Historic Context Casa de Oro-Mount Helix Community

Dona Maria Antonia Estudillo, of the Estudillo family, natives of Monterey, received the 600-acre land-grant in 1845. She ran cattle on the rancho property, the future Casa de Oro-Mount Helix neighborhood, bounded today by Bancroft Drive to the west, Interstate 8 to the north, State Route 54/Jamacha Road to the east, and State Route 94/Campo Road to the south.

Harvey C. Parke, of the Parke-Davis Medical Company in Detroit, Michigan, acquired Villa Caro Ranch from rancher Sam Marshall in 1895. Ed Fletcher, who soon established himself as a prominent land developer and civic booster in the San Diego region, purchased Villa Caro Ranch from Harvey C. Parke in 1902.

Fletcher’s partner in the Villa Caro Ranch land acquisition was Pennsylvania-born theatre agent William Gross, who with Fletcher, envisioned the creation of an artists’ colony populated by literary and musical personalities, which would bring a significant return on their purchase through the speculative subdivision of raw land into real estate lots for sale. The name of Fletcher and Gross’ colony would be Grossmont Park. The first Grossmont Park subdivision was platted and recorded on October 31, 1910. Subsequent Units (No. 2 through No. 5) in the Grossmont Park tract were filed through 1915, and Unit No. 6, a resubdivision of lots from Units 1, 4, and 5, was recorded on February 17, 1931.

For the Grossmont Park tracts Fletcher imported trees for planting and installed 14-miles of roads throughout that were intended to maximize views. Lots were sold initially for up to $2,500 per acre until the Great Depression hit and reduced land values to $250 to $500 per acre. While Fletcher worked on the land development process Gross worked to attract artists, musicians, and entertainers to the new community in the mountains. They succeeded in attracting the opera singer Ernestine Schumann-Heink as a resident, and eventually sold lots to a number of prominent people in the arts including songwriter Carrie Jacobs-Bond, pianist Teresa Carreno, and author Owen Wister. Motion picture companies used the area in the 1910s and 1920s, and Grossmont Studios flourished for a brief period. Fletcher himself established a country residence at the foot of Grossmont.

Calavo Gardens were developed from 1928 through the 1930s. Calavo Gardens Units No. 1 through No. 4 were developed as agricultural-residential tracts with large-acre lots and custom homes built in the Spanish Revival style of architecture. The tracts were developed by the F.J. Hansen Organization, led by Fred J. Hansen, San Diego’s premier agricultural-residential development company from the 1930s to 1960s. Hansen, a native of Denmark, moved to San Diego in the early 1920s and soon thereafter, pioneered avocado growing in the Mount Helix area with his Calavo Gardens land subdivision. The La Mesa resident was a shareholder in the Cyclone Fence Company and founded the La Presa and Otay Municipal Water District, in 1956, assisted in the development of the Spring Valley Sanitation District, and served as a San Diego County Planning Commissioner for twenty-six years where he helped to guide current and long range planning and development issues throughout the county.

Unit No. 1 of the Calavo Gardens land subdivision was filed with the San Diego County Recorder’s Office on September 27, 1928 at the request of property owner Fred J. Hansen. Recorded as Map No. 2132, the land subdivision was planned and surveyed by Hansen and the La Mesa Engineering Service to include approximately fifty lots, sited along present-day Fuerte Drive, Calavo Drive, Puebla Drive, Panchoy Drive, and Avocado Boulevard, ranging in size from .40 acres to 3.09 acres planted with Fuerte Avocado trees. The street names assigned to the area are avocado related, reflecting either varietals, or other important aspects of the history of avocados. Fuerte Drive is named for the Fuerte avocado varietal; Calavo Drive is named for the Calavo avocado varietal, Panchoy Drive is named for the Panchoy avocado varietal, and Puebla Drive is named for Puebla the Mexican city where the Fuerte tree was first discovered and introduced to California in 1911. Less than one year later, on March 2, 1929, Unit No. 2 of Calavo Gardens was recorded as Map No. 2149. Continuing the avocado street name assignments, all streets in Unit No. 2 were also named for avocado varietals. Anaheim Drive is named for the Anaheim varietal introduced to California in 1910, Queen Avenue for the Queen varietal introduced by E.E. Knight in 1914, Dutton Drive for the Dutton varietal and also perhaps for E.C. Dutton, president of the California Avocado Association established in 1915, Nabel Drive for the Nabel / Nabal varietal introduced in 1917 by F.W. Popenoe, Prince Lane for the Black Prince varietal, and Itzamna Road for the Guatemalan Itzamna varietal. Calavo Gardens included approximately sixty trees per acre, and purchase price of a property included planting, care and water for two years, with further maintenance offered at cost plus ten percent. The subdivision orchards were advertised as 100% of all fruit yields belonging to individual property owners. The F.J. Hansen Organization advertised the land subdivision as ‘investment in safety’ and an ideal homesite offering, and continued to plat the remaining tracts at Calavo Gardens. The Spanish Revival architectural aesthetic selected for the individual homes within Calavo Gardens reflects not only the popular architectural ideology at the time, but also complemented the Hispanic origins and contributed to the general setting of the avocado orchards planted there.

