Jul 12, 2011
Olan G. Hafley and Aida T. House - National Register of Historic Places
Statement of Significance: The Hafley House is a one- and two-story stucco and wood-frame residence in Park Estates, a substantial tract of well-appointed postwar custom homes, primarily in the Ranch style, located in central Long Beach. Completed in 1953, Richard J. Neutra designed the house and the adjacent one-story dwelling, the Moore residence, as an integrated architectural composition that was Modern and characteristically "Neutra," yet in harmony with the neighborhood's more traditional architectural character. The Hafley House is the sole subject of this nomination, and references to the Moore residence are for the purposes of describing the design and orientation of Neutra's "double house" project, as he called i.e. Aligned north south, the approximately 2,100-square-foot Hafley House is a long modified one-story rectangle in plan that presents a two-story front-gable elevation as the primary fagade facing La Pasada Street. The inconspicuous primary entrance, double garage, and many views and fenestration are directed east-west out to long, shallow gardens, patios and a service area, all bordered by tall landscaping and wood fences. This arrangement-oriented family life away from the street, affording a sense of privacy for the Hafley residence that is aided by the second-story bedroom suite above the garage. This taller volume's roofline is parallel to, but shifted sightly to the west of, the longer one-story volume behind it. The property's exuberant, partially open-plan interior is also noteworthy. Here, a variety of treatments that exploit the potential of a sloped roof reflect a command of complexity rare in Neutra's comparable mid-century American designs. In excellent condition, and with few, minor, and reversible alterations since its construction, the Hafley House retains a very high degree of integrity. The quiet, leafy, and affluent neighborhood known as Park Estates is a 247-acre tract of approximately 640 postwar custom homes largely unchanged since the tract was established in 1948. It is roughly bordered by Bouton Creek to the north. Bellflower Boulevard to the east. Pacific Coast Highway to the south, and Clark Avenue to the west. The community is delineated from the surrounding larger streets, commercial development, and the main campus of California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), by mature, we maintained landscaping and a grid of short straight and curved streets and cul-de-sacs. The mid-century neighborhood is characterized by primarily Ranch style single-family homes with a feeling of solid construction, competent design, and style-appropriate detailing; some outlying blocks are devoted to compatible attached two-story housing. The retention of architectural character of Park Estates reflects the oversight of the Park Estates Home Owners Association that still regulates the area's architectural disposition with an emphasis on Ranch features such as sloped, wood-clad roofs, long horizontal tines, hipped roofs with generous overhangs, and sand-finished stucco walls or wood clapboard siding. Similar in size, the south-facing properties, the subject property Hafley House and the adjacent Moore residence share similar rectangular lots as well as key exterior elements, such as dark tongue-and-groove vertically oriented redwood, low pitch sloped roofs clad in cedar shingles, and white-painted stucco. (Photo 1) The houses are further integrated by a shared back garden, a shared wood pergola, adjacent walkways, and long stucco walls flanking each structure that both provide privacy and elongate the composition as viewed from the street. However, behind the unified facade, Neutra created two distinct dwellings with different footprints and massings that are perpendicular to, shielded from, and oriented away from one another. The exterior of the Hafley House exhibits the key features required of those dwellings in Park Estates, demonstrated in its moderately sloped roof with a 3 V2:12 (20 degree) pitch, cedar wood shingles, and walls clad in both sand-finished stucco and redwood siding. While the property does not exhibit the flat roof usually associated with "typical" Neutra designs, the Hafley House's extensive repertoire of Neutra's mid-century character-defining features includes: o Full-height sliding and fixed glass doors, seen on east elevation. o Ganged series of steel-framed window units. One unit type alternates a fixed with an operable window, typically a wider fixed window flanked by a narrower casement window. This type can be seen on the north, east and west elevations. Another unit type alternates a small fixed clerestory and larger hopper clerestory window, present on the west, north, and south elevations. o Hybrid construction combining wood post-and-beam and tight stud framing. o the use of silver paint on wood fenestration. o Abundant built-in cabinetry storage featuring drawers that are accessed with angled cut-ins instead of projecting hardware, thus maintaining aesthetically clean, monolithic planes and decreasing housework because there was less hardware to deal with. o Contrasting dark (typically stained wood or dark brown paint) and tight (white paint on interior plaster, exterior plaster, or sand-finish exterior stucco) colors. o A material or design element used in different ways and on different planes and for different purposes, for example, 1x4 tongue-and-groove redwood used