953 Park Cir
Long Beach, CA 90813, USA

Green-Rankin-Bembridge House ( Rankin, Thomas & Hazel; Green, Stephan & Josephine, House; Bembridge House) - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:

The Bembridge House is significant as the most elaborate and intact Queen Anne Victorian architecture extant in the City of Long Beach, California. The property contains a three-story main house, a two-story carriage house, and a small aviary. The exterior of the main house has complex and varied massing; a steep hip roof with multiple gables; a wraparound porch and a comer tower; richly died cladding and decoration. The house interiors are in pristine original condition, with original woodwork, wall finishes, and gas-electric chandeliers. It was constructed in 1906 and demonstrates the continued popularity of Victorian design in the first decade of the twentieth century. It represents an outstanding example of Victorian design and craftsmanship in the context of pioneering residential homes in Long Beach. It meets National Register Criteria C, embodying the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, and possesses high artistic values.

The name Bembridge House is preferred for this property, as this name has been in common use since the 1960's. It was Dorothy Bembridge, as owner of the property and resident of the house for m-. : decades, who was dedicated to the preservation of the historic structures on the site.

HISTORJCAL CONTEXT

The land that today includes the Bembridge House property was part of Willmore City and subsequently part of the original residential district of the City of Long Beach. The establishment of the town of Long Beach began with the purchase of options on 4,000 acres of Rancho Los Cerritos land by William Willmore for the establishment of an agricultural and town settlement on land adjacent to the ocean. In 1882, Willmore established the American Colony and its central district of Willmore City. Sales of land in the colony were not successful and be was forced to relinquish his options. This settlement, however, would form the basis for the future development of Long Beach

The City of Long Beach was incorporated in January of 1888. The crash that affected most of Southern California later that year, however, had a disastrous effect on the growth of the city and its incorporation was nullified in 1896. In 1897, the city was re-incorporated. The decade of 1900 - 1910 was one of enormous growth in Long Beach, with the population increasing by 600 %; it was said that the City of Long Beach was the fastest growing city in the nation. Early economic development was centered near the ocean, with the development of an amusement zone and beachfront resorts. A retail and business district began to flourish nearby. The port of Long Beach was launched, and a major shipbuilding firm located there. Tracts of land were subdivided and residential development took off.

Col. Charles Rivers Drake, who had originally made bis fortune from the development of railroads in Arizona, was a major pioneering entrepreneur in Long Beach. He formed the Seaside Water Company to create the Pike Amusement Zone, a carnival amusement park alongside the beach, and opened the palatial Plunge in 1902. The bath house, pier, hotels, rides, and shops at the Pike were major seaside attractions

beginning in 1902, the year in which the Pacific Electric Railroad inaugurated a transportation link from Los Angeles to Long Beach. Drake was also the operator of the Virginia Hotc an elegant establishment that opened in 1908 overlooking the beach adjacent to the Pike. The Pike and the Virginia Hotel were the City's major economic engines in its early days.

Drake was also the developer of the tract, the Knoll Park tract, in which the Bembridge house was located. In 1904, he donated a semi-circular park to the City of Long Beach, called Knoll Park, and laid out the lots in the tract around the circle, The park that was the centerpiece of that tract, Knoll Park, was later renamed Drake Parle.

His intent was to create an upscale residential district. The original deed indicates restrictive covenants and quality standards placed on the property, which were to terminate on January 10, 1910. The covenants dictated:

... That said premises shall be used for residence purposes only; that no residence shall be erected, placed, or pinnated upon any one of said lots or any part thereof that shall cost or be fairly worth less than One Thousand Dollars ($1000.00), and that said residence and all portions and projections thereof shall be located not less than thirty (30) feet from the front line of said premises and shall face the front line thereof; namely Park Circle Street.


Today, the Bembridge House is the only remaining survivor of this early residential subdivision. Other vintage homes remaining in the area are more modest, and the neighborhood has seen the demolition of original housing stock to be replaced by apartments. The park itself has expanded, which also resulted in the loss of some older housing stock. The Bembridge House itself was threatened with potential demolition for park expansion in 1968, but it was spared, and the park now surrounds the house on three sides.

The house was constructed for Stephen and Josephine Green, who came to California from Iowa in 1897. They lived briefly in Seattle and Los Angeles before settling in Long Beach. The Green family had acquired their Long Beach property as of September 1906, according to title records. In 1907, Mr. Green started service on the board of the newly-formed City National Bank in downtown Long Beach, and by this time the family had moved to their newly constructed home in the Knoll Park neighborhood as well. Tax assessor records list Mr. Green as owner in 1907.

Stephen Green died in 1912, and his family sold the house the following year. Several different owners had control over the house during the next five years.

The date of November 14, 1919 is indicated for the ownership of Thomas M. Rankin, whose family remained in the house from that point until November 1999.


Rankin family originally lived in Cambridge, Nebraska. One son, Thomas Rankin established a large wholesaling business for butter, eggs, and poultry.

