From: Paul Travis, AICP, Principal; John LoCascio, AIA ...

DRAFT DOCUMENT FOR INTERNAL REVIEW

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2600 Wilshire Boulevard, Santa Monica, CA Historic Resource Assessment HISTORIC RESOURCES GROUP

1

To: Roxanne Tanemori, AICP

Santa Monica City Planning Division

From: Paul Travis, AICP, Principal; John LoCascio, AIA, Principal; Heather Goers, Architectural Historian

Date: December 6, 2016

INTRODUCTION

Historic Resources Group has completed an evaluation of the commercial property located at 2600 Wilshire Boulevard in the City of Santa Monica, California, for potential historic significance, and to identify significant character-defining features of the property. HRG’s review included site observation of existing conditions on the property, research of building permits and other primary and secondary sources, and a review of existing photographs and survey data for the property. This report concludes that 2600 Wilshire Boulevard is eligible for listing as a City of Santa Monica Landmark under Criterion 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6. These conclusions are based on a review of the relevant historic contexts and an analysis of the eligibility criteria and for designation as a local landmark.

Previous Evaluations

The property was previously evaluated on two subsequent occasions in 2000. Historic Resources Group prepared an assessment on April 19, 2000, but was inconclusive regarding the property’s eligibility as a historic resource. A later report prepared in June 2000 by Chattel Architecture, Planning & Preservation, Inc. found the property ineligible for listing in the California Register.

More recent evaluations have also been undertaken in 2011 and 2013. Chattel Architecture re-examined the property in an assessment dated October 21, 2011, and found that the building did not appear to be eligible for listing in the California Register,


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2but that it may be potentially eligible as a City of Santa Monica Landmark. In July 2013, the property was evaluated by ICF International, which determined that the property appeared to be eligible as a City of Santa Monica Landmark under Criteria 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6.

HISTORIC CONTEXT

Home Savings and Loan Association

Founded in 1952 by financier Howard Ahmanson, the Home Savings and Loan Association quickly became one of the largest and most influential savings and loan associations in the country, and played a critical role in the postwar banking industry in Southern California.

Howard F. Ahmanson, Sr. was a successful financier and philanthropist who originally intended to follow in his father’s footsteps selling insurance. Born in 1907 in Omaha, Nebraska, Ahmanson relocated to Los Angeles with his mother following the sudden death of his father in 1925. Ahmanson opened his own fire insurance company in 1927, while still an undergraduate at the University of Southern California. Ahmanson’s business acumen netted him huge profits during the Depression, when foreclosed properties required a new insurance policy.1 His early customers were savings and loan associations, and eventually, Ahmanson later recalled, he “knew more about the savings and loan business than [he] did about insurance.”2 One day over lunch, a friend mentioned that he knew of a Highland Park savings and loan association for sale. Ahmanson invited the man up to his office, where he promptly wrote a check for $60,000, and entered the savings and loan business overnight.3

Home Savings was established in 1952 as the result of a merger between one of Ahmanson’s savings and loan interests, the Home Building and Loan Association (est. 1889) with the North American Savings and Loan Association (est. 1924), creating the Home Savings and Loan Association. In combining the two companies, Ahmanson created the largest state-chartered savings and loan association in the country, with six branch offices and assets of $55 million.4 In the decade following the establishment of Home Savings, Howard Ahmanson embarked upon an extensive series of acquisitions and mergers that included the purchase of eighteen other savings and loans associations – before, as Time magazine described, “the rest of the industry awoke to the advantages of

1 “Entrepreneurs: Emperor in Private,” Time, November 10, 1967. 2 “It’s Not All Finance with L.A. Financier,” Los Angeles Times, June 11, 1961. 3 “The Master Builders of Savings & Loan,” Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1969. 4 “Merger Combines Two Big Building and Loan Units,” Los Angeles Times, January 3, 1952.


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3big-scale operation.”5 While his expansion plans were aggressive, Ahmanson’s strategy was straightforward: as long as the location was good, he’d just ask the price and pay it.6 These acquisitions were focused primarily on suburban areas such as such as Studio City, Burbank, and Anaheim, which allowed Home Savings to expand its market into rapidly developing San Fernando Valley and Orange County communities. A Los Angeles Times article profiling Ahmanson’s Home Savings success story remarked, “He lent in neighborhoods people would want to move up to.”7 Capitalizing on the rapid postwar growth of these suburban communities allowed Ahmanson to profit from both business and consumer lending, and Home Savings made much of its money on the fees paid by builders for construction loans.8 Over time the company also became involved in real estate development, and thus was able to profit from selling both the land for home construction, and mortgages to finance the development.9 By 1954, only two years after the merger which created the company, Home Savings had acquired over $100 million in assets and had become the largest savings and loan association in the country.10

In 1954, Howard Ahmanson commissioned Millard Sheets to build Home Savings’ first new branch office at 9245 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills.11 Completed in 1956, the building, with its colorful mosaics and stained glass windows, proved so popular with the public that it recouped its construction costs in just ten days. The construction of the new Beverly Hills office was widely publicized and marked a turning point in Home Savings’ expansion. As Millard Sheets later recalled:

The early buildings were phenomenally successful from the point of view of the company or the corporation. What I mean by that is that the public reaction was so strong that the first Home Savings building literally paid for itself in the first ten days of operations. We built that building…right across the street…from where they had been doing business for nine years. In nine years the old building had taken in approximately $11 million in deposits. It was a very nice building, not unattractive, but it didn’t have anything specifically to separate it from the other things on Wilshire Boulevard. When we built the new building, we had both mosaic and sculpture, and it had a different feeling entirely. In the first ten days $19

5 “Entrepreneurs: Emperor in Private,” Time, November 10, 1967. 6 “The Master Builders of Savings & Loan,” Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1969. 7 “The Master Builders of Savings & Loan,” Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1969. 8 “The Master Builders of Savings & Loan,” Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1969. 9 “Executives: One Man’s Show,” Time, June 28, 1968. 10 “Home Savings Assets Mount,” Los Angeles Times, January 6, 1953. 11 “Office Building Project Is Set,” Los Angeles Times, January 10, 1954.