for both interior and exterior walls and in horizontal and vertical orientations o Varying types of brick and masonry used for a fireplace and its surrounds. Here the fireplace cladding is common brick while the hearth, originally extending north as a long plane in the Living area, has larger masonry units similar in color to the smaller yellow Roman brick, a third variety that is used for the firebox. o Lighting strips comprising fluorescent or incandescent lamps, shielded by a translucent panel. These are embedded horizontally in extended roof soffits (east elevation) and interior light shelves in entry hallway and the master bedroom, or vertically in panels above closets. (Photo 9, exterior roof overhang at far left, where the light panel is I’m seen in the image but rests in the extended plane of white plaster at left). Such strips could also be concealed for "washing" walls and ceilings with light. o the use of prismatic "Factrolite" glass for exterior glazing (used for bathroom windows on the upper floor) and "Opal Flash Glass," (used for soffit lighting and for panels above closets) Both are used to adjust privacy levels through translucency and/or for diffusing and softening day and artificial light. Exterior Two long stucco-clad walls, parallel to the street and flanking each house, play important roles in unifying the two dwellings. The first, located south of the Moore residence garden, stretches between the pitched roof of the Moore garage on the west and the Hafley House with its taller pitched roof on the east. The second extends east from the north wall of the Hafley House garage, about 20 feet north of the Hafley's two-story primary facade. The walls anchor the houses to the site and establish the setting's feeling of repose. Each also provides privacy to a different group of occupants. At first glance, the primary (south) elevation of the Hafley House is a simple diagram of a two-story front gable box with a moderate pitch roof, a little like a modest Swiss chalet. In plan and massing, the building comprises two front gabled and attached rectangular volumes. To the north, a longer one-story rectangle includes a chimney. The east roof of this longer volume continues to become the east roof of the taller volume so that the latter's ridgeline is shifted slightly to the west in plan. On the south, a two-story volume faces La Pasada Street. It contains a bedroom suite above the double garage. This bedroom steps back to provide a fairly deep balcony that runs the width of the facade. The eastern portion of this upper facade is clad in vertically oriented tongue-and-groove redwood, while the western half is devoted to an asymmetrical distribution of steel-framed glazing outlining a flat panel painted wood door. A similar condition can be seen on the south exterior wall of the one-story portion of Hafley House where it projects out to the east behind the two-story bedroom/garage volume. ^ The ground floor on this front elevation is clad in white painted stucco with no openings. Outrigger beams, features more readily seen in Ranch, Craftsman, or other historic styles, are present here. Three outrigger beams, at the ridge and outer plate lines of the roof on the south (primary) elevation, extend south beyond the roof line. However, other features differ from those associated with these traditional residential styles. The asymmetrical glazing featured on the upper floor includes a fixed triangular clerestory window above the standard two-window unit of a larger fixed single-high window flanked by a smaller single-light casement window. On the west, the fascia board sails past the roof line to meet a longitudinal fascia board also located well beyond the roof line. This unusual "flying fascia" is not replicated on the other side of the budding. A wooden flower box, outlining the base of the balcony between the two stories, cantilevers out to the west before turning north and rejoining the building. Other atypical features include cladding only one half of a gable with vertically oriented tongue-and-groove redwood, a gesture that is not traditional building practice. Like the larger hybrid construction paradigm of both stud and post-and-beam framing used in the Hafley property, the pergola, physically connected to both houses, is something of a hybrid. (Photo 4) Eight redwood 2x8 joists are attached to the west wall of the Hafley House, below the line of the wood flower box. The south most three horizontals 2 x 8s are pinned between three pairs of upright 2 x 8s, which in turn support a larger 4 x 12 "pergola beam," as the office drawings label it, on this southern end. In contrast, this beam's northern end simply rests on the garden wall of the Moore residence. At the ground plane and immediately west of the pergola, long redwood strips, also about two inches in width, are oriented east west and inserted between a grid of large original pebble-dash concrete squares. This large rectangular area, used for parking, is seen between the two properties and immediately west of the pergola. The walkway to the houses consists of parallel and alternating strips of grass and concrete, perpendicular to the sidewalk, which extend under the pergola. (Photo 1) The primary entrance to the Hafley House is reached first, while the entrance of the Moore residence is set more deeply into the lot. (Photo 7) A short wood fence oriented east-west defines the Hafley House's primary entry area, sheltered by a roof extension with a boxed soffit of 1 x 