In the post-WWII period, Mount Helix became a haven for Modern Ranch Residential Architecture, likely inspired by the area’s natural terrain and landscaping with granitic boulders and outcroppings, steep slope lots, and panoramic views. The environmental conditions of Mount Helix provided an ideal setting for the construction of new dwellings in wood, brick, and stone, that were true in form, sprawling in plan, and integrated with the surrounding conditions.

Modern Ranch Residential Architecture

Modern Ranch homes were typically custom-designed with a specific client in mind. Designers of these custom homes include such noted San Diego County designers as Cliff May, Richard Wheeler, CJ Paderewski, and Weir Brothers Construction. Cliff May was instrumental in popularizing the Ranch style in California with his book and articles published by Sunset Magazine. The Ranch style became the era’s most prevalent type of residential construction in San Diego. Modern Ranch homes are generally much more lavish than their tract counterparts; they frequently included a large landscaped property, with a deep street setback creating a generous front yard. These homes may also feature larger garages, motor courts, servant’s quarters, expanded kitchens, and generous living spaces. Materials and detailing are generally traditional. Typical exterior materials include wood siding, stone, concrete block, brick, and even adobe. Detailing may include paneled wood doors, divided lite windows, wood shutters, and prominent chimneys.

Character-Defining Features of Modern Ranch

There are four principal subtypes of the style:

Hipped Roof – About 10 percent of one-story Ranch houses have a simple hipped roof with a long roof ridge running parallel to the front façade. These are more common in rural areas and in neighborhoods of smaller houses. Very occasionally, as in the side-gabled subtype, a large example with broadly angled wings occurs.

Cross-Hipped Roof – About 40 percent of one-story Ranch houses have a cross-hipped roof. Typically, these are one-story houses with a long roof ridge running parallel to the front façade with a single hipped extension. Occasionally a second hipped front extension is also present. Sometimes the cross-gabled and cross-hipped types have a combination roof with a front hip on a side-gabled roof or, conversely, a front-facing gable on a hipped roof. Very large examples may feature rather complex roof forms with a combination of roof heights and types.

Side-Gabled Roof – About 10 percent of one-story Ranch houses have side-gabled roofs with a long roof ridge running parallel to the front façade. These are more common in rural areas and in neighborhoods of smaller houses. Some high-style examples have slight angles in the front (or other) façade, giving the appearance of widespread welcoming arms.

Cross-Gabled Roof – About 40 percent of one-story Ranch houses have a broad side-gabled form, with a long roof ridge parallel to the street, and a single prominent, front-facing gable extension. Occasionally a second such gable is present.

Variants and Details

Windows – A remarkable variety of sizes and types of pre-manufactured windows were available to builders during the Ranch era, and most Ranch houses exhibit several different sizes and/or types of windows. After World War II, factories used for war production were quickly adapted to the manufacture of domestic products and a profusion of window types was made possible by applying production methods perfected during the war. These were manufactured in standardized sizes newly regulated by the industry’s trade associations. Metal (aluminum, steel, or bronze) and wood versions of double-hung, casement, and sliding windows were manufactured, as were awning styles. Metal sliding windows and jalousie windows (very common in southern Florida) also occurred. More than 50 percent of Ranch houses have at least one picture window on the front facade, and some examples have more. These large focal windows commonly had sections that could be opened from side or top hinges for ventilation. In later examples, groups of tall fixed vertical panes were often used instead of picture windows. Sometimes a grouping of several traditional double-hung windows was used in place of a picture window. Very short windows were often utilized, sometimes grouped into ribbons and placed high on the facade. This allowed for light and ventilation without loss of interior privacy and accommodated flexibility in furniture arrangement below the high windows. In the rest of the house, traditional window lengths were typically used—either in a casement or double-hung design. In the latter, horizontal light patterns (2/2 or 3/3) and multi-pane patterns (9/9, 8/8, 6/6, 12/12, or 1/1) were common. Generally, several window sizes or shapes occur on a house, typically made of the same material and in the same design family (meaning that the details and pattern of lights are matched). Corner windows sometimes occurred in early examples, usually with a corner support (in contrast to the mitered glass corners on some Mid-century Modern homes).

