later, but the cover is a personal favorite.)

 

Gustav Stickley’s The Craftsman was a true general interest magazine, with short fiction, poetry, children’s stories as well as in-depth articles about all kinds of art, particularly fine furniture and home decoration. The magazine popularized the word, “bungalow” and nearly every issue included a “Modern Craftsman” house design following the clean look of the Arts & Crafts movement, free of decoration and with exposed construction elements, Stickley’s houses meshed with the philosophy of John Ruskin, who promoted skilled craftsmanship and the pleasures of a simpler way of life.

 

A group of magazines such as shown above is probably what Brainerd Jones saw on the coffee table (or dining room table, more likely) when he first met with a new client. With so much exposure to modern architecture through popular media, they probably already had strong opinions about the kind of home they expected Jones to design, making it more of a collaborative effort with the architect than we have today, where a client is expected to pick a design from the contractor’s brochure. This helps explain why Jones’ work represents so many different styles.

 


NEXT: YOUNG BRAINERD JONES

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TODAY YOU SAW CAL CAULKINS

Jeff Elliott 9 Comments

Don’t panic, but we’ve been surrounded. Travel around Santa Rosa (and to a lesser extent, Sebastopol) for ten minutes and it’s likely you’ll encounter one or more buildings designed by “Cal” Caulkins, Santa Rosa’s top architect roughly between 1935-1960. Outside of the neighborhoods built by Hugh Codding, no other person did more to define the look of Santa Rosa than Caulkins.

He was also prolific. By going through the Press Democrat archives he can be found named as the architect on over 100 different buildings, and that’s not counting projects that were dropped or reassigned, projects that were simply remodels and, of course, projects that weren’t mentioned in the paper. I found references to 17 Santa Rosa houses and believe the true number is 2-3x more – either that, or there was an army of contractors here during the late 1930s doing Caulkins knockoffs.

The residential buildings he created are not artsy or pretentious – but neither are they boring and repetitious like the Codding houses. But most of his work was not in designing houses; he did about twice as many civic or commercial buildings (including a roller skating rink), a couple of dozen schools and a handful of churches. His masterpiece is probably the Art Deco-style goliath on Fourth street which is now home to Barnes & Noble (more about that later) but everything he designed has merits. A chronological list of all his known work can be found at the end of this article.

The “Caulkins style” is pretty easy to spot once you know what to look for, and I’ve created a mile-long walking tour that will showcase most of the elements seen in his work. But before putting on those hiking shoes, a little background is helpful. There were five main “styles” that he used throughout his career – and as we’ll see on the tour, he often moshed them together:

* SPANISH COLONIAL   Stucco walls sometimes with carved bas-relief details; tile roof; terracotta attic vents; arched entryways; decorative ironwork. Caulkins apparently called this “Early California.”

* ENGLISH-NORMAN   Hybrid style popular in the 1920s-1930s and also called Tudor-French Norman style. Stucco walls with half-timbering often more curvy and elaborate than simple Tudor; casement windows; cross-gabled with a steep hipped roof and the entryway beneath its own gable or part of a tower.

* COLLEGIATE GOTHIC   General 20th century style for brick or stone campus buildings to appear old, per Oxford and Cambridge. See this article on its history. (h/t to John Murphey for the name)

* STREAMLINE MODERNE/PWA MODERNE   Simplified version of Art Deco often intended to mimic 1930s automobile styling; curved edges, glass bricks, casement window pairs on corners, aluminum or even chrome trim. PWA (Public Works Administration) Moderne was another offshoot of Art Deco popular for public buildings in the 1930s-1940s.

* MID-CENTURY MODERN   Single story with maximum window space making walls as transparent as possible; flat roof, sharp angles, multiple exterior entrances preferred to hallways; often intended to look prefab or modular.

Also before we begin, full disclosure: I have a personal dislike (strike that: indifference) for much of his architecture, but my bias is not against his work specifically – I just don’t have a taste for any form of modernist architecture, which had its heyday during the same decades as Caulkins’ career. To me the “moderne” styles are Art Deco without the art, often making me think of bus stations (Caulkins did remodel the Greyhound station here) or Los Angeles’ oppressive downtown civic buildings (my long-running joke has been the style should be renamed, “Sepulveda”). The many elementary schools he designed in the mid-century modern style probably looked outdated by the time the first kindergarten students graduated high school.