4 redwood tongue-and-groove. This leads to the flat-panel west-facing wood front door. The door floats in a wood-framed grid consisting of a full-height glass sidelight that is aligned with one of two fixed windows above the door. To the immediate north, another door for mechanical services has a small inset window. A door-width panel of painted tempered Masonite is located above the door frame. The east elevation is the important garden elevation. (Photo 5) It is characterized by an abundance of glass overlooking the shallow but long garden and patio. Like the kitchen's west elevation, this facade features three typical window units, alternating a larger fixed and a smaller casement window. South of this ganged group stands one fixed and one full-height sliding glass steel-framed door, 8'- 6" wide and 8'- 0" tall for a total width of 17'- 0". This length is protected by an extension of the roof with a boxed soffit of 1x4 redwood tongue-and-groove. In contrast with the west roof overhang, which features a series of square highs held flush to the soffit, the east overhang features a long lighting strip of lighting at its edge, flush to the soffit. The garden is protected from street view by an extension of the south most living room wall noted earlier. At the rear (north) elevation, the west half of the pitched roof volume steps north, so that what typically is perceived as one volume is suddenly broken into two volumes sliding past each other, an example of how Neutra reconsidered the box as a grouping of point, Une, and plane. Like the south elevation, this rear facade is conceived as an asymmetric distribution of solid and void, i.e., the small area of stucco-clad wall below an irregular distribution of fixed and operable glazing that occupies most of the wall and part of the gable. (Photo 6) Again, like the south facade, a door is surrounded by a field of glazing. This secondary elevation differs, however, in that the glazing terminates east of the ridge line instead of directly below it. A rear door, opening to the shared gardens, is flat-paneled. The remaining portion of the west elevation—the area north of the entry described above—is a fenced area that acts as a service yard for the kitchen. Bordered with a dense hedge, it is sheathed in redwood and stucco. (Photo 7, left, shows south wall of this fence) Primary Interior Spaces As with the exterior, many of the principal character-defining features here are asymmetrically located and carefully positioned in specific relationships with one another. The interior partei is a long-bifurcated spine that separates the kitchen on the west from the public space on the east, i.e., the living/dining area and the "all-purpose room," as the drawings call the space immediately north. (Photo 8, at the very rear, and Photo 12) This dividing spine contains a large brick fireplace that is the central organizing element of the house. Like many Neutra fireplaces, it features an open corner; Uke some, it was painted white originally and retains that color. (Photo 10,11) In addition, while the immediate walls of the firebox, clad in roman brick, are both recessed, the south firebox wall steps back more deeply to align with the stainless-steel firewood cabinet adjoining the fireplace on the south. (Photo 11) These two smaller gestures in asymmetry, like others mentioned, contribute to the larger essay in asymmetry. Bookshelves, cabinetry with a "pass-through" opening, and the kitchen doorway flank the north wall of the fireplace. A large east-facing mirror mounted at the back wall of the firewood box permits viewers facing west to visually participate in the landscape behind them, a strategy also used in the Frederick and Mary Jane Auerbacher House in Redlands, California, and also completed in 1953. Neutra often used mirrors to "stretch space," as he termed their use in his architecture. The kitchen has a flat prevailing plaster ceiling height of 8'-1." (Photo 13) In contrast, the angled ceilings of the living/dining area animate this major public space. (Photos 8, 9) Here, the exposed and stained 3x6 Douglas Fir rafters, slope down from the ridge, approximately 13'- 6" tall, to the prevailing 8'-1" plate line across a relatively narrow interior span of about 12'- 6." The sense of flowing space running freely out into the garden is checked and tempered in a game that plays off a large, opaque sound and a thin plane. On the east side of the living room and beginning at its south end, a long plane of redwood tongue-and groove is suspended from the ceiling. This acts as a floating, horizontal "lid," straddling the interior, into which it projects 3'- 6,"and into the exterior, where it projects 4'- 6"and extends outdoors to provide sheltered space. Above this long plane, which also accommodated concealed Lighting for nighttime wall and ceiling washing, a short wall between this plane and the sloping ceiling projects slightly. On the opposite (west) side of the Living room, and above the white painted brick fireplace, the white painted plaster wall projects into the living area 3'- 6" (mirroring the floating redwood dropped ceiling on the east) beyond the fireplace, acting as a very deep soffit that begins at the entry hallway (Photo 10) and terminates at the master bedroom to the north. Like the dropped plane of redwood, this deep soffit is also held to a prevailing height of 8'-1." These two major elements also differ in where they begin and end, so that they appear to slide past one another, adding