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state of Uahtornla—The Resources Agency Primary #
<br />DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI #
<br />CONTINUATION SHEET -trinomial
<br />Page 3 of 4 Resource Name: E.M. Crawford House
<br />*Recorded by Pedro Gomez *Date October 29, 2020 O Continuation ❑ Update
<br />*B10. Significance (continued):
<br />The E.M. Crawford House is located in Jack Fisher Park, a neighborhood northwest of downtown Santa Ana bounded by
<br />Bristol Street, Santa Clara Avenue, Memory Lane, and the Interstate 5. The neighborhood takes its name from Jacob (Jack)
<br />Fisher. Born in Yakima, Washington, Fisher moved to Santa Ana with his parents and sister in the early twentieth century. In
<br />April 1917, upon the United States' entry into World War 1, Fisher enlisted in the US Army when he was 18 years old.
<br />Assigned to Company L, Seventh California Regiment, Fisher later advanced to the level of corporal in the 58th Infantry of
<br />Company D. After Fisher's death at the age of 30, in March 1929, the Chapter of Disabled American Veterans he helped form
<br />took his name as the Jack Fisher Post, Chapter of Disabled American Veterans. On August 23, 1933, construction was
<br />completed on a park north of Santiago Creek on North Flower Street and dedicated as the Jack Fisher Memorial Park.
<br />Prior to its residential development, Fisher Park formed Lots 5B, 8 and 9 of the Potts, Borden and Sidwell Tract, subdivided in
<br />1881. Current -day Interstate 5 conforms to the prominent diagonal swath cut by the Southern Pacific Railroad line, which was
<br />established in Santa Ana in the late 1870s and still forms the eastern border of the Fisher Park neighborhood. With the
<br />exception of the Southern Pacific Railroad line, the area remained agricultural through much of the first half of the twentieth
<br />century, with walnut groves and orchards dotting the landscape. In November 1947, residential development arrived when a
<br />narrow strip was cleared, graded, and subdivided into 25 lots offered as Tract No. 1160, "River Lane Tract." Mirroring the
<br />curve of Santiago Creek to the south, the streets displayed a curvilinear layout, with lots ranging in size from 70 to 130 feet
<br />long, 140 to 190 deep. Three years later, in August 1950, another curvilinear subdivision appeared east of Flower Street, with
<br />smaller lots, averaging 60 feet by 90 feet, arranged around a curvilinear pattern with cut -de -sacs. An outgrowth of earlier City
<br />Beautiful and Garden City models, this curvilinear layout reflected neighborhood planning preferences codified in the 1930s
<br />by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which regulated and financed the increase in home ownership through its
<br />mortgage lending and insurance programs. During the post -WWII housing expansion in the United States, the FHA -endorsed
<br />model for city planning, as reflected in the neighborhood of Fisher Park, `set the standards for the design of post -World War If
<br />subdivisions." (National Register Bulletin, Historic Residential Suburbs, p. 49).
<br />Construction quickly transformed the neighborhood from agricultural to residential. A 1947 aerial photograph taken a few
<br />months before creation of the River Lane Tract shows the area dominated by groves of trees. By 1955, nearly all the lots of
<br />both tracts had been improved with single-family residences with uniform setbacks, mostly in the Ranch House style popular
<br />in the 1950s and 1960s, in a configuration and unity of design still reflected there today (2020). The homes of the Jack Fisher
<br />Park neighborhood represent the overwhelming success architects and builders had in the early 1950's, when building
<br />homes using "California Ranch" architectural design and features. Homes and lots located in the Fisher Park neighborhood
<br />were generously scaled, with homes ranging from 1,500 to 6,000 square feet and lot sizes from 6,500 to 25,000 square feet.
<br />The E.M. Crawford House qualifies for listing in the Santa Ana Register of Historical Properties under Criterion 1 as an early
<br />and very intact example of the Ranch style in Santa Ana and under Criterion 3 as a rare example of adobe construction in
<br />Santa Ana. The original "ranch" houses of the southwestern United States were built following the arrival of the Spanish and
<br />Mexican settlers in the eighteenth century. Using traditional building techniques and the available materials of clay and straw,
<br />houses —indeed, most buildings from the time of arrival through the first decades of the nineteenth century —were one-story
<br />structures of adobe bricks. Overhanging roof eaves sheltered porches that functioned as outdoor rooms and exterior
<br />corridors. Thick adobe walls necessitated deeply recessed window and door openings, with embedded wooden headers
<br />added for support. Many of these `hacienda" style homes were L-, U-, or box -shaped in plan in order to incorporate a
<br />courtyard.
<br />Adobe construction had been mostly supplanted by wood frame and masonry by the mid -nineteenth century in southern
<br />California. Adobe enjoyed brief and limited periods of resurgence in association with the Mission and Spanish Colonial
<br />Revival styles of the first few decades of the twentieth century. When architects were experimenting with prototypes of what
<br />became the California Ranch style, one of the antecedents to which they looked for inspiration was the adobe ranch houses
<br />surviving from the nineteenth century. Cliff May, the trailblazing Ranch style architect, often emulated the appearance of
<br />adobe construction and used the actual material in a handful of his designs. In the post -World War 1l period, other architects
<br />and builders also experimented with modern adobe building systems. One such architect was Hugh W. Comstock of Carmel,
<br />California, who published a monograph in 1948 describing his 'Post -Adobe" system combining "a rugged timber frame and
<br />modern stabilized adobe." The Verdugo Brick system utilized for the E. M. Crawford House appears to be another such foray
<br />into adobe construction.
<br />Additionally, the house has been categorized as "Landmark" because it "has a distinctive architectural style and quality"
<br />representing the Ranch House style in Santa Ana, and because, as a rare, perhaps unique, example of the late adobe revival
<br />in Santa Ana, the building has a "unique architectural significance." (Santa Ana Municipal Code, Section 30-2.2). Character -
<br />defining features of the E.M. Crawford House include, but may not be limited to: massing ("L" -shaped plan incorporating
<br />courtyards and covered porches); low-pitched, cross -hipped roof; wide, overhanging, open eaves and exposed rafters;
<br />"Verdugo Adobe" brick; fenestration (multi -light, metal -framed casement windows); wooden window and door headers; and
<br />adobe brick chimneys.
<br />DPR 523L
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