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4million walked in the door. Now, that was a great shock to Mr. Ahmanson, and it was probably a greater shock to me because neither of us had been thinking in terms of this being so important to business. But immediately it was apparent that it was important to business.12

With the success of the Beverly Hills branch in mind, Howard Ahmanson altered the course of his expansion plans. Now, instead of acquiring other savings and loans located in desirable markets, Home Savings now would build most of their own new branch offices. In 1959, the company embarked upon an expansion plan, supervised by Millard Sheets, which called for the renovation of existing branch locations as well as the construction of eight new offices in high-demand areas, including Encino, Pomona, Torrance, and Whittier.13 The Los Angeles Times deemed Howard Ahmanson’s luck in selecting financially successful locations “uncanny,” but Ahmanson’s philosophy for selecting a site was simple: “Pick a corner where someone would most want to erect a billboard and put a Home Savings branch there instead.”14 The new branches designed by Sheets prompted an overwhelming response from the public – which translated into profits for Home Savings. The longest any of Sheets’ branches took to recoup their building costs was six months.15 The success of the expansion program, coupled with Ahmanson’s innovative promotional schemes, propelled Home Savings and Loan – already the country’s biggest single savings and loan company – to reach $1 billion in assets in 1961.16 It would take only five more years to double that number, making Home Savings the only $2 billion savings and loan association in the country in 1966.17

Howard Ahmanson’s sudden death just two years later, on June 17, 1968, marked the end of an era for Home Savings and Loan, but it did not slow the association’s phenomenal growth. In 1969, Home Savings and Loan became the first savings and loan association in the country to reach $3 billion in assets.18 By the late 1970s, having virtually saturated the California market, Home Savings began to acquire other associations across the country; in 1981, the company changed its name to Home Savings of America to reflect its growing national presence. In 1998, Home’s parent company, H. F. Ahmanson &

12 Millard Sheets, Oral history interview with George M. Goodwin, January-February, 1977, in Pasadena, CA, transcript, Volume Two, University of California Oral History Program, Los Angeles, CA. https://archive.org/details/millardsheetsora02shee (accessed November 2016). 13 “Home Savings in $5 Million Expansion Plan,” Los Angeles Times, November 8, 1959. 14 “The Master Builders of Savings & Loan,” Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1969. 15 Sheets, Volume Two. 16 “No. 5 Joins the Select Ranks of Area’s Billion-Dollar Firms,” Los Angeles Times, December 3, 1961. 17 “Ahmanson: What’s This Talk of S&L Pinch?” Los Angeles Times, June 5, 1966. 18 “California: A Southern California savings and loan is first to reach $3 billion,” Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1969.


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5Co., and its subsidiaries were acquired by Washington Mutual.19 Following the collapse of Washington Mutual in 2008, the company’s assets, including its remaining original Home Savings and Loan branch offices, were assumed by J.P. Morgan Chase.

Home Savings and Loan Santa Monica Branch

Designed by Millard Sheets and completed in 1970, the Santa Monica branch of the Home Savings and Loan Association was constructed as part of an extensive postwar building campaign undertaken by Home Savings which began in the mid-1950s and continued through the 1970s. By 1965, Santa Monica had been identified as a site for future development, and a temporary branch was opened at 1929 Wilshire Boulevard.20 This site served as the Santa Monica headquarters for Home Savings and Loan while the company sought to secure an appropriate site for the establishment of a larger, permanent branch office.

In 1969, construction of a permanent facility commenced at 2600 Wilshire Boulevard. The design for the property was conceived by Millard Sheets; Home Savings’ longtime director of design. As Sheets was not a licensed architect, he worked with his longtime collaborator, architect S. David Underwood, to develop the plans. The design, while retaining the same readily-identifiable monumental form and aesthetic as that of earlier Home Savings branches designed by Sheets, reflected a unique departure in terms of plan: the Santa Monica location was situated on the lot with its primary volume and entrance oriented at a 45-degree angle to the street, with wings which projected from the primary façade, forming a modified V-shaped plan. Typically, branch locations with projecting volumes featured wings projecting from the secondary façade, creating elongated rectangular plans.

The design is distinct, and the Santa Monica location is one of only two such examples ever executed by Sheets as part of the Home Savings building program. Given the widespread popularity of Home Savings branch offices during this period and Howard Ahmanson’s insistence on adhering to the company’s brand identity, opportunities for experimentation in design were rare. However, as Sheets would later reflect, in retrospect he did not consider the experiment wholly successful from an artistic standpoint.

I did a building in Santa Monica which is a fairly good-sized building. I had a front elevation that was turned exactly at a 45-degreee angle to the corner, then two wings that came forward. They didn’t go straight across, like many of our 45-degree corner buildings have done. I’m not objecting

19 “Home Savings to be Acquired in $10.1 Billion Deal,” Los Angeles Times, March 18, 1998. 20 “Beach Branch of S&L Opened,” Los Angeles Times, January 17, 1965.