to the sense of balanced tension in the space even while their height and projection into the room provide a localized sense of shelter and intimacy. The deep plaster soffit has one more task. At its south end, it projects out about one foot at its base where it accommodates another light panel flush to the surface. (This panel provided a means to "wall wash" the white plaster wall to the north of the staircase, providing a helpful way to illuminate a journey upstairs, in contrast to the concealed lighting above the redwood "lid," where the use of such lighting was employed as a dramatic tool.) The elongation of the tight shelf for the stairs also exemplifies Neutra's consistent use of stretching one tine, plane, or volume beyond another. Panels of Vi' deep Homasote are placed between the rafters and contribute to the acoustical qualities of the room, which are not overly vibrant. ^ This detail occurs again in the upstairs bedroom. The eastern edge of the deep soffit is aligned with the east facade of the garage/upstairs bedroom suite, which is visible through another dramatic intervention, a long single-tight window above a small hopper window located on the living room's south wall. (Photo 9) An enlarged "sill" of silver-painted plywood completes this triptych. Angled at the top where it meets the sloping ceiling, the window unit provides a specific, framed view of the garage and sky. This window unit also serves to further elongate the space by specifically framing the exposed rafters of the upper story bedroom, visually doubting the ordered, rhythmic sequence of rafters when viewed from indoors. The framed view is a sharp contrast to the views accessible through the east (garden) elevation, where large window expanses provide views both extensive and omnidirectional. Secondary Interior Spaces Downstairs, the master bedroom with en suite bath occupies the northwest corner of the house. (Photo 14) The door to the room has a painted veneer panel above its frame, a feature seen again at the north exterior door from the all-purpose room, adding to the sense of a grid or puzzle whose pieces alternate between orthogonal and angled. At the entrance to the master bedroom, a slightly lowered ceiling, again accommodating hidden lighting for wall lighting, opens to a taller ceiling, expressing in a small distance the use of "compression expansion," an architectural technique used to increase spatial drama. (Photo 14, top left) A ganged pair of alternating fixed and casement steel-framed windows is identical to those described easier. The pair is asymmetrically located, terminating at the room's northwest cover. A bank of birch veneer cabinetry, detailed like that seen elsewhere, occupies the south wall. An L-shaped run of stairs located at the south end of the house leads to the second bedroom suite and bathroom. Two doors, immediately adjacent and perpendicular to one another, lead to this modestly scaled suite, designed so that a curtain could be drawn along the length of the ridge beam. This provided the means to make one space into two smaller spaces, accommodating an additional guest or child. The track for the curtain still exists. The room's primary interior character-defining features are the exposed ridge beam, rafters, and Homasote panels on both sides of the sloped ceiling. Built-in closets with sliding doors of tempered Masonite and finger pulls are located on the eastside of the room. A bathroom is located in a small volume projecting north. Its north wall originally contained a standard unit of a larger fixed-sash window and a smaller casement window, both glazed with Factrolite. These are surmounted by a full-width transparent clerestory window. (Photo 6, top right at rear) A visitor was intended to use the small extant mirror located on the east side of the bathroom, adjacent to the small shower. At some time, the exterior face of the large fixed window, still extant, was painted silver and a large mirror placed on the interior side. A second two-window unit, a casement window surmounted by a fixed window angled at the top where it meets the roof, is located on the eastern side of the upstairs suite's north wall, just east of the larger window unit described above. It is similar to the long, thin window on the south side of the living room. Alterations and Integrity According to conversations with Janice Furman, owner of the Moore residence since 1971 and a close friend of the Hafleys, it is likely that most of the alterations listed below preceded her ownership. As the current owner is proceeding with a full restoration under the guidelines of the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation, these alterations will be removed and original conditions restored. Integrity With one original owner from its completion in 1953 until 2010, when the property changed hands following Mrs. Hafley's death, the interior and exterior of the Hafley House are largely unchanged. The dwelling retains a high level of integrity with regard to design, materials, workmanship and feeling. Its location, setting, and association within Park Estates and with its equally intact adjacent companion house have matured but have not altered. The house is in excellent condition, and the minor and readily reversible changes noted above will be restored by the new co-owners, preservation architect Kelly Sutherlin McLeod and son Cameron McLeod. Overall, the Olan G. and Aida T. Hafley House retains a very high degree of all aspects of integrity.