At the same time, Caulkins did his best with what the clients of his era demanded. Those schools that appear mired in the ugly 1950s had an innovative baffle roof (invented by Caulkins) to bring in natural light to the side of the classroom farthest away from the big windows. Each of his residences in historic revival styles had its own unique touch in some significant way – unlike the cookie-cutter Codding houses. And while his cottage-type homes were designed for families with middle class budgets, they don’t look cheaply made. Another difference from much of what Codding built. So.

Our walking tour begins at the corner of Tenth and B streets, which might as well be called the intersection of Streamline and Moderne. Here are two of Caulkins’ best examples kitty-corner from each other. Use the Google street view below for orientation (or if you’re not walking, follow the arrows as directed):

Standing from the Google viewpoint, the building closest to the camera is the 1940 Thurlow Professional Building. On the distance on the other side of Tenth street is seen the 1938 Hamlin Medical Building. Note the large overall area of wall space devoted to windows on both, as well as corner windows wherever possible.

The SEIU building at 600 B street shows more of a debt to Art Deco, mainly because of the door and torch lights on either side (although I don’t know if these were original). Ribbons in the concrete steps lead to the entryway with its aluminum canopy, which is repeated on the side. The entrance is in the middle of the building, yet the window layout is asymmetrical.

Walk across the blocked intersection island (uh, why is it there?) to 576 B street. The imposing pilasters give it that heavy PWA Moderne look, although the corrugated metal cladding adds much needed color. Note the caduceus medallion at the top from its old days as a medical building – which is a bit awkward as the offices have been used by lawyers and accountants for as long as I can remember.

Proceed up Tenth street to see the side of the building, again packed with metal frame windows, including every corner. The arrangement of the windows is asymmetrical although edges line up vertically.

Continue up Tenth and turn left at the stop sign, walking to the intersection of College and Mendocino avenues. Cross College ave. at the stoplight and proceed left (west) on College. Turn right (north) at the first street on Glenn, and then two short blocks to Benton street.

There are at least five Caulkins homes in this general neighborhood – and likely more we don’t know about – making it Ground Zero for his residential work. One reason there may be so many is because he lived at 100 Ridgway avenue (now cut off on the other side of the freeway) during the 1930s and early 1940s.

The 1937 Douglas house at the corner of Glenn and Benton streets is a fine example of how adept Caulkins was at tinkering with the popular styles of his day. While all that half timbering and the steep roof screams jolly olde England, one doesn’t notice the other stuff that’s completely discordant. The many dormer windows are extremely large for the house – but since he used shed roofs instead of the usual Tudor gables, they don’t draw much attention. (I’d also argue that without the distracting half timber the house would look top heavy.) And look: Metal frame casement windows on three corners, à la Streamline Moderne.

Continue walking north on Glenn street one block, to the intersection with Denton Court/Denton Way. The cul de sac site was the subject of much controversy in 1949, as Santa Rosa wanted to put the War Memorial Auditorium there – yes, the same hulking building now across from the fairgrounds (and designed by Caulkins). It’s a long story, explored here in “THE VETS WAR MEMORIAL WARS.”

Turn east on Denton Way, walking on the right side of the street. You will pass two more Caulkins houses at #432 and #446, built respectively in 1935 and 1936. Aside from mentions in the Press Democrat, we can ID these as Caulkins houses because of…wait for it…corner window pairs. (The windows at #446 are updated.) The newer house also has a unusual feature also found on the Chamber of Commerce model home he designed about the same time: A tall, swept standing seam canopy draping over a bay window.

At the end of Denton Way is the 1937 house for Acme Beer baron Floyd Trombetta. It is the largest of the Caulkins homes in the area and the one most conforming to a style, here Spanish Colonial Revival – no Streamline Moderne windows this time. He did somewhat break stride by putting the entryway in a tower, per the English-Norman hybrid.

Proceed north on Mendocino avenue. You’ll immediately be in front of St Luke’s, which Caulkins designed in 1945. It is supposed to be “Tudor English Gothic,” but aside from some of the fenestration I wouldn’t have guessed.