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6to that at all. But instead of doing, as I generally do, smaller, vignette mosaics in the middle of perhaps a dark colored granite or something, I did a whole panel. It’s one of the biggest ones we’ve done. We actually used the same plans twice. We used it in Anaheim as well as in Santa Monica, though we had totally different themes in the mosaic in Santa Monica than in the one in Anaheim. I would never do it again. It’s too much mosaic. It’s too much in a rectangle. It’s like an oversized painting. I wince every time I go by it. Now, people like the mosaic, and I don’t think it’s one of the greatest, but it’s a satisfactory mosaic. Certainly I designed it – so I haven’t anyone to blame but myself. But I would never do that again, because I think it’s far too separate from the building, and it should never be separate. It should be an integral part.21

The mosaic in question, one of the largest executed for Home Savings, measured 40 feet in width and was designed by Sheets himself and executed by artist Nancy Colbath in Byzantine and Venetian glass. True to the Home Savings program, the mosaic reflected local themes and depicted “pleasures along the beach,” including swimming, yachting, fishing, and beach games.22

The themes established in the primary mosaic were carried throughout the property and incorporated into other artwork, including a plaza fountain topped by a figurative sculpture cast in bronze. Designed by Richard Ellis, the piece depicts a family at play in the surf. Another sculpture of a dolphin, designed and cast in bronze by John Svenson, decorates the east façade. Interior artwork included a mural designed by Sheets as well as a stained glass window designed by Susan Hertel, which was intended to give “a kaleidoscope of beach activity” and included depictions of swimming, beach games, and figures with animals.23

With construction completed in November 1970, The Santa Monica branch at 2600 Wilshire Boulevard held its grand opening on December 2, 1970. Home Savings continued to operate at this location for nearly thirty years; by 2000, however, the company had vacated the property and the building had been acquired by cell phone retailer Cellular Fantasy. The building was converted to offices following the sale, and the

21 Sheets, Volume Two. 22 “Art in the Home Savings and Loan Association: Santa Monica,” January 15, 1971, Millard Sheets Papers, 1907-1990, Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art, Washington, DC.. 23 “Art in the Home Savings and Loan Association: Santa Monica,” January 15, 1971, Millard Sheets Papers, 1907-1990, Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art, Washington, DC.


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7company operated out of this location until 2010, when the building was acquired by its current retail tenant, New Balance.

Home Savings Bank Architecture

The architecture of the Home Savings and Loan Association shared some aesthetic characteristics with other postwar bank architecture, but was unique in both its origin and intent. Designed by artist Millard Sheets, the Home Savings branch offices of the postwar era were specifically designed to showcase integrated artwork and reflect the importance both Howard Ahmanson and Millard Sheets placed on the inclusion of the arts in the public realm.

By the early 1950s Millard Sheets had already designed several commercial buildings and had completed murals for many more. Though he had never met Howard Ahmanson, their relationship began when one day Sheets received a letter from Ahmanson saying,

Dear Sheets. Saw photograph building you designed, LA Times. Liked it. I have two valuable properties, Wilshire Boulevard, need buildings. Have driven Wilshire Boulevard twenty-six years, know year every building built, names most architects, bored. If interested in doing a building that will look good thirty-five or forty years from now when I’m not here, call me.24

Millard Sheets would later describe it as “the most amazing letter I ever received.”25The two men met and, after spending a single afternoon together, Ahmanson asked Sheets to design a building for him. It was this initial project, an insurance office which is now demolished, which paved the way for Sheets’ long-term relationship with Howard Ahmanson and Home Savings and Loan. The two men shared a common interest in the arts and Ahmanson was attracted to Sheets’ artistic abilities. According to Sheets, Ahmanson felt that “in most American commercial buildings there had been a lack of art – not merely in terms of perhaps hanging pictures, but art that was integrated into the design of the building, both in sculpture and in murals of various kinds. His general reaction, I should say, to our surrounding was that we were rather culturally deficient in this respect. He believed that people would be very much interested in the inclusion of the arts.”26 Ahmanson also expressed his frustration to Sheets that “most commercial buildings

24 Sheets, Volume Two. 25 Sheets, Volume Two. 26 Sheets, Volume Two.


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8are at best well decorated by good furniture and occasional hangings and reproductions and so forth, but I want something that is really a part of the building.”27

It was these feelings that motivated Ahmanson’s hiring of Sheets; in announcing Sheets’ commission to design the new Home Savings branch office in Beverly Hills in 1954, Ahmanson said, “Sheets was our immediate choice for a designer who could combine the art and flavor of California with the utilitarian needs of a savings and loan association.”28 However, despite his obvious interest Sheets’ work and philosophy, Ahmanson refused to involve himself in the design process, saying only, “You be fair with me and I’ll be fair with you. The budget – that’s up to what you build. You build it like you were building it for yourself.”29 As Sheets later recalled, “That’s when I discovered that if you design a building that requires art, they would have to use it.”30

This realization informed Sheets’ design process for Home Savings from the start.

So from the very beginning, I, needless to say, was delighted to think of the building as being not a form that you left a space or two and marked “mural” or “mosaic” or something else in, but as a form that required these arts to be an integral part of it. The sculpture was, of course, related both in scale and material. Sometimes we worked in bronze. Sometimes we worked in fired ceramic that became an actual part of the body of the building. We also carved, in many instances, right into the live stone. We’ve worked in almost every way that you can work in sculpture. We’ve had a great deal of work done in wood as well as in bronze and metals of various kinds. We’ve welded as well as cast. In mosaics we’ve gone the gamut.31

Sheets worked to create a public connection to the buildings he designed, often utilizing artwork by local artists to depict historical themes that were significant to the surrounding community of each individual branch, or to that symbolized the values of Home Savings, such as family and home. He researched the history of each community in which a new branch was to be located, and sought to incorporate themes and motifs that were particularly relevant to the area. As Sheets was not a licensed architect, the design process

27 Sheets, Volume Two. 28 “Office Building Project is Set,” Los Angeles Times, January 10, 1954. 29 Sheets, Volume Two. 30 Sheets, Volume Two. 31 Sheets, Volume Two.