Olan G. Hafley and Aida T. House - National Register of Historic Places
Statement of Significance: The Hafley House is a one- and two-story stucco and wood-frame residence in Park Estates, a substantial tract of well-appointed postwar custom homes, primarily in the Ranch style, located in central Long Beach. Completed in 1953, Richard J. Neutra designed the house and the adjacent one-story dwelling, the Moore residence, as an integrated architectural composition that was Modern and characteristically "Neutra," yet in harmony with the neighborhood's more traditional architectural character. The Hafley House is the sole subject of this nomination, and references to the Moore residence are for the purposes of describing the design and orientation of Neutra's "double house" project, as he called i.e. Aligned north south, the approximately 2,100-square-foot Hafley House is a long modified one-story rectangle in plan that presents a two-story front-gable elevation as the primary fagade facing La Pasada Street. The inconspicuous primary entrance, double garage, and many views and fenestration are directed east-west out to long, shallow gardens, patios and a service area, all bordered by tall landscaping and wood fences. This arrangement-oriented family life away from the street, affording a sense of privacy for the Hafley residence that is aided by the second-story bedroom suite above the garage. This taller volume's roofline is parallel to, but shifted sightly to the west of, the longer one-story volume behind it. The property's exuberant, partially open-plan interior is also noteworthy. Here, a variety of treatments that exploit the potential of a sloped roof reflect a command of complexity rare in Neutra's comparable mid-century American designs. In excellent condition, and with few, minor, and reversible alterations since its construction, the Hafley House retains a very high degree of integrity. The quiet, leafy, and affluent neighborhood known as Park Estates is a 247-acre tract of approximately 640 postwar custom homes largely unchanged since the tract was established in 1948. It is roughly bordered by Bouton Creek to the north. Bellflower Boulevard to the east. Pacific Coast Highway to the south, and Clark Avenue to the west. The community is delineated from the surrounding larger streets, commercial development, and the main campus of California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), by mature, we maintained landscaping and a grid of short straight and curved streets and cul-de-sacs. The mid-century neighborhood is characterized by primarily Ranch style single-family homes with a feeling of solid construction, competent design, and style-appropriate detailing; some outlying blocks are devoted to compatible attached two-story housing. The retention of architectural character of Park Estates reflects the oversight of the Park Estates Home Owners Association that still regulates the area's architectural disposition with an emphasis on Ranch features such as sloped, wood-clad roofs, long horizontal tines, hipped roofs with generous overhangs, and sand-finished stucco walls or wood clapboard siding. Similar in size, the south-facing properties, the subject property Hafley House and the adjacent Moore residence share similar rectangular lots as well as key exterior elements, such as dark tongue-and-groove vertically oriented redwood, low pitch sloped roofs clad in cedar shingles, and white-painted stucco. (Photo 1) The houses are further integrated by a shared back garden, a shared wood pergola, adjacent walkways, and long stucco walls flanking each structure that both provide privacy and elongate the composition as viewed from the street. However, behind the unified facade, Neutra created two distinct dwellings with different footprints and massings that are perpendicular to, shielded from, and oriented away from one another. The exterior of the Hafley House exhibits the key features required of those dwellings in Park Estates, demonstrated in its moderately sloped roof with a 3 V2:12 (20 degree) pitch, cedar wood shingles, and walls clad in both sand-finished stucco and redwood siding. While the property does not exhibit the flat roof usually associated with "typical" Neutra designs, the Hafley House's extensive repertoire of Neutra's mid-century character-defining features includes: o Full-height sliding and fixed glass doors, seen on east elevation. o Ganged series of steel-framed window units. One unit type alternates a fixed with an operable window, typically a wider fixed window flanked by a narrower casement window. This type can be seen on the north, east and west elevations. Another unit type alternates a small fixed clerestory and larger hopper clerestory window, present on the west, north, and south elevations. o Hybrid construction combining wood post-and-beam and tight stud framing. o the use of silver paint on wood fenestration. o Abundant built-in cabinetry storage featuring drawers that are accessed with angled cut-ins instead of projecting hardware, thus maintaining aesthetically clean, monolithic planes and decreasing housework because there was less hardware to deal with. o Contrasting dark (typically stained wood or dark brown paint) and tight (white paint on interior plaster, exterior plaster, or sand-finish exterior stucco) colors. o A material or design element used in different ways and on different planes and for different purposes, for example, 1x4 tongue-and-groove redwood used for both interior and exterior walls and in