Walk north to the stoplight at Ridgway ave. where you should cross Mendocino ave. to the east side. Continue two short blocks to the Crawford Court intersection.

Cal Caulkins 1936 drawing of the Trombley house, 1122 Mendocino ave

 

On the corner is the home Caulkins designed in 1936 for his friends, the Trombleys. “Professor” George Trombley was Santa Rosa’s premier music teacher and founder of the Santa Rosa Symphony in 1929. Although it’s now altered and broken up into apartments, this was a showplace when it was built; the Press Democrat printed his drawing at least twice, along with a lengthy description of how “ultra modern” it was. And yes, there were corner windows.

Cross the street back to the west side using the pedestrian stoplight and continue north until you reach the Santa Rosa Junior College gate. This was designed by Caulkins and dedicated June 15, 1935 in a ceremony including the widow of Luther Burbank. Here would be built a grand college, the arch promised.

In the years that followed, Cal Caulkins designed ALL of the original buildings on the campus. If he had created no other architecture in his life, he should be remembered for that.

His full name was Clarence Adelbert Caulkins Jr., although everyone called him “Cal” – which has caused some to mistakenly assume he was a Calvin. He was born 1899 in Montana and studied architecture at UC/Berkeley, where he worked for years with John Galen Howard, who designed the Empire Building and would have given Santa Rosa several other memorable buildings had our civic leaders not gone on the cheap.

Caulkins moved to Santa Rosa around 1932 and partnered with William Herbert, an architect who had been here for about fifteen years. Curiously, the prolific Caulkins is now all but forgotten while Herbert’s prestige as “Santa Rosa’s first architect” has risen – even though he accomplished little.

Today Bill Herbert is falsely credited with projects such as the original Luther Burbank school (sorry, it was built about ten years before Herbert showed up) is credited with the second Luther Burbank school built in 1940 and the designs which appeared during the firm’s sudden burst of activity that began once Caulkins joined the firm. Herbert is often named as the architect for Sebastopol’s 1935 Park Side School, for example, although the design is clearly in synch with Caulkin’s version of PWA Moderne. What Herbert did accomplish was mainly in the 1920s, particularly as being the supervising architect during the construction of Santa Rosa High School. He was also Santa Rosa’s building inspector for a number of years. Only two surviving examples of his solo architecture still can be found in Santa Rosa – a modest house at 418 Denton Way and the “Von Tillow Block” at 616 Mendocino ave., home to the Round Robin dive bar. Although William Herbert was said to be an MIT graduate, I’ll wager it was in a field of study other than architecture.

Scan the list below of the work produced by the Herbert & Caulkins office in 1935 and be humbled – two major schools, the first Junior College building (the gym), a major office building and four houses in Santa Rosa, one of them a place in Proctor Heights that the Press Democrat called “palatial.” There were probably more; next door to the house at 1121 St. Helena ave. is another from the same year, both exactly using Caulkins’ English-Norman vocabulary. And a couple of doors away is #1107, which was used as a model home for a time, eventually becoming the Caulkins family home. And on top of all that, he did a design for the county hospital (seen here).

(RIGHT: May 8, 1936 Rosenberg store fire. Photo courtesy Sonoma County Library)

When Caulkins opened his own office in 1936, things got really busy for him. There were at least seven more houses including the Streamline Moderne showpiece for his friends, the Trombleys. And then the disaster of May 8th happened.

The fire at Rosenberg’s Department Store was most devastating event in Santa Rosa since the Great 1906 Earthquake. The fire was so fierce there was concern that the city reservoir might not have enough water to fight it. Firemen from all over the area needed several tense hours to bring it under control.

The Rosenbergs vowed immediately to rebuild – and as the lost building’s upper floors were a major hotel, there were two businesses to restore. They gave Cal Caulkins the commissions for both.

The site at Fourth and B (currently the CitiBank building) was to become the New Hotel Santa Rosa as soon as fire debris was cleared and the blueprints were ready. The department store would be built on the half-block at Fourth and D, which was then a gas station and a garage. The Rosenbergs already owned the portion of Third and D which is still used as a parking lot behind the store.

The New Hotel Santa Rosa opened in December 1936, just seven months after the fire which is nothing short of amazing – three shifts of construction workers were kept busy 24 hours a day.