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9for his architectural commissions was always collaborative, with Sheets creating the design scheme, and an architect or contractor overseeing the construction process. He frequently partnered with architect S. David Underwood, AIA, who was a longtime collaborator and worked with Sheets on much of the new construction for Home Savings. Sheets strongly believed in the idea of architects and artists working together towards a common goal, which included planning for art during the design process, rather than placing artwork on the building as an afterthought upon completion.32

While Sheets was solely responsible for the design of the Home Savings and Loan buildings, he also recognized the importance of diversity in artistic aesthetics and mediums, and began to seek out other artists whose work would complement his own vision for Home Savings. For the wide variety of interior and exterior artwork required for such a complex project, he would often call on his colleagues and students at Scripps College, including ceramic and textile artists Jean and Arthur Ames, sculptor Renzo Fenci, muralist Denis O’Connor, sculptor Albert Stewart, and mosaic artist Susan (Lautmann) Hertel to contribute their own work or execute Sheets’ designs. Throughout his life Sheets appreciated the opportunities which his ongoing relationship with Home Savings provided for such artists. He would later observe, “The beauty of it is that these artists have learned to believe that there is a place for them.”33

Millard Sheets’ philosophy of integrating artwork with architecture paid off for Home Savings and Loan. As he would later recall, “The early buildings were phenomenally successful from the point of view of the company or the corporation.”34

Howard [Ahmanson] and I were the most shocked of all, in both instances, by the [public’s] response to the first two buildings. Then Home began to put out questionnaires. They said on the questionnaires, “Why do you choose Home Savings?” Well, a small percent, I would say maybe 8 percent of people, ever answered questionnaires; but out of the percentage that did answer it, 90 percent said, “Your buildings look like you’re a solid company. Your buildings have a feeling we enjoy. We’re proud to bank in your buildings.”35

While Ahmanson’s desire – and, indeed, Sheets’ desire as well – to include artwork in the construction of Home Savings branch offices may have originated from an intellectual interest in improving the commercial aesthetic, the company became even more

32 A Tapestry of Life: The World of Millard Sheets (Pomona, CA: Millard Sheets Center for the Arts, 2007), 61-62. 33 Sheets, Volume Two. 34 Sheets, Volume Two. 35 Sheets, Volume Two.


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10committed to the artistic narrative once Sheets’ designs also proved to be demonstrated commercial successes. “They’ve never backed away from the idea that the arts were essential,” Sheets would say years later, “[ever] since they proved to be good in the first two or three buildings.” What had once been a conceptual exercise for Sheets became the company building program.

For his part, Sheets, embraced the challenge, which in some ways hindered his own artistic growth – although, as he would later admit, “It’s the reaction of the public that’s important.”36

We got to the point where we couldn’t knock what [the public] were saying. We had to accept it. That had a disadvantage because once that had been established, Mr. Ahmanson was very afraid of changing the basic scheme of things. That’s why there has been certain repletion of using, for instance, travertine on the outside, of using certain things that have made the buildings always recognizable.37

Sheets cites, as an example, the iconic form of the Home Savings and Loan branches he constructed. “The whole idea of monolithic buildings, I’ve never been able to get them to give up…they have gotten the feeling from the public that they like the sense of security that these buildings have had.38 Ultimately, as Sheets acknowledged, “Masses of people who put their money there for security and for return are, after all, the reason that we’ve spent the money to do the buildings.”39 Indeed, the longest it took any of Sheets’ Home Savings branches to make back the cost of construction was six months.40

In the end, it was Sheets’ ongoing adherence to the aesthetic narrative stipulated by Ahmanson that established the identity and character of Home Savings and Loan. While minor modifications were made to individual branch office designs, the essential form, exterior cladding, and use of thematic artwork remained the same, making the Home Savings branch offices some of the most iconic and recognizable banking institutions in Southern California. The building program was so effective that even after Ahmanson’s death in 1968 and Sheets’ subsequent retirement by 1980, the company remained committed to employing variations of the same aesthetic, and continued to work with Sheets’ studio associates to provide artwork to Home Savings branch offices nationwide.

36 Sheets, Volume Two. 37 Sheets, Volume Two. 38 Sheets, Volume Two. 39 Sheets, Volume Two. 40 Sheets, Volume Two.


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11Artist Millard Sheets

From 1954 to 1975, artist and designer Millard Sheets designed or renovated over forty Home Savings branch offices, including creating forty-five painted murals and thirty-eight mosaic panels. Trained as an artist rather than an architect, his unique approach of incorporating artwork into building designs distinguished his work amidst Los Angeles’s commercial architecture of the postwar era.

Born on June 24, 1907, in Pomona, California, Sheets displayed a talent for art at a very young age. He took his first painting lesson at the age of ten, and at sixteen years old, he submitted one of his paintings to his first professional jury competition at the Laguna Beach Art Gallery. After graduating from high school in 1927, Sheets enrolled at the Chouinard Art Institute; while at Chouinard, Sheets began to experiment in a number of different mediums and techniques, including watercolor painting, the medium he would become most known for, and fresco and mural painting, which figured largely in many of his later architectural projects.

Millard Sheets graduated from Chouinard in 1929, and by the early 1930s, he was gaining national recognition as a painter. In 1932, he was appointed head of the Art Department at Scripps College in Claremont, California. Early on, Sheets was intent on exploring the relationship between various facets of art education,41 including art, architecture, dance, and music, and promoted this type of integrated curriculum at both Scripps College and the Otis Art Institute, which he helped found. His time at Scripps and Otis also introduced Sheets to many of the artists who would become his future collaborators. During the Depression, Sheets served on the local PWA (Public Works Administration) committee, where he helped coordinate public art projects employing artists in need of work. Sheets was asked to participate because he knew many of the local artists, and the program incorporated work in a variety of mediums, including graphics, paintings, sculpture, and especially murals.42 It was one of Sheets’ first opportunities to put his philosophy of the integrated arts into practice.