horizontal and vertical orientations o Varying types of brick and masonry used for a fireplace and its surrounds. Here the fireplace cladding is common brick while the hearth, originally extending north as a long plane in the Living area, has larger masonry units similar in color to the smaller yellow Roman brick, a third variety that is used for the firebox. o Lighting strips comprising fluorescent or incandescent lamps, shielded by a translucent panel. These are embedded horizontally in extended roof soffits (east elevation) and interior light shelves in entry hallway and the master bedroom, or vertically in panels above closets. (Photo 9, exterior roof overhang at far left, where the light panel is I’m seen in the image but rests in the extended plane of white plaster at left). Such strips could also be concealed for "washing" walls and ceilings with light. o the use of prismatic "Factrolite" glass for exterior glazing (used for bathroom windows on the upper floor) and "Opal Flash Glass," (used for soffit lighting and for panels above closets) Both are used to adjust privacy levels through translucency and/or for diffusing and softening day and artificial light. Exterior Two long stucco-clad walls, parallel to the street and flanking each house, play important roles in unifying the two dwellings. The first, located south of the Moore residence garden, stretches between the pitched roof of the Moore garage on the west and the Hafley House with its taller pitched roof on the east. The second extends east from the north wall of the Hafley House garage, about 20 feet north of the Hafley's two-story primary facade. The walls anchor the houses to the site and establish the setting's feeling of repose. Each also provides privacy to a different group of occupants. At first glance, the primary (south) elevation of the Hafley House is a simple diagram of a two-story front gable box with a moderate pitch roof, a little like a modest Swiss chalet. In plan and massing, the building comprises two front gabled and attached rectangular volumes. To the north, a longer one-story rectangle includes a chimney. The east roof of this longer volume continues to become the east roof of the taller volume so that the latter's ridgeline is shifted slightly to the west in plan. On the south, a two-story volume faces La Pasada Street. It contains a bedroom suite above the double garage. This bedroom steps back to provide a fairly deep balcony that runs the width of the facade. The eastern portion of this upper facade is clad in vertically oriented tongue-and-groove redwood, while the western half is devoted to an asymmetrical distribution of steel-framed glazing outlining a flat panel painted wood door. A similar condition can be seen on the south exterior wall of the one-story portion of Hafley House where it projects out to the east behind the two-story bedroom/garage volume. ^ The ground floor on this front elevation is clad in white painted stucco with no openings. Outrigger beams, features more readily seen in Ranch, Craftsman, or other historic styles, are present here. Three outrigger beams, at the ridge and outer plate lines of the roof on the south (primary) elevation, extend south beyond the roof line. However, other features differ from those associated with these traditional residential styles. The asymmetrical glazing featured on the upper floor includes a fixed triangular clerestory window above the standard two-window unit of a larger fixed single-high window flanked by a smaller single-light casement window. On the west, the fascia board sails past the roof line to meet a longitudinal fascia board also located well beyond the roof line. This unusual "flying fascia" is not replicated on the other side of the budding. A wooden flower box, outlining the base of the balcony between the two stories, cantilevers out to the west before turning north and rejoining the building. Other atypical features include cladding only one half of a gable with vertically oriented tongue-and-groove redwood, a gesture that is not traditional building practice. Like the larger hybrid construction paradigm of both stud and post-and-beam framing used in the Hafley property, the pergola, physically connected to both houses, is something of a hybrid. (Photo 4) Eight redwood 2x8 joists are attached to the west wall of the Hafley House, below the line of the wood flower box. The south most three horizontals 2 x 8s are pinned between three pairs of upright 2 x 8s, which in turn support a larger 4 x 12 "pergola beam," as the office drawings label it, on this southern end. In contrast, this beam's northern end simply rests on the garden wall of the Moore residence. At the ground plane and immediately west of the pergola, long redwood strips, also about two inches in width, are oriented east west and inserted between a grid of large original pebble-dash concrete squares. This large rectangular area, used for parking, is seen between the two properties and immediately west of the pergola. The walkway to the houses consists of parallel and alternating strips of grass and concrete, perpendicular to the sidewalk, which extend under the pergola. (Photo 1) The primary entrance to the Hafley House is reached first, while the entrance of the Moore residence is set more deeply into the lot. (Photo 7) A short wood fence oriented east-west defines the Hafley House's primary entry area, sheltered by a roof extension with a boxed soffit of 1 x 4 redwood tongue-and-groove. This leads to the flat-panel west-facing wood front