The exterior of the hotel appears plain and rote, but that’s only because all photos are in black and white; when it opened the PD spent a paragraph praising Caulkins’ innovative use of color – yet without describing what the colors were. Inside the design straddled Moderne and Art Deco. Aluminum bands were used there as well to create strong horizontal lines with indirect lighting cast upward from the pillars. These features continued in the dining room, which could seat 350 (!) and had walls painted in brown, yellow and apricot, which might well have been the muted exterior colors as well.

New Hotel Santa Rosa.  Photos courtesy Sonoma County Library

 

But also in December the paper revealed the San Francisco firm of Hertzka & Knowles were the architects for the department store. Nothing was said of why they were replacing Caulkins – or if he was being replaced completely.

Since the days immediately after the fire, Caulkins had been talking up his design to reporters and a drawing of his appeared in the PD less than three weeks afterward. Those early articles show plans were very much in flux; the paper said it would be a one story building with a mezzanine, then soon after that it could be up to six stories high with “a battery of elevators and escalators.” His drawing shows a building half again as large as what was built. Consistent throughout was that Fred Rosenberg wanted the place to look hip; according to the PD, Caulkins was “instructed to design the store as ultra-modern as possible…it will be of moderne architecture, with Caulkins intending to call for considerable use of a new-type structural glass and chrome-plated ironwork in his plans.”

The second drawing below appeared just before construction began and was most likely done by H&K. The most striking difference between Caulkins’ early drawing is the tower, which reached the building’s six-story potential – as the tallest structure in town, it was said to be like a beacon when illuminated at night. Aside from that, his preliminary sketch of a much larger building is recognizable in this later drawing, particularly the strong vertical decorative elements on the face contrasting with a stack of belt courses wrapping all the way around. And there’s plenty of that glass brick which Caulkins was intending to use.

Cal Caulkins preliminary drawing for Rosenberg’s Department Store. PD, May 26, 1936

 

Final (?) drawing unsigned for Rosenberg’s Department Store. PD, Jan 21, 1937

 

Whether H&K completely took over or collaborated with Caulkins is unknown, as is whether the final design belongs to him, them, or both. I’m inclined to believe all of the store’s interior and most of its exterior should be attributed to Caulkins; as seems to be the case with the hotel, there’s an originality in the design which defies simple definitions of what Art Deco or Streamline Moderne is “supposed” to look like. Nor can I find any examples of Hertzka & Knowles designing anything else that looks like this store. In 1941 they created the Leader Department Store in Petaluma (later Carithers) and that’s best described as being more in the International style, so devoid it is of any artistic features.

What does seem clear is that the poor guy was overstretched when construction plans were being finalized at the end of 1936. Besides the two enormous Rosenberg projects and the houses, a major problem arose at the Junior College while constructing his second building, causing all work to stop (the lumber was poor quality). With pressure to open the hotel doors ASAP, Caulkins would have had to be superhuman to give the department store project his full attention, what with the required budget breakouts, contractor bids, and million other last minute details large and small. Construction on the store began in January 1937 and its grand opening was shortly before Hallowe’en the same year.

Caulkins stayed incredibly busy over the next few years – check out the timeline below. In 1938 alone he designed Burbank auditorium and three other major buildings at the Junior College. He also became president of the Rotary, which seems to have been a full-time job, judging be all the doings reported in the news. And when WWII happened he went away for three years as a civilian employee designing dorms and housing for the Navy, becoming the architect for the entire Naval District in the Bay Area.

And now the obl. Believe-it-or-Not! surprise twist: Everything you’ve read here so far about Caulkins is just prelude to the really interesting story.

When Cal came back from the war, he had a vision to redesign almost all of Santa Rosa’s downtown core from the ground up. Instead of the grid of streets which had been  platted out way back in 1853 when there was only a couple of houses, a tavern and stray pigs, Caulkins envisioned a magnificent modern civic center to serve the town and county, something which likely would have turned us into a model city of postwar reconstruction for the entire United States.

The Chamber of Commerce loved the idea, as did the labor unions, service clubs, veteran’s groups, women’s groups and politicians of all stripes. The Press Democrat ran a banner on the front page reading, “Santa Rosa’s Future is at Stake.” It looked like a done deal. And then came December 4, 1945 – a day that will live in a kind of infamy.

