Please see below for details on each house’s journey through the Whacky Style Labeling System over the past two years. Start with the Neighborhood Committee Column, which lists five Styles, before finding out what styles our neighborhood has. The five styles are Spanish Eclectic, French Eclectic, Tudor Revival, Colonial Revival, and Neoclassical.
The choices not only ignored the 35 styles in the Expansion area but also made little sense. There are only 5 Neoclassical houses in the Expansion Area—out of 275 houses—less than 2%.
Ironically, some Committee Members live in the pure Spanish Revival Style vs. the Spanish Eclectic style, but the Committee proposed Spanish Eclectic only. Result: Their Spanish Revival homes were non-contributing. No problem. After the meetings were all over and no changes could be made, the category Spanish Eclectic was re-written as Spanish Revival/Eclectic.
By lumping houses into whatever category bolstered their argument that the neighborhood is 75% the five styles above and masking everything else as Non-Contributing, the Committee could hide the fact that the most predominant style is RANCH. Yes, ranch.
The City, which seems determined to get this CD through, largely followed the Neighborhood Committee’s lead, but the number of Contributing houses dropped to 60%. That means 40% of houses must eventually change style. Does this make sense?
Unable to make sense of the Neighborhood Committee’s assessments, we hired architect and architectural historian Willis Winters to determine our house styles. Mr. Winters had been cited by the Neighborhood Committee as having gone through their entire inventory. The City’s Chief Planner also cited Mr. Winters as an expert. Mr. Winters’s styles — shockingly — differs from the Draft Ordinance 180 times out of 275. Clearly, there is something wrong here.