door. The door floats in a wood-framed grid consisting of a full-height glass sidelight that is aligned with one of two fixed windows above the door. To the immediate north, another door for mechanical services has a small inset window. A door-width panel of painted tempered Masonite is located above the door frame. The east elevation is the important garden elevation. (Photo 5) It is characterized by an abundance of glass overlooking the shallow but long garden and patio. Like the kitchen's west elevation, this facade features three typical window units, alternating a larger fixed and a smaller casement window. South of this ganged group stands one fixed and one full-height sliding glass steel-framed door, 8'- 6" wide and 8'- 0" tall for a total width of 17'- 0". This length is protected by an extension of the roof with a boxed soffit of 1x4 redwood tongue-and-groove. In contrast with the west roof overhang, which features a series of square highs held flush to the soffit, the east overhang features a long lighting strip of lighting at its edge, flush to the soffit. The garden is protected from street view by an extension of the south most living room wall noted earlier. At the rear (north) elevation, the west half of the pitched roof volume steps north, so that what typically is perceived as one volume is suddenly broken into two volumes sliding past each other, an example of how Neutra reconsidered the box as a grouping of point, Une, and plane. Like the south elevation, this rear facade is conceived as an asymmetric distribution of solid and void, i.e., the small area of stucco-clad wall below an irregular distribution of fixed and operable glazing that occupies most of the wall and part of the gable. (Photo 6) Again, like the south facade, a door is surrounded by a field of glazing. This secondary elevation differs, however, in that the glazing terminates east of the ridge line instead of directly below it. A rear door, opening to the shared gardens, is flat-paneled. The remaining portion of the west elevation—the area north of the entry described above—is a fenced area that acts as a service yard for the kitchen. Bordered with a dense hedge, it is sheathed in redwood and stucco. (Photo 7, left, shows south wall of this fence) Primary Interior Spaces As with the exterior, many of the principal character-defining features here are asymmetrically located and carefully positioned in specific relationships with one another. The interior partei is a long-bifurcated spine that separates the kitchen on the west from the public space on the east, i.e., the living/dining area and the "all-purpose room," as the drawings call the space immediately north. (Photo 8, at the very rear, and Photo 12) This dividing spine contains a large brick fireplace that is the central organizing element of the house. Like many Neutra fireplaces, it features an open corner; Uke some, it was painted white originally and retains that color. (Photo 10,11) In addition, while the immediate walls of the firebox, clad in roman brick, are both recessed, the south firebox wall steps back more deeply to align with the stainless-steel firewood cabinet adjoining the fireplace on the south. (Photo 11) These two smaller gestures in asymmetry, like others mentioned, contribute to the larger essay in asymmetry. Bookshelves, cabinetry with a "pass-through" opening, and the kitchen doorway flank the north wall of the fireplace. A large east-facing mirror mounted at the back wall of the firewood box permits viewers facing west to visually participate in the landscape behind them, a strategy also used in the Frederick and Mary Jane Auerbacher House in Redlands, California, and also completed in 1953. Neutra often used mirrors to "stretch space," as he termed their use in his architecture. The kitchen has a flat prevailing plaster ceiling height of 8'-1." (Photo 13) In contrast, the angled ceilings of the living/dining area animate this major public space. (Photos 8, 9) Here, the exposed and stained 3x6 Douglas Fir rafters, slope down from the ridge, approximately 13'- 6" tall, to the prevailing 8'-1" plate line across a relatively narrow interior span of about 12'- 6." The sense of flowing space running freely out into the garden is checked and tempered in a game that plays off a large, opaque sound and a thin plane. On the east side of the living room and beginning at its south end, a long plane of redwood tongue-and groove is suspended from the ceiling. This acts as a floating, horizontal "lid," straddling the interior, into which it projects 3'- 6,"and into the exterior, where it projects 4'- 6"and extends outdoors to provide sheltered space. Above this long plane, which also accommodated concealed Lighting for nighttime wall and ceiling washing, a short wall between this plane and the sloping ceiling projects slightly. On the opposite (west) side of the Living room, and above the white painted brick fireplace, the white painted plaster wall projects into the living area 3'- 6" (mirroring the floating redwood dropped ceiling on the east) beyond the fireplace, acting as a very deep soffit that begins at the entry hallway (Photo 10) and terminates at the master bedroom to the north. Like the dropped plane of redwood, this deep soffit is also held to a prevailing height of 8'-1." These two major elements also differ in where they begin and end, so that they appear to slide past one another, adding to the sense of balanced tension in the space even while their height and projection into the room provide a