 

 

 

CAL CAULKINS ARCHITECTURE


1932
Corning Union High School gym – Tehama county  (w/ Herbert)


1933
Webb & Bowman building – fuel oil and boilers 3rd and Main (w/ Herbert)


1935
Usseglio house 432 Denton Way
Chamber of Commerce model home 1621 Proctor Terrace – English cottage (w/ Herbert)
Proctor house 2445 Sunrise Place/Proctor Heights  – Mediterranean  (w/ Herbert)
SRJC gate dedication June 15 Mrs. Burbank
SRJC gym (w/ Herbert)
Sebastopol Union Elementary School – now Park Side (w/ Herbert)
Farmer’s Mutual Insurance 631-635 Fifth st (w/ Herbert)
Malm house 1121 St. Helena ave (w/ Herbert)
Cloverdale Union High School  (w/ Herbert)


1936
Eicher house 438 Denton Way
Call house 928 McDonald ave
Talbot house 201 Talbot ave
Rapp house 236 Talbot ave
E. Stewart house one story early California style
George Bech house 210 Palm ave Sebastopol enlarge and alter
Trombley house 1122 Mendocino ave
SRJC “home science and commercial” building
Rosenberg’s Department Store
Hotel Santa Rosa 4th and B, 508 Fourth st – see PD 12/4/36
Trombetta house 821 Mendocino ave
D. W. Douglas house 354 Benton st
H. T. Graves house 1421 17th st
WPA community center at Howarth Park (proposed – built?)
Stone co. new bldg + alter  625 Fifth st
Ralph Brown house 1612 Bryden Lane


1938
Hamlin medical bldg 576 B st
Knowlden Court apt building 502 Santa Rosa ave (now Economy Inn)
Challenge Cream and Butter Santa Rosa ave
auditorium for Fremont school
county hospital nurse’s quarters
doctor office remodel  1116 Mendocino ave (next to Trombley)
Burbank auditorium, 3 other major JC buildings – PD 9/8/38 – open Jan 1940
roller rink at south entrance Santa Rosa Redwood Hwy near Triangle


1940
Clark Avery house 219 Doyle Park Drive
Thurlow Professional Building 600 B st
Ives Park pool and rec buildings, Sebastopol
L. Grant Kellogg house hillside east of Santa Rosa (59b Adobe Canyon Rd?)
Ukiah fire station and jail
houses for doctors in Ukiah, Willits, Mendocino, Eureka


1941
Building Trades Temple 636 Third st
Seidel house Petaluma – early colonial


1945
Mendocino county hospital
St. Luke’s 905 Mendocino Ave built 48 “tudor english gothic”
Lessard Paper co. Sebastopol ave and Olive corner


1946
Sears – 7th st block between A and B 75000 sq ft opens 1949
Dodge-Plymouth dealership 955 Redwood Hwy S
Buick dealership Redwood Hwy S “automobile row”


1948
Ling furniture store 1044 Fourth st
Doyle Park school built 1950 (now Santa Rosa French-American Charter)
Ben Hall bldg SW corner 10th and Mendocino ave


1949
SRJC assembly hall and music bldg
Fremont grade school (demolished now Charter School for the Arts)
Middletown Unified School
Mark West Union School
American Trust Co. bank corner of Fourth and Exchange
Belleuve Union Elementary School (Kawana)
Carniglia house 1940 Grace Drive
1949 remodel of courthouse basement for county surveyor and road commissioner
Mendocino county courthouse
Mendocino union high school


1950
First Presbyterian 1550 Pacific ave (early sketches gothic)
IOOF Hall Santa Rosa 545 Pacific ave
Charles Niles Jr. house 2111 Linwood ave


1951
Greyhound expand and remodel 5th and B
Forestville Union Elementary school new wing
Flowery Elementary School Fetters Hot Springs
Sharrocks house 931 Litchfield ave Sebastopol
Roseland elementary admin + addition  985 Sebastopol ave


1952
Harmony Union School District, Occidental built 1957
East Petaluma fire station
Ukiah High School gym


1953
Doctor’s bldg 1158 Montgomery Dr


1955
Christian Scientist 330 Hope st
Welti Funeral Home 1225 Sonoma Avenue (now Daniels Chapel of the Roses)
car wash between Santa Rosa ave and Petaluma Hill Rd


1956
Cinnabar Elementary School


1957
Cotati Elementary School


1958
Veterans Memorial Sebastopol
Twin Hills Union Elementary School


1959
Alexander Valley Union School addition


1961
Roseland elementary 950 Sebastopol ave (new school or 5 room add to Sheppard school?)
Office of Civil Defense – recondition buildings at Naval Air Station Sebastopol Rd.