Thomas M. Rankin and his wife Hazel had made several visits to Long Beach, California in the period 1910 to 1914, as Mrs. Rankin 's parents and operated the Van Dyke boarding house in the city.
The Van Dyke was located on Ocean Boulevard across from the Virginia Hotel, and was part of the thriving beach resort. According to anecdotes that survived in the Rankin family, Mr. Rankin admired the house at 953 Parle Circle, asked who had constructed it, and was told it was a kit house made by the Gordon-Van Tine Company of Davenport, Iowa. Also, according to family anecdotes, Hazel Rankin 's mother apparently discovered that the Park Circle house was for sale in 1918, at which point the Rankins decided to move to Long Beach with their two children, Neil and Dorothy, and purchased the house to live in.

Thomas and Hazel Rankin lived in the house until their deaths, Hazel in 1956, and Thomas in 1960.Their daughter, Dorothy, was raised in the house and lived there for almost her whole life, except for brief periods during two marriages. Her second marriage in 1953, to Charles Bembridge, helped her to retain ownership of the house, as her husband supplied her with the funds in 1962 to buy her brother's interest
in the house. Charles and Dorothy Bembridge moved to the house in August of 1963 from their previous
residence in the Belmont Shore area in east Long Beach. Charles Bembridge died shortly thereafter, in September of 1963. For thirty-seven years, Dorothy Bembridge lived in the house alone, until her death in 1999. She left the house to Biola University, from whom Long Beach Heritage, the current owners. acquired it.

ARCHITECTURE

The Bembridge House is unique for having survived in its original pristine condition, virtually unchanged, for nearly a century. The Rankin family never remodeled nor redecorated the interiors. A few alterations were made in 1924 and 1926, and an undated alteration of the doors to the carriage house was made to replace the original doors. These alterations are relatively minor, and may be considered to have historic value in their own right as part of the evolution of the Rankins' use of the house. The overwhelming experience of the house is that of a monumental, ornate, and intact Queen Anne Victorian that is distinctive in the context of Long Beach residential architecture. The period of significance, 1906- 1926, is based upon the time period in which the design of the house, as it exists today, took place.

The Victorian style was popular in Long Beach into the first decade of the twentieth century. There are extant a number of Victorian cottages, and some two-story and three-story more fully developed Victorians. However, none of them have the elaboration of form, ornate exuberance or richness of detail of the Bembridge House. Characteristic of Long Beach Victorians is a sobriety and plainness of detail, possessing the compositional massing and materials typical of Victorian design, but relatively austere and simplified. The reasons for this are likely to be traced to the cultural climate of the City, and possibly the late date of construction for many Long Beach Victorian buildings.


1beunique features of the Bern bridge House, compared with other Long Back (.Jucen Anne v 1i;lu1"'"'" arc its synthesis of complex asymmetrical massing with a tall comer tower, a deep and curving wrap¬ around front porch, paired Ionic column porch supports, relief decorations of friezes and swags and medallions, rich exterior cladding of siding and decorative shingles, a complex of steep roof forms with iron finials. The pristine interiors are unique in Long Beach, with the grand stairway and original light fixture on the newel post, boxed ceilings in the hallway and dining room, wood paneled walls and plaster walls with the original multi-colored sponge painted calcimine finishes, an original elaborate fireplace mantel with columns, mirror, and figurative high-gloss tiles. Original gas-electric chandeliers remain in the dining room and bedrooms. Decorative leaded glass transoms and stained glass windows occur throughout.

The Bembridge House is also the only residential structure in Long Beach to retain its original carriage house, a two-story structure with its original rooftop lantern and interior bay chute. The property also contains an octagonal aviary in its original condition, built at the same time as the other structures.

QUEEN ANNE VICTORIAN ARCHITECTURE

Queen Anne Victorian homes were built in the U.S. from 1880-1910, according to Virginia & Lee McAlester 's Field Guide to American Houses. The architectural features of the Bembridge House match the identifying features of the Queen Anne Victorian style:

"Steeply pitched roof of irregular shape, usually with a dominant front-facing gable; patterned shingles, cutaway bay windows, and other devices used to avoid a smooth-walled appearance; asymmetrical e with a partial or full-width porch which is usually one story high and extended along one or both side walls." (p.263)

1be Bembridge House is characterized by a hipped roof with lower cross gables, one of the typical roof forms of Queen Anne Victorians. It falls under the "free classic “subtype for its decorative detailing. The McAlester’s note that about 35% of Queen Anne houses use classical columns rather than turned posts as porch supports. obey are usually grouped together in units of two or three -in the case of the Bembridge House, two. This subtype became common after 1890, reflecting Colonial Revival detailing.

Features of the Bembridge House that arc typical of Queen Anne Victorians are: the asymmetrical composition; the complex of varied and projecting masses; the steeply pitched roof with cross gables; the comer tower; the wraparound front porch; the variations inwall textures with siding and shingle patterns; the decorative embellishments and detailing; the window types - single pane wood sash and tripartite windows with a fixed center pane having a floral-patterned leaded glass transom.

The popularity of the Queen Anne style persisted, with decreasing popularity, through the first decade of the twentieth century. This style is not uncommon in Long Beach homes from 1900 - 1910. However, the architectural richness of the Bembridge House surpasses the relatively undecorated and modest treatment of Victorians typical for the City of Long Beach in that period.