localized sense of shelter and intimacy. The deep plaster soffit has one more task. At its south end, it projects out about one foot at its base where it accommodates another light panel flush to the surface. (This panel provided a means to "wall wash" the white plaster wall to the north of the staircase, providing a helpful way to illuminate a journey upstairs, in contrast to the concealed lighting above the redwood "lid," where the use of such lighting was employed as a dramatic tool.) The elongation of the tight shelf for the stairs also exemplifies Neutra's consistent use of stretching one tine, plane, or volume beyond another. Panels of Vi' deep Homasote are placed between the rafters and contribute to the acoustical qualities of the room, which are not overly vibrant. ^ This detail occurs again in the upstairs bedroom. The eastern edge of the deep soffit is aligned with the east facade of the garage/upstairs bedroom suite, which is visible through another dramatic intervention, a long single-tight window above a small hopper window located on the living room's south wall. (Photo 9) An enlarged "sill" of silver-painted plywood completes this triptych. Angled at the top where it meets the sloping ceiling, the window unit provides a specific, framed view of the garage and sky. This window unit also serves to further elongate the space by specifically framing the exposed rafters of the upper story bedroom, visually doubting the ordered, rhythmic sequence of rafters when viewed from indoors. The framed view is a sharp contrast to the views accessible through the east (garden) elevation, where large window expanses provide views both extensive and omnidirectional. Secondary Interior Spaces Downstairs, the master bedroom with en suite bath occupies the northwest corner of the house. (Photo 14) The door to the room has a painted veneer panel above its frame, a feature seen again at the north exterior door from the all-purpose room, adding to the sense of a grid or puzzle whose pieces alternate between orthogonal and angled. At the entrance to the master bedroom, a slightly lowered ceiling, again accommodating hidden lighting for wall lighting, opens to a taller ceiling, expressing in a small distance the use of "compression expansion," an architectural technique used to increase spatial drama. (Photo 14, top left) A ganged pair of alternating fixed and casement steel-framed windows is identical to those described easier. The pair is asymmetrically located, terminating at the room's northwest cover. A bank of birch veneer cabinetry, detailed like that seen elsewhere, occupies the south wall. An L-shaped run of stairs located at the south end of the house leads to the second bedroom suite and bathroom. Two doors, immediately adjacent and perpendicular to one another, lead to this modestly scaled suite, designed so that a curtain could be drawn along the length of the ridge beam. This provided the means to make one space into two smaller spaces, accommodating an additional guest or child. The track for the curtain still exists. The room's primary interior character-defining features are the exposed ridge beam, rafters, and Homasote panels on both sides of the sloped ceiling. Built-in closets with sliding doors of tempered Masonite and finger pulls are located on the eastside of the room. A bathroom is located in a small volume projecting north. Its north wall originally contained a standard unit of a larger fixed-sash window and a smaller casement window, both glazed with Factrolite. These are surmounted by a full-width transparent clerestory window. (Photo 6, top right at rear) A visitor was intended to use the small extant mirror located on the east side of the bathroom, adjacent to the small shower. At some time, the exterior face of the large fixed window, still extant, was painted silver and a large mirror placed on the interior side. A second two-window unit, a casement window surmounted by a fixed window angled at the top where it meets the roof, is located on the eastern side of the upstairs suite's north wall, just east of the larger window unit described above. It is similar to the long, thin window on the south side of the living room. Alterations and Integrity According to conversations with Janice Furman, owner of the Moore residence since 1971 and a close friend of the Hafleys, it is likely that most of the alterations listed below preceded her ownership. As the current owner is proceeding with a full restoration under the guidelines of the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation, these alterations will be removed and original conditions restored. Integrity With one original owner from its completion in 1953 until 2010, when the property changed hands following Mrs. Hafley's death, the interior and exterior of the Hafley House are largely unchanged. The dwelling retains a high level of integrity with regard to design, materials, workmanship and feeling. Its location, setting, and association within Park Estates and with its equally intact adjacent companion house have matured but have not altered. The house is in excellent condition, and the minor and readily reversible changes noted above will be restored by the new co-owners, preservation architect Kelly Sutherlin McLeod and son Cameron McLeod. Overall, the Olan G. and Aida T. Hafley House retains a very high degree of all aspects of integrity.
Jul 12, 2011
Posted Date
Mar 16, 2022
Historical Record Date
Jul 12, 2011
Source Name
United States Department of Interior - National Park Service