1962
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church 500 Robinson Rd Sebastopol


1963
Salvation Army 115 Pierce st
store 112 N Main st. Sebastopol (south of People’s Music)
Newberry’s store Fourth st additions and renovation


1964
Knox Presbyterian 1650 W 3rd St


(Year Unknown)
A. Z. Blackman house 549 Talbot ave
Carl Livingston house “Circle 3L Ranch” Santa Rosa (7639 Sonoma Hwy?) early american
Yaeger & Kirk offices 701 Wilson st (now Copperfields warehouse)
Congregationalist church Oakland
Lewis school additions
Lakeview, Eucalyptus school districts projects
Point Arena school
Upper Lake school
Round Valley school

 

CAL CAULKINS CAREER EVENTS


1935
plans for American Legion bldg south of Julliard park between Santa Rosa av and A
preliminary plans on county hospital


1937
1937 settles $1100 claim for prelim plans on county hospital $800 (John Easterly final)


1938
mainly four SRJC projects, Rotary president


1940
Nov. issue Architect and Engineer feature


1941
Hogan house in Yokayo subdivision Ukiah wins award


1942
May – active duty on dorms, housing for Richmond/Vallejo farm/defense workers


1943
civilian employee of Navy in SF


1944
architect for 12th Naval District


1945
Andre Morilhat, C. J. Harkness joins firm


1946
North Bay rep for AIA


1947
Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital preliminary plans (not used)


1952
“Caulkins Plan” seismic survey of all downtown bldg. mandated retrofits


1959
President Santa Rosa Downtown Development Assoc

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hahmanpreview

THE NAME’S ON THE DOORKNOB

Jeff Elliott 1 Comment

Most folks are content to put their name on the mailbox and leave it at that. Paul T. Hahman put his moniker on his doorknob – well, his initials, actually.

The Hahman home at 718 McDonald Avenue is currently on the market for the first time in ages. The exterior and most of the interior is beautifully preserved, in part because the house has had so few owners. The original family lived there for the first 42 years and the listing agent says the current owners have been there for three decades. That’s 72 out of the 107 years – more than two-thirds of its existence.

The monogrammed knob is a cute touch by architect Brainerd Jones. (CORRECTION: The “PH” didn’t stand for Paul Hahman, but San Francisco’s Palace Hotel! And here I’ve always felt guilty about taking home the complimentary shampoo. Thanks, Paul Woodfin for the correct info.)

The 1910 Hahman House is the fourth Shingle Style design that Jones created in Santa Rosa and is the most conventional. Where the 1902 Paxton House, 1905 Comstock House and 1908 Saturday Afternoon Club were in the Eastern Shingle Style that tried to be both rustic and elegant, the Hahman House is more like an example of the Prairie School – an American Foursquare with Craftsman features. Still, it must have seemed shockingly modern amidst McDonald Avenue’s dull Victorian mansions.

What the Hahman House most closely resembles is Jones’ 1908 Ellis-Martin House at 1197 East Washington St, Petaluma – which coincidentally is also for sale. Although the Petaluma house was smaller (4,450 vs. 3,435 square feet) they share the same general massing and details, inside and out. There are corbels under the eaves and window boxes with brackets and rafter tails wherever possible. His trademark “Union Jack” pattern is used in small square windows. Both houses have high redwood wainscoting throughout the downstairs, a staircase with a fine oak newel post and handrail, along with tight spacing between the rails to ensure a small child could not squeeze a head through. (By contrast, the balusters at Comstock House are wide enough apart that a cat can launch itself between them to pounce on an unwary homeowner.)

