The city saves a vintage Long Beach foursquare

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
The so-called “school house” isn’t a historic landmark, although it’s survived 104 years of floods, earthquakes and development in downtown Long Beach. But in conversations with surviving members of the Hunter family—three generations of whom lived there from 1906 to 1977—acts of God and the [...]

Fourth Street’s Art Theatre is ready for its close-up, Mr. Van Dijs

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
By the time you read this, the Art Theatre will be open again—following one of the grandest restorations of a commercial building in recent history—making it once more Long Beach’s only independent movie house, and the city’s last functioning vintage theater.
At [...]

Preserving the architect Joseph Halstead Robert’s legacy

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
According to a list he made in 1926, architect Joseph Halstead Roberts designed more than 450 structures—including scores of homes, a Masonic lodge, a sanitarium, the St. Regis and Californian apartments, and Lincoln Elementary School.
So naturally, when he purchased an existing house north of Belmont Heights [...]

Life is breezy in Edward Killingsworth’s model condominium

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
It’s been summer for seven weeks and Louis Gonzalez still hasn’t gone anywhere—but then if you had a Bluff Park ocean view, from the coolest condominium Killingsworth never built, neither would you.
Killingsworth is the late architect Edward Killingsworth. The architectural firm he helped create still [...]

Bungalow courts are like condos or townhouses with style

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Before we lived in townhomes, condominiums—or even so much in apartments—we also lived in courts: bungalow courts. Groupings of shrunken, free-standing bungalows (or Spanish-style boxes), they were an immediate hit in transitory, touristy, early 20th century Southern California—perhaps reaching their architectural zenith in Pasadena.
“In [...]

How three single sisters and a German tradesman built a little slice of English countryside

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
“The best view of our house is from the front,” Lou Gaudio says as we admire the porte-cochere on the 1928 Storybook Tudor he shares with Karen Highberger. (It’s like a vintage carport, but attached to the house [...]

It’s harder to research your own house

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Uncovering your house’s history sounds easy when someone else is telling you about where they live, but it can take hours of deciphering old building permits and trade notices—and they don’t always tell the whole story.
I’ve been trying to learn about C. Waale, the man who [...]

Turning the clock back 40 years on a Bluff Heights condominium

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Radios, ashtrays, vacuums, cabi-nets—everything looks fast in Long Beach Heritage president-elect John Thomas’s Bluff Heights home, which he had gutted three years ago and transformed from 1970s condo to 1930s-era Art Deco apartment. A photograph his partner J. Christopher Launi took of [...]

Four historic houses up for auction abound in classic features

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
The city Redevelopment Agency is taking bid proposals through Aug. 11 on four vacant, historic houses in the Willmore City Historic District, three of which it rescued from the West Gateway project.
So, hire a contractor to help, then bid what’s left after you [...]

Homegrown herbs, produce and fruit might just be easier than you think

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Forget for a moment the most compelling reasons to grow your own vegetables, fruits and herbs—rising food prices and spotty government inspections and regulation—and instead consider the conveniences that can be had by at-the-ready lemons, limes, rosemary and thyme: No more [...]