A Historical Society exhibition examines postwar architecture

PHOTO by JULIUS SHULMAN

Today, Long Beach is nearly built-out. But 40, 50, 60 years ago, the opposite was true. Vast swaths of the city—particularly Los Altos and the Plaza—were undeveloped after World War II, and even in settled parts of town, vacant lots weren’t unheard of.

That’s the focus of the Historical Society of Long Beach’s new exhibit, “Suburban Architecture of Roberts, Jones, Power, Lockett & Poper,” which opens tomorrow. Four of these men (all with dignified-sounding names) picked up their mechanical pencils after the war to help make Long Beach what it is today. Without them—and without help from the fifth man—Long Beach would still have been built out, but it would be a different city.

Ready for the résumés? Joseph Halstead Roberts (whose house The District Weekly unwittingly profiled two weeks ago) was the spark. He died young, at 34 in the 1930s, but he designed hundreds of Long Beach buildings including the Californian and St. Regis apartments, the pre-1933 earthquake Lincoln Elementary School, and his own California bungalow that was reinvented as a Tudor.

Roberts lived and worked at the Elizabethan Studios in Long Beach, which was what he named his remodeled house. And apparently so did a lot of other people.

“[Architect Kenneth] Wing Sr. came to work there. Then eventually [architect Jess] Jones worked there,” says Historical Society executive director Julie Bartolotto. “Jones had been a draftsman for [Long Beach architect] Kirtland Cutter. And then [Richard] Poper became Jones’ draftsman.”

Jones’ work included gracious Spanish-style buildings at Long Beach City College and parts of Memorial Medical Center. Power is Palmer Power, whose ouevre includes the El Dorado branch library, the Signal Hill Police Department (a late project), and a house for the wife of the late Earl S. Daugherty, who owned Long Beach’s first airport.

As for William Lockett and Richard Poper, between them they built much of Los Altos, under the aegis of development companies with names like Bel State Fourth Homes and the Los Altos Development Company.

“Jones and Lockett and Poper worked together on a variety of projects,” Bartolotto says. “My understanding is that the Locketts and the Popers were friends. They did huge housing developments in East Long Beach in the ’50s.”

It’s on view here with scads of 1950s drawings and blueprints, maps of long-ago Long Beach, photographs of houses and churches—maybe even a model or two. And of course, there’s older artifacts, too. An entire section of the show focuses on the Elizabethan Studios.

Where did all this come from? That’s a story just as interesting as the exhibit.

“Most of it came from Richard Poper and his wife Phyllis,” Bartolotto says. “We were able to sit down and do oral histories with Phyllis Poper and the Locketts.” And, after offering them to some current owners of properties they’d designed, the architects donated scads of original drawings and blueprints. Their impact is obvious.

“We have a photo of a kitchen they designed. Half of it’s in Long Beach, and half of it’s in Huntington Beach,” Bartolotto says, referring to how stark and different and un-Long Beach 1950s design was from its predecessors.

So much of Long Beach came before—its brick, Art Deco and Streamline Moderne commercial buildings, and its Spanish-style, Victorian and bungalow houses—that that may be how we see ourselves.

Thanks to these five men, there’s another city, too—stucco-clad, with two-car garages, three-panel doors, and maybe still a stainless steel wall oven in the kitchen.

“It’s your post-World War II tract house,” Bartolotto says. That’s it.

SUBURBAN ARCHITECTURE OF ROBERTS, JONES, POWER, LOCKETT, & POPER HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF LONG BEACH | 4260 ATLANTIC AVE | LONG BEACH 90807 | 562.424.2220 | HSLB.ORG | OPEN WED, FRI-SAT & TUES 11AM-5PM; THURS 1-7PM | OPENING RECEPTION THURS 6-9PM | THROUGH DEC 30

Tags: architecture, art, historical society of long beach, Long Beach, suburbia