Throughout the 1930s Sheets began to experiment further with mural and fresco painting, and created artwork for a number of private residences. These projects attracted the attention of business owners, and soon he was offered several commercial mural

41 Millard Sheets, Oral history interview with George M. Goodwin. November-December, 1976, in Pasadena, CA, transcript, Volume One, University of California Oral History Program, Los Angeles, CA. https://archive.org/details/millardsheetsora01shee (accessed November 2016). 42 Sheets, Volume One.


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12commissions. One of the earliest hinted at the future trajectory of his career: three interior murals for the United States Building and Loan Company office in Hollywood.43 Another early commission involved a series of murals at South Pasadena Junior High School.44 These led naturally to interior design jobs. As his reputation as a designer grew, so did his commissions, and soon Sheets was receiving offers for larger and more complex remodeling projects, including the Beverly Hills Tennis Club at 340 North Maple Drive.45 Eventually Sheets graduated from residential and commercial remodeling projects to designing new construction. One of his first commercial design commissions was for Cal Aero, a pilot training facility (1940; now the Chino Airport). The project was so successful that he was commissioned for sixteen additional air schools in Arizona and Texas.46

By the time Sheets began work on the Home Savings branch offices in the 1950s, he had already been active in the Southern California art community for over thirty years. Sheets’ use of artwork in his commercial commissions attracted the attention of Howard Ahmanson, head of the Home Savings and Loan Association, and Ahmanson commissioned Sheets to design several commercial buildings for Ahmanson’s business concerns. Sheets’ work for Howard Ahmanson and his ongoing involvement with Home Savings and Loan evolved over a period of nearly thirty years. Ultimately, over the course of his career with Home Savings, Sheets designed over forty branch locations in California alone, including the construction of new branch offices,47 the renovation of existing offices, and the installation of additional artwork in temporary locations. From his initial design for Ahmanson’s insurance business, now demolished, Sheets was hired in 1954 to design the first new construction for Home Savings in Beverly Hills.48 He soon opened his own commercial studio, Millard Sheets Designs, Inc., in 1956, and was subsequently commissioned by Ahmanson design a series of branch offices as part of the expansion plan for Home Savings and Loan.49 Following Howard Ahmanson’s death in 1968, Sheets continued his relationship with Home Savings and worked with Ahmanson’s nephews, Bill and Bob Ahmanson, along with the Board of Directors.50 By the late 1970s, although he remained director of design for Home Savings and Loan, Sheets had begun to transition to

43 “Sheets Painting Murals,” Los Angeles Times, December 28, 1930. 44 “Sheets’ Frescos Dedicated,” Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1914. 45 “Striking Designs Embodied in Club House Changes,” Los Angeles Times, June 20, 1937. 46 “Building for Defense…Three West Coast Air Schools,” Architectural Forum 75 (September 1941):184-187. 47 Sheets, Volume One. The Los Angeles Times regularly recorded Sheets’ projects with Home Savings from the 1950s through the 1970s, as well as retrospectively; his scope of work was identified based on articles relating to the development of individual branch locations. 48 “Office Building Project Is Set,” Los Angeles Times, January 10, 1954. 49 “Home Savings in $5 Million Expansion Plan,” Los Angeles Times, November 8, 1959. 50 Sheets, Volume Two.


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13a less active role.51 He founded Millard Sheets and Associates Designs, Inc. in 1976, and began to limit his involvement to design and supervision.52 By 1980, Sheets had completely retired from the studio.53

While Millard Sheets is best known in architectural circles for his work with Home Savings, he also received a wide variety of other architectural commissions, most of which also included the extensive use of integrated artwork. Due in part to the financial success and popularity of Sheets’ designs for Home Savings, he received many commissions from other local banks, including Van Nuys Savings and Loan, Pomona First Federal Savings and Loan, and Victory Savings and Loan. Other notable projects in Southern California include the Los Angeles Scottish Rite temple (1961) at 4357 Wilshire Boulevard, in Los Angeles; the Pomona Mall (1962); and the Pomona First Federal Savings and Loan at 393 West Foothill Boulevard, in Claremont (1968). Nationally, Sheets was also responsible for a number of significant design projects, including the Detroit Public Library façade (1962); a large-scale granite mosaic depicting Jesus Christ for the Father Theodore Hesburg Library at Notre Dame University (1964); a large-scale ceramic tile mural for the Honolulu Hilton (1968); and the dome of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C. (1968).

Millard Sheets died at his home in Gualala, California, on March 31, 1989.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The Home Savings and Loan Santa Monica branch building is located at the southeast corner of the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and 26th Street in the City of Santa Monica. The parcel is bounded to the southwest by 26th Street, to the northwest by Wilshire Boulevard, to the northeast by an adjacent commercial property, and to the southeast by a public alley. A separate parcel on the opposite side of the alley is occupied by a surface parking lot developed as part of the original construction of the Santa Monica Home Savings. The building occupies the southwest portion of the property and is positioned at a 45-degree angle to the intersection, flanked to the northeast by a landscaped surface parking lot paved in asphaltic concrete and to the west by a public plaza paved in exposed-aggregate concrete. In the center of the plaza there is a circular, tiered planter with a bronze sculpture depicting a family at play. Wide concrete steps ascend from the plaza and from Wilshire Boulevard to a wide, raised terrace with a battered masonry wall and integral raised planters. The terrace follows the building’s

51 Sheets, Volume Two. 52 Sheets, Volume Two. 53 Adam Arenson, “Update, And Home Savings Branches Outside California In Context,” http://adamarenson.com/2014/12/update-and-home-savings-branches-outside-california-in-context/ (accessed November 2016).


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14angled primary (west) façade and northwest (Wilshire Boulevard) façade, and continues as a raised planter on the southwest (26th Street) façade. The battered masonry wall continues around the southeast and northeast façades to form a base for the building.

