take a look... to me was a very nice discovery... i hope to you too
click the link to see (and to record) the drawings...Not too long ago, I went looking through my father’s attic for my children’s books. My son is of an age now to appreciate them and I thought that it would be such a treasure for him to read some of my books from when I was his age. To my amazement, I found another treasure, a piece of family history.
There was a box full of my dad’s concert posters and rock posters from the ‘60s, ranging from The Beatles to Jefferson Airplane. Within that same box was a slightly tattered, yellowed set of blueprints.
“These are THE house plans,� my dad said. “When your grandparents got married, they had an associate of theirs draw up some plans for a piece of land they bought in Boyle Heights, right by where Cal State L.A. is now located.�
My grandparents were a progressive young couple. The war had just ended, my grandfather got out of the army, got a transport to Los Angeles and chucked his heavy jacket in a waste bin at Union Station and never looked back. He was into acting and comedy and tried his talent in a few playhouses and befriended a few people in the business. Somewhere along the way he got connected to a young designer named Theo. Van Fossen. “Ted� had spent some time with Frank Lloyd Wright out in Arizona. This guy was a true bohemian. He was from the school of thought that believed becoming a licensed “Architect� would detract from his design. This was just the kind of guy my grandparents would have commissioned for the design of their home.
He would come to their house and spend all day with them, seeing how they lived. They would chat and have cocktails. There was probably a lot of smoking involved. But this was all part of the process. Ted would take clues from how they lived and leave them with the idea that Nature and dwelling are integrated and the organic geometries of Nature are the highest form of architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright spelled Nature with a capital “N�.
The design incorporates every Usonian ideal that Frank Lloyd Wright taught. Work with the contours of the land, orient the building for solar access, use earthen materials, and design for the people, not the cars. It was a small house and minimally decorated with a pattern of brick and concrete block that I can only describe as elegant as a chalk stripe suit. The building would have had significant thermal mass and easily accommodate radiant flooring.
Not until recently had there been such a housing boom. The City of Los Angeles practically grew overnight and many great designs and poor designs came along with it, but the concepts that Mr. Van Fossen and my grandparents had were not meant to be. My grandparents were newlyweds living from paycheck to paycheck. They would have to get a building loan for their project. Even a bank that was known for catering to immigrants and small businesses was not willing to finance their home. The loan officers said it was “Too modern.� My grandmother would curse those words for the next five decades until her death.
Mr. Van Fossen left L.A. soon after and ended up developing a village just outside of Columbus, Ohio, integrating the same design ideas he shared with my grandparents. The neighborhood went by under the radar until 2003, when it was awarded a National Historic Landmark status.
Surprisingly, Mr. Van Fossen is still alive, in his nineties, and working in Pennsylvania. He returns to his project in Ohio at least once a year to do a little consulting work. His alma mater, the New Bauhaus, now part of the Illinois Institute of Technology, keeps an archive of his work.
My dad let me keep the copy of the house plans. I guess I’m of an age now to appreciate them. I’ve written a letter to Mr. Van Fossen to thank him for being a part of my family history and forwarded a copy of the Merker Residence to be placed in the Van Fossen archives.