 

 

1910 Hahman House and 1908 Ellis-Martin House. Photo credits Coldwell Banker, Century 21

 

There are a couple stories of interest about the Hahman House beginnings. Harriet and Paul Hahman had two young daughters, Margaret and Henrietta, who they took over to the property in 1909 for a ground-breaking ceremony. “They were each presented with spoons and told to ‘Dig!’ which they proceeded to do as if their little lives depended on it,” the Press Democrat reported. “These spoons will be suitably engraved and in the after years may be handed down as family heirlooms.”

The Hahmans also had the exceptional good taste to hire local master craftsman Frank S. Smith to create a complete set of living room and reception hall furniture intended to harmonize with the house. The furniture – described in the Santa Rosa Republican article transcribed below – took about a year to make.

Paul T. Hahman was a pharmacist and had Santa Rosa’s main drug store next to the Empire Building (see postcard). He was part of James Wyatt Oates’ crowd and has often been mentioned here. My favorite story happened about a month after the Hahmans moved into their nice new house, when the town’s veterinarian staggered into the drug store asking for help, having accidentally swallowed a pill containing enough poison to kill several people. Paul gave him an emetic plus some sort of “hypodermic” as most of the doctors in town rushed to the scene, probably partially out of curiosity to see whether the antidote would work.

Paul’s parents were Feodor and Henrietta Hahman. In the 1850s Feodor and his partners ran a store in the old Carrillo adobe and then – for reasons which have never been clearly explained – platted out a town they called “Santa Rosa” (see “CITY OF ROSES AND SQUATTERS“).

Hahman Home at 718 McDonald Avenue (This Photo and doorknob: Jennifer Knef/Coldwell Banker)

 

 FURNITURE FOR HAHMAN HOME
Designed and Made by Decorator F. S. Smith

Frank S. Smith has just completed and delivered to Paul T. Hahman one of the handsomest sets of furniture which graces the homes of the City of Roses. Mr. Smith is a decorator, and does special works in furniture and draperies. The set which he has manufactured for Mr. And Mrs. Hahman is artistic and handsome in every way. The entire work was done in Mr. Smith’s small workshop on his premises at 1209 Ripley street.

The furniture made by the Santa Rosan was for the reception hall and living room of the handsome Hahman residence. A reception chair, cozy arm chair, table and tabouret were designed and made for the reception hall. The furniture for the living room included a mammoth Davenport, two large rockers, one large easy chair, a window chair, pedestal tabouret and large table with drawer.

Mr. Smith claims for this set of furniture that there has been nothing made where the identical lines are carried out and still secure the uniform lines are carried out and still secure the uniform lines as in the pieces he has turned out for Mr. Hahman. It was designed and made exclusively for the Hahman home, and to harmonize with the other furnishings and draperies of the residence. Mr. Smith manufactures furniture of different designs for each particular home. He has made an elegant dining room set for Senator and Mrs. Thomas Kearns of Kenwood.

All of the furniture for Mr. Hahman is upholstered in a silk damask of conventional figure, in two tones of brown. The elegant Davenport is 78 inches long and 30 inches deep. All of the furniture is equipped with sunken leather casters, which prevents scratching the polished floors of the home. It is all made of heavy quarter sawed oak and finished with a handsome piano polish, which makes it have an appearance of elegance seldom found in furniture.

 – Santa Rosa Republican, April 7, 1911

 

Mr. and Mrs. Paul T. Hahman are moving into their handsome new home on McDonald avenue. Friends who have inspected the residence pronounce its arrangement calculated to prove most comfortable in all respects.

– Press Democrat, February 27 1910

 

Ground was broken for the erection of the Paul Hahman residence on McDonald avenue last week. The Misses Margaret and Henrietta Hahman, the cute daughters of the family, assisted materially in the work. They were each presented with spoons and told to “Dig!” which they proceeded to do as if their little lives depended on it. These spoons will be suitably engraved and in the after years may be handed down as family heirlooms.

– Press Democrat, September 12 1909

 

Mr. and Mrs. Paul T. Hahman were visitors in Petaluma yesterday, consulting Architect Brainerd Jones regarding plans for a new home to be erected at once on McDonald avenue.

– Press Democrat, June 5 1909

 

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