The building is of masonry construction, is two stories in height and is symmetrically composed. It has a V-shaped plan and complex massing consisting of a tall, two-story central pavilion with a hexagonal plan, flanked to the northwest and southwest by lower two-story wings with rectangular plans. There is a one-story projection with a triangular plan to the east. The various roofs are flat with low parapets. The exterior walls are clad in travertine slabs and are topped with continuous friezes of textured ceramic tile, bordered by travertine fillets. Fenestration is limited. On the west (primary) façade there are two clusters of fixed, metal-framed, vertical strip windows with wide travertine mullions. A fixed, metal-framed window is located on the northwest (Wilshire) façade. There is a large stained glass window on the east façade. The primary entrance is asymmetrically located on the west façade and consists of a pair of fully glazed metal doors, flanked by floor-to-ceiling, fixed glass panels with metal frames. A large mosaic tile mural fills most of the façade directly above the entrance. A second entrance on the primary façade, located in the center of the northwest wing, consists of glazed metal storefront doors with a projecting travertine surround. A secondary entrance from the parking lot is located on the northeast façade. It consists of a pair of fully-glazed metal doors with sidelights, accessed by a flight of concrete steps with battered masonry cheek walls. This entrance is surmounted by a wall-mounted bronze sculpture of dolphins.

Character-Defining Features

Every historic building is unique, with its own identity and its own distinctive character. Character-defining features are those visual aspects and physical features or elements, constructed during the property’s period of significance, that give the building its historic character and contribute to the integrity of the property. Character-defining features should be taken into account in the planning and design of a project in order to preserve them to the maximum extent possible. Character-defining features can identify the building as an example of a specific building type, usually related to the building’s function; they can exemplify the use of specific materials or methods of construction, or embody a historical period or architectural style; and they can convey the sense of time and place in buildings associated with significant events or people.

A building’s character-defining features can include but are not limited to its setting and site; shape and massing; roof and related features, such as chimneys or skylights; projections, such as balconies or porches; recesses or voids, such as galleries or arcades; windows and doors and their openings, pattern, and proportions; materials, with their distinguishing textures, finishes, colors and craftsmanship; and interior features, materials,


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15finishes, spaces and spatial relationships. In general, retaining character-defining features retains the integrity of an historic property; i.e., contributes to retaining the property’s eligibility as an historic resource. Removal or alteration of one feature does not necessarily change the eligibility of an historic resource. Significant impacts on a historic resource result from major change or many incremental changes over time.

Exterior character-defining features of the Santa Monica Home Savings include:

Landscaped surface parking lot paved in asphaltic concrete Plaza paved in exposed-aggregate concrete Circular, tiered planter with bronze sculpture Wide, raised terrace with a battered masonry wall, integral raised planters, and

wide concrete steps Two-story height and symmetrical composition V-shaped plan Complex massing consisting of a tall, two-story central pavilion with a hexagonal

plan, flanked to the northwest and southwest by lower two-story wings with rectangular plans

One-story projection with a triangular plan to the east Flat roofs with low parapets Exterior walls clad in travertine slabs Continuous friezes of textured ceramic tile, bordered by travertine fillets Clusters of fixed, metal-framed, vertical strip windows with wide travertine

mullions Large stained glass window on the east façade Floor-to-ceiling, fixed glass panels with metal frames at primary entrance Mosaic tile mural directly above the entrance Secondary entrance from the parking lot with a pair of fully-glazed metal doors

with sidelights, and concrete steps with battered masonry cheek walls Wall-mounted bronze sculpture of dolphins

Alterations

The building at 2600 Wilshire Boulevard has undergone some alterations since the completion of initial construction in 1970. These alterations are listed below.54

54 Alterations which include specific dates were included based upon a review of available City of Santa Monica building permits. Alterations which note the date is unknown were identified based on visual observation.


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16 1984: Automatic teller machine and canopy (kiosk) installed (subsequently removed)

1991: Voluntary seismic strengthening

1997: Concrete stairs, landing, and handrails replaced

2000: Entrance stairway at secondary entrance replaced; ATM canopy removed; existing storefront glass replaced; new mechanical screening added; new railing added for exterior ramps and stairs; curbs, planters, and landscaping altered; and parking lot resurfaced

2012: Two fixed storefront windows replaced with new entry doors

Date Unknown: Planting areas and planters added to central plaza; door added to northeast façade (subsequently replaced with metal panel; window added to northwest façade; primary entrance doors removed and replaced with fixed glass; second entrance with projecting travertine surround and glazed metal storefront doors added to northwest wing of primary (west) façade.

EVALUATION CRITERIA

Historic resources may be designated at the federal, state, and local levels. Current designations available in Santa Monica include: National Historic Landmarks, National Register of Historic Places, California Register of Historical Resources, California Register Historical Landmarks, California Points of Historical Interest, and City of Santa Monica Landmarks, Structures of Merit, and Historic Districts. While some programs place emphasis on architectural character, all use basic criteria relating to a property’s place in important events or patterns of development, association with important personages, and architectural significance. This evaluation of 2600 Wilshire Boulevard is limited to the property’s eligibility for designation as a City of Santa Monica Landmark.

Santa Monica Landmark Designation Criteria

The Santa Monica Landmarks and Historic Districts Ordinance includes criteria and procedures for designating City of Santa Monica Landmarks, Structures of Merit, and Historic Districts. Landmarks may include structures, natural features, objects, or any type of improvement to a property that is found to have particular architectural or historical significance to the City.

The Landmarks Commission may approve the landmark designation of a structure, improvement, natural feature or object if it finds that it meets one or more of the following criteria:


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17(1) It exemplifies, symbolizes, or manifests elements of the cultural, social, economic, political or architectural history of the City.

(2) It has aesthetic or artistic interest or value, or other noteworthy interest or value.

(3) It is identified with historic personages or with important events in local, state or national history.

(4) It embodies distinguishing architectural characteristics valuable to a study of a period, style, method of construction, or the use of indigenous materials or craftsmanship, or is a unique or rare example of an architectural design, detail or historical type valuable to such a study.

