Comparisons of
Gill's Writings and the Price house

The Home of The Future:
The New Architecture of the West:
Small Homes for a Great Country

by Irving J. Gill as printed in The Craftsman magazine for May 1916
Mission San Diego de Alcala 1345 Granada
California is influenced, and rightly so, by the Spanish Missions as well as by the rich coloring and the form of the low hills and wide valleys. The Missions are a part of its history that should be preserved and in their long, low lines, graceful arcades, tile roofs, bell towers, arched doorways and walled gardens we find a most expressive medium of retaining tradition, history and romance. In coloring and general form they are exactly suited to the romantic requirements of the country.

The facade of the San Diego Mission is a wonderful thing, something that deserves to be a revered model, something to which local building might safely and advantageously have been keyed.

by Irving J. Gill as printed in The Craftsman magazine for May 1916
Gill uses the mission´s charming proportions and graceful outline to reverently bring a semblance of their original beauty to a minute private house.

Look and compare the photographs. Both the Mission San Diego de Alcala and the Price house #2 show symmetry, a central doorway, and similar curves in the parapets. The Mission has one central arched face and two entry walls; whereas 1345 Granada has two arched faces and one wall. The entry walls and the facades appear to have comparable proportions. The arched parapets and the space between them above the entryway at the Price house #2 act as a metaphor for those “low hills and wide valley”. Gill infuses the essence of the Mission into the simple Price rental cottage.
Zanja at Rancho Guajome Porch at 1345 Granada


Ramona's house, a landmark as familiar in the South as some of the Missions, was built around three sides of an open space, the other side being a high garden wall. This home plan gave privacy, protection and beauty. The court contains a pool and well in the center and an arbor for grapes along the garden wall; the archway that runs along the three sides formed by the house made the open-air living rooms. Here were arranged couches for sleeping, hammocks for the siesta, easy chairs and tables for dining. There was always a sheltered and a sunny side, always seclusion and an outlook into the garden. In California we have liberally borrowed this home plan, for it is hard to devise a better, cozier, more convenient or practical scheme for a home. In the seclusion of the outdoor living rooms and in their nearness to the garden, the arrangement is ideal.

by Irving J. Gill as printed in The Craftsman magazine for May 1916
 The Price residence #1 is clearly designed around this early California style as seen today in the Casa de Estudillo but Hazel Wood Waterman did not complete the reconstruction of this home in Old Town until 1909, i.e. in the year after the Price house was commissioned. Gill refers actually to Ramona´s house, not to the house where she was wed, indicating that his reference is probably to Rancho Guajome. Since Gill drafted a design for the Rancho Guajome Health Company in 1905 it is likely that Gill would have met Cave Couts, Jr. at the rancho to view the site of the spa. In visiting the rancho, Gill would have entered through the zanja, an impressive covered entryway leading into the courtyard. Perhaps it was this experience which led to Gill to include such a broad, heavy wood-beamed, cantilevered covering over the entry porch coming out of the solid, white stuccoed walls as a further element in the design of the Price house #2 to characterize the early California tradition, history and romance.
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