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Front Entries – The front entry is almost always sheltered by the main roof of the house. At its simplest, the front entry is only recessed, with extra shelter provided by the overhanging front-facade roof. Alternatively, the door is set into the L formed by the cross-hipped or cross-gabled roof, providing two overhangs for additional shelter. In about half the examples, entry or partial-width porches occur, almost always contained under the main roof of the house, making them relatively inconspicuous. Two porch forms are common. In one, a portion of the front-facing cross gable or hip has inset walls that form a roofed entry area. In the other, a partial-width porch occurs, often in the L created by the cross-hipped or gabled-roof form; occasionally a porch is full-width. It is common for the material cladding the entry area to differ from that of the main body of the house. Porch supports are most often simple wood posts—sometimes with triangular braces to each side—or wrought iron in a wide variety of designs, from simple modern forms to more traditional patterns that often feature vine and leaf motifs. Occasionally, porch supports are omitted and the roof spans wall to wall. An unusually wide variety of entry details appear. The front door itself may be single or paired and occurs in many diverse designs. The simplest is a resolutely plain flush door. Some designs are “modern” and may feature multiples of three (three small windows, three raised horizontal panels). Other designs feature panels—either distinctive curvilinear panels that were then called French Provincial or multiple squared panels more typical of Colonial Revival; these often have glass panes above. Doors may have a single sidelight or matched sidelights or side panels. Occasionally the entry door faces to the side rather than toward the street.

Roof-Wall Junctions – The overhanging eave was either boxed or open. When boxed, it had either a simple, unadorned cornice board or no cornice at all. When open, the rafter tails were typically either sheathed with plywood or exposed, commonly with smooth-rounded rafter tails that did not extend beyond the roof edge.

Other Details – The new emphasis on standardization seen in windows produced the Ranch style’s very common eight-foot ceiling height, since sheetrock, gypsum board, and two-by-four lumber were now generally produced at this uniform length. Concrete-slab foundations, used in rapid prefab construction during World War II, became common and allowed the Ranch house to move even closer to the ground as slabs replaced the higher masonry-pier foundations of earlier homes. Garages were generally attached and could face to the front, rear, or side. The typical one-car attached garage (1930s to early 1950s) soon became a two-car garage, and later even a three-car one. Houses built early in the era, and those squeezed onto older, narrow lots, might have a detached garage or one connected by a covered breezeway. Carports were also sometimes found but were more common in Contemporary houses. Wood, brick, stone, asbestos and wood shingles, concrete blocks, and stucco wall cladding were all used. Board-and-batten, used in Cliff May’s early Ranch designs, was a favored wood-siding pattern. Frequently two or more materials were combined. Cladding might vary on whole sections of a wall (such as the front entry area), in the top of gable ends, or in horizontal sections (such as between the bottom third of a wall, typically below the base of the windows, and the upper two-thirds). The predominant wall cladding material used sometimes varies regionally (such as red brick in Georgia or stucco in Arizona) and can differ from subdivision to subdivision. Simple, low masonry planters were favorite elaborations and could be small and located near the entry, horizontal and stretched along the front facade of the house, or free-standing and enclosing an entry courtyard. The FHA discouraged a pronounced modern appearance in the homes they helped finance. Thus, builders frequently added modest bits of traditional detailing, usually loosely based on Spanish, French, or English Colonial precedents. Decorative window shutters are the most common of these. Window boxes were often used, and small roof cupolas (sometimes of prefab metal) and pieces of metal decoration at gable ends (such as eagles) are not unusual. It was rare to find a house that featured details from a single style—most of them freely mixed and matched. Ranch houses that exhibit one distinct style are treated under Styled Ranch. Early, small examples of the Ranch are sometimes called Ranchette, Minimal Ranch, or Transitional Ranch. These generally lack the broader overhang of later examples and many of the elaborations that became common as house size increased. Ranchettes are commonly found in neighborhoods that contain or are located close to Minimal Traditionals. The line between Minimal Traditional and Ranchette is a matter of judgment. However, the intent was likely a Ranch house if a picture window and other Ranch elaboration is present (such as a corner window or wall cladding that differs at the base of the windows). While Ranch houses commonly have a broader profile than Minimal Traditionals, neighborhoods platted with narrow lots before World War II may have Ranch-style houses adapted to these lot sizes.

Rear-Yard Elaborations – Outdoor patios are common features at the rear of the house, often reached through sliding glass doors or a double French door, and sometimes with built-in free-standing masonry grills. These private outdoor living areas are a direct contrast to the large front or side porches of most late 19th- and early 20th-century styles. Large view windows faced, and patios and covered verandahs opened onto, the more private rear of the house. Front porches, when present, were generally shallow and rarely served as the outdoor living spaces of earlier styles.