(5) It is a significant or a representative example of the work or product of a notable builder, designer or architect.

(6) It has a unique location, a singular physical characteristic, or is an established and familiar visual feature of a neighborhood, community or the City.

Integrity

While the City of Santa Monica Landmark and Historic District Ordinance does not provide an explicit discussion of integrity requirements for potentially eligible historic resources, guidance developed at the federal level by the National Park Service recommends that in addition to meeting one or more of the criteria for historic significance, a property must also retain its historic integrity in order to be considered eligible for designation as a historic resource. Historic integrity is the ability of a property to convey its significance and is defined as the “authenticity of a property’s historic identity, evidenced by the survival of physical characteristics that existed during the property’s prehistoric or historic period.”55 The National Park Service defines seven aspects of integrity: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. These qualities are defined as follows:

Design is the combination of elements that create the form, plan, space, structure, and style of a property.

Setting is the physical environment of a historic property.

55 National Park Service, National Register Bulletin 16A: How to Complete the National Register Registration Form (Washington, DC: U. S. Department of the Interior, 1997), 4.


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18 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.

Association is the direct link between an important historic event or person and a historic property.56

HISTORIC RESOURCES ASSESSMENT

As stated above,this evaluation of 2600 Wilshire Boulevard is limited to the property’s eligibility for designation as a City of Santa Monica Landmark. While not specifically required by the City of Santa Monica Landmarks and Historic Districts Ordinance, an evaluation of integrity has been included as it pertains to HRG’s determination of eligibility.

Evaluation of Integrity

2600 Wilshire has undergone several alterations since its construction in 1970. Despite these changes, the majority of its character-defining features remain intact and the property continues to reflect its original design.

Location: 2600 Wilshire remains in its original location at the southeast corner of the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and 26th Street. Therefore, the property retains integrity of location.

Design: 2600 Wilshire retains the majority of the character-defining features of its original construction. These include the original building plan, form, and massing; travertine exterior wall cladding; decorative detailing and integrated artwork; and front plaza with raised terrace. Integrity of design is somewhat compromised by alterations including the addition of a storefront with projecting entry surround on the primary façade. Despite alterations, a majority of the essential physical features reflecting the original design remain intact. Therefore, the property retains integrity of design.

56 National Park Service, National Register Bulletin 15: How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation (Washington, DC: U. S. Department of the Interior, 1997), 44-45.


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19 Setting: 2600 Wilshire is located on the Wilshire Boulevard commercial corridor. While some properties along Wilshire Boulevard have been redeveloped over time, the character of adjacent development has remained largely commercial in nature and Wilshire Boulevard has retained its identity as a major commercial corridor and traffic thoroughfare. Thus, the property retains integrity of setting.

Materials: The building is largely intact and retains the majority of its original construction materials, including battered masonry, travertine cladding, ceramic tile, and integrated artwork. Therefore, the property retains integrity of materials.

Workmanship: The building retains the physical evidence of period construction techniques, including original finishes and artwork that reflect the character and identity of the Home Savings building program as designed by Millard Sheets. Therefore, the building integrity of workmanship.

Feeling: 2600 Wilshire retains the majority of the character-defining features of its original construction. The original building plan, form, massing, cladding, decorative detailing and integrated artwork continue to convey the distinctive aesthetic associated with Home Savings and Loan branch offices as designed by Millard Sheets. Thus, the building retains integrity of feeling.

Association: The property remains in its original location, has retained significant character-defining features of its original construction, and continues to convey its historic character as a branch location of Home Savings as designed by Millard Sheets. Therefore, the property retains its integrity of association.

Evaluation for Local Landmark Designation

The subject property at 2600 Wilshire Boulevard appears eligible as a City of Santa Monica landmark under the following criteria:

Criterion 1: It exemplifies, symbolizes, or manifests elements of the cultural, social, economic, political or architectural history of the City.

2600 Wilshire Boulevard is significant under Criterion 1 for its association with the architectural history of Santa Monica. The property is the only example of a Home Savings and Loan branch office designed by artist Millard Sheets located within the City of Santa Monica. The property was constructed towards the end of a mid-20th century building program directed by Sheets which established a signature architectural style for Home Savings during a period of rapid growth and expansion. Sheets’ designs, featuring monumental massing, formal symmetrical façade arrangements, high-end materials and integrated artwork, established an instantly-recognizable corporate identity for Home Savings. Each design was shaped and customized to reflect their specific location while maintaining design


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20continuity across locations. Today, many Sheets designed Home Savings branches throughout California have been lost to demolition or substantial alteration.

Criterion 2: It has aesthetic or artistic interest or value, or other noteworthy interest or value.

The Home Savings Santa Monica branch includes distinctive examples of artwork which are unique to the City, and are also noteworthy for their monumental size and unique arrangement. The most prominent work of art incorporated into the building is the expansive mosaic panel decorating the primary façade. This panel was one of the largest ever to be commissioned for Home Savings and represents a unique example of Sheets’ incorporation of large-scale artwork on a projecting-wing building plan. As Sheets would later recall, the Santa Monica branch was unique in this regard, as he would typically employ smaller vignettes across a field of darker material; his use of a large-scale mosaic filling the entire panel for the Santa Monica branch represents a departure from his traditional aesthetic. While Sheets would later view the artwork at the Santa Monica branch as one of his less successful executions, it remains noteworthy as a rare departure from his traditional idiom.

Criterion 4: It embodies distinguishing architectural characteristics valuable to a study of a period, style, method of construction, or the use of indigenous materials or craftsmanship, or is a unique or rare example of an architectural design, detail or historical type valuable to such a study.

The Home Savings Santa Monica branch is an excellent and prominent example of the corporate architecture of Home Savings and Loan as designed by Millard Sheets. Its character-defining features including form, cladding, fenestration, and incorporation of location-specific artwork reflect the visual character of Home Savings branches designed by Sheets from the mid-1950s through the early 1970s.

The Santa Monica branch, with its unique projecting wing plan, also reflects a rare and distinctive interpretation of the Home Savings idiom. Variations on the Home Savings building model were discouraged, and branch offices which vary from the conventional corporate building model are rare. Only one other branch location utilizing the projecting wing plan is known to have been constructed, in Anaheim. The Santa Monica branch represents the only example of this type in Los Angeles County.

Criterion 5: It is a significant or a representative example of the work or product of a notable builder, designer or architect.


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21The Home Savings Santa Monica branch was designed by prominent Southern California artist Millard Sheets, who pioneered an idiosyncratic style for his most prominent client, Howard Ahmanson’s Home Savings and Loan. Sheets’ plans for Home Savings have been credited with successfully incorporating works of art into the construction of commercial buildings and creating visual links to the surrounding community through the use of location-specific themes and motifs. Today, Sheets’ designs are recognized for defining the corporate identity of Home Savings and Loan, and extant examples such as the Santa Monica branch reflect the scope of the company’s postwar building campaign as well as its continuing commitment to maintaining its brand identity over time.

Criterion 6: It has a unique location, a singular physical characteristic, or is an established and familiar visual feature of a neighborhood, community or the City.

Due to its size, scale, siting, and unique orientation and plan, the Home Savings Santa Monica Branch is one of the most prominent examples of Sheets’ work for Home Savings. Set back from the sidewalk on a large lot, the building dominates the physical landscape at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and 26th Street. With its distinctive corporate architecture and site-specific artwork, the building remains readily recognizable as a neighborhood branch of Home Savings and Loan.

CONCLUSION

The former Home Savings & Loan located at 2600 Wilshire Boulevard in the City of Santa Monica appears eligible for local designation under Criteria 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6. It is the sole example of Home Savings postwar architecture as designed by noted artist Millard Sheets and is an excellent and largely intact example of his work for Home Savings and Loan. The building is notable as a unique example of Sheets’ plan experimentation within the idiom of Home Savings architecture, and includes monumental artwork designed to reflect cultural and social themes relevant to the City of Santa Monica.


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22BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Ahmanson: What’s This Talk of S&L Pinch?” Los Angeles Times, June 5, 1966.

Arenson, Adam. “Update, And Home Savings Branches Outside California In Context.” http://adamarenson.com/2014/12/update-and-home-savings-branches-outside-california-in-context/ (accessed November 2016).

“Art in the Home Savings and Loan Association: Santa Monica.” January 15, 1971. Millard Sheets Papers, 1907-1990. Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art, Washington, DC.

A Tapestry of Life: The World of Millard Sheets. Pomona, CA: Millard Sheets Center for the Arts, 2007.

“Beach Branch of S&L Opened.” Los Angeles Times, January 17, 1965.

“Building for Defense…Three West Coast Air Schools.” Architectural Forum 75 (September 1941): 184-187.

“California: A Southern California savings and loan is first to reach $3 billion.” Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1969.

City of Santa Monica Building Permits.

“Entrepreneurs: Emperor in Private.” Time, November 10, 1967.

“Executives: One Man’s Show.” Time, November 10, 1967.

“Home Savings Assets Mount.” Los Angeles Times, January 6, 1953.

“Home Savings in $5 Million Expansion Plan.” Los Angeles Times, November 8, 1959.

“Home Savings to be Acquired in $10.1 Billion Deal.” Los Angeles Times, March 18, 1998.

“It’s Not All Finance with L.A. Financier.” June 11, 1961.

“Merger Combines Two Big Building and Loan Units.” Los Angeles Times, January 3, 1952.

“The Master Builders of Savings & Loan.” Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1969.

National Park Service. National Register Bulletin 15A: How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation. Washington, DC: U. S. Department of the Interior, 1997.


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23–––. National Register Bulletin 16A: How to Complete the National Register Registration Form. Washington, DC: U. S. Department of the Interior, 1997.

“No. 5 Joins the Select Ranks of Area’s Billion-Dollar Firms.” Los Angeles Times, December 3, 1961.

“Office Building Project Is Set.” Los Angeles Times, January 10, 1954.

“Sheets’ Frescos Dedicated.” Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1914.

Sheets, Millard. Oral history interview with George M. Goodwin. November-December, 1976, in Pasadena, CA. Transcript, Volume One. University of California Oral History Program, Los Angeles, CA. https://archive.org/details/millardsheetsora01shee (accessed November 2016).

–––. Oral history interview with George M. Goodwin. January-February, 1977, in Pasadena, CA. Transcript, Volume Two. University of California Oral History Program, Los Angeles, CA. https://archive.org/details/millardsheetsora02shee (accessed November 2016).

“Sheets Painting Murals.” Los Angeles Times, December 28, 1930.

“Striking Designs Embodied in Club House Changes.” Los Angeles Times, June 20, 1937.

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24SITE VISIT PHOTOS

Overall property as viewed from 26th Street, view looking northeast.

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25

Overall property as viewed from Wilshire Boulevard, view looking southeast.

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26

Central plaza and primary (west) facade, view looking west.

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27

Mosaic detail, primary (west) façade.

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28

Sculpture detail, plaza, view looking west.

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29

Façade detail, primary (west) façade, view looking northeast.

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30

Northeast façade and secondary entrance, view looking southeast.

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31

Sculpture detail, northeast façade.

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32

East façade with stained glass panel, view looking west.

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33

Stained glass panel detail, east façade.

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34

Southwest façade, view looking northeast.

From: Paul Travis, AICP, Principal; John LoCascio, AIA ...

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Transcript of From: Paul Travis, AICP, Principal; John LoCascio, AIA ...