Obituary from The San Diego Union

Friday Morning, October 9, 1936

Irving J. Gill, San Diego architect for 42 years, designer of many fine homes, churches and schools, died Wednesday in a city hospital after a brief illness.

Mr. Gill was noted throughout the United States and in may foreign countries as a leader in original thought in his profession and as designer of many beautiful and useful structures.

He came here in 1894 immediately after completing work on the Columbian exposition in Chicago, He has maintained an active practice ever since. Among outstanding examples of his work were large residences for Miss Ellen Mason and John Olmsted, famous landscape architect, at Bar Harbor, Me., and Newport, R.I., respectively.

He designed many noted homes in Hollywood, Los Angeles, Long Beach and Wilmington. Better known of his buildings here were Ellen Browning Scripps residence, Scripps Playground, La Jolla Women's clubhouse and Bishop School for Girls in La Jolla, and Christian Science and First Methodist churches in San Diego.

Surviving is the wife, Mrs. Marion M. Gill. Funeral services will be held privately and a memorial service will be held later, announcements stated.

From CONCRETE -CEMENT AGE. November, 1914

The "community court," commonly so termed, had its inception in California about five years ago. It met with instant favor, and since then it has been extensively used throughout the country. Primarily, it is intended as a rival of the old-style apartment house, and for localities far enough removed from the business part of large cities to be practicable from an investor's point of view it is particularly commendable. As a leased home it possesses many advantages over its old-style prototype, and in suburban and residential districts it is proving especially profitable to builders.

Apartments built from the employment of the community court idea are virtually little individual cottages or bungalow houses, grouped around a sort of common court. Each is entirely complete within itself, and absolutely independent of the others, except in its claim, in common with the others, upon the court space, with its various decorative and comfort-giving features.

The plan of constructing such courts consists in taking a plot of ground equivalent to two or more large city lots, and erecting thereon a number of small one-story houses. These houses are usually thoroughly equipped and furnished by the owner of the court, and are leased to tenants at so much per month. The court grounds are taken care of by the owner's attendant, and the rental charge usually includes free water and the use of garages and any other such feature.

A somewhat elaborate illustration of the idea is shown in the accompanying illustrations. This court, called the Bella Vista, is located at Sierra Madre, Cal., and with its natural environment of mountains that tower to heights of 5,000' and 6,000', the little cottages indeed constitute ideal houses. It was designed and built by Irving J. Gill, an architect of San Diego, Cal., and represents a total cost, including ground and all improvements, of approximately $32,000. The owner is F.D. Lewis, who occupies one of the cottages.

Structurally and in every other way, this court is unusually interesting. There is a total of seven individual cottages, built at right angles, and all connected by the outside wall. The court is located on an inclined eminence at the foot of the Mount Wilson Trail, and commands an eastern and southern exposure. Its grounds are 200' by 250', bounded by three streets, and are composed of a series of terraces. These terraces are walled with split brown granite, and in the center of the scheme there is a garden pergola, to which lead gravel walks, here and there broken by steps of red concrete, from the various cottages and the garden features. The pergola is 37' by 37', and is furnished with rustic tables and chairs. The massive square pillars are of white concrete, and the covering is of rough eucalyptus poles, over the whole of which are trained vines and climbing roses.

The cottages are constructed of concrete and hollow tile. The foundation is of concrete, and the side walls and roof are of hollow tile. The walls are finished inside and outside with high grade cement plaster, and the roof is reinforced with steel and covered with asbestos roofing. The walls, both inside and outside, are white. In style of architecture, the structure, considered en masse, is a composition of Italian, Moorish and Spanish Mission, with lines which are well expressed in concrete--in fact, a style which would be suited admirably to concrete construction.

Each cottage contains a combined living and dining room, a kitchen and a bed room, besides a bath room and a sort of loggia. The latter is 9' by 25', and is intended to be used as an outside sleeping room by night and a lounging room by day. From the loggia, which is really the entrance to the cottage, leads a small hallway, connecting with the different rooms. The living room has a fireplace, with a raised concrete hearth and glazed decorated tile facing, and a concrete built-in window seat, upholstered with leather cushions.

RUDDY BUNGALOW, LOS ANGELES, SANITARY HOME, ROOMS REVERSED BRING GARDEN NEARER HOUSE

By Persis Bingham

From The Bungalow Magazine, August 1916

It's all right to plan a wonderful garden, when building on a good big lot, but with a six-room house on a fifty-foot lot and a house next door, five feet from the lot line, there often is little chance for a garden which can really be enjoyed. Six rooms generally arrange themselves into a plan having a living room with either dining room or bedroom across the front of the house, and a kitchen with another bedroom across the rear. Even though the rear yard is fixed up so that company can be entertained there, it is undesirable to take them through the kitchen to get to it and there's no privacy in the front yard without a hedge along the street side. What is the poor 'six roomer" with a fifty-foot lot going to build?

Many a lover of sunlight and fresh air finds himself face to face with this same problem and one successful solution may be of service to those still struggling in darkness. Why not bring the garden into the house?

The home illustrated here was designed for Mrs. Geo. D. Ruddy by Irving J. Gill, architect of Los Angeles, California. The lot on which it is built is practically level, faces east and is fifty feet wide by one hundred and fifty feet deep. As the house was built by day labor, no contract price is given but approximately $2,810 covers the cost. The sum is distributed as follows: Carpenter work, $1,000; heating and plumbing, $325; wiring, $50; electric fixtures, $60; excavating, $50; finish hardware,,,,,,,, $100; concrete work and floors, $200; plastering, $600; painting, $300; roofing, $80; magnesite work, $45.

In order to bring the house and garden into a more sympathetic relationship, the usual placing of rooms has been completely reversed. The living room and one bedroom are at the rear of the house, while the kitchen and screen porch face the front lawn. The living room is entered through a spacious fern-hung patio. This is often used as an outdoor sitting room and affords many gleaming vistas, besides entrances to various parts of the house. California idealizes its climate. There, one would no more think of building a home without regard for sunshine, flowers and sky then he would think of suggesting a refrigerator for winter use in Nome. The closer he can live to the beauties of Nature the more ideal he considers his existence to be. The green of the foliage, red of the gladiolas and purple of the bouganvillia find their ideal background in the soft gray finish which stucco acquires so easily. The plain, solid surfaces are the positive element with which the trailing, wandering vines unite to form beauty--the beauty which Nature shows us so positively when she draws her gentle tracery of vines and moss over the giant mass of a great, grey boulder on the ragged mountainside. It is the combination which we admire, not the separate elements which have been united, but this combination must follow certain unalterable laws of Nature if beauty is to be the result. Claude Bragdon in his book "The Beautiful Necessity," observes that "One of the things which theosophy teaches is that those transcendental glimpses of a divine order and harmony throughout the universe vouchsafed the poet and the mystic in their moments of vision are not the paradoxes * * * of an intoxicated state of consciousness, but glimpses of reality. * * * Beauty is subject to laws and rules dependent on the nature of human intelligence." He believes that the law of unity and the law of polarity must be obeyed if we would have beauty. The law of unity--oneness, is not new to the many students and artists who realize that a work of art "must be for the embodiment of one dominant idea seeming to proceed from a single impulse," but the law of polarity as applied to art and architecture may not be so familiar to the majority. In Japanese philosophy and art the two terms of this polarity are called In and Yo (In, feminine; Yo, masculine, not however, with the idea of physical sex) Yo , to designate that which is simple, direct, primary, active, positive, negative. Things hard, straight, fixed, vertical are Yo; things soft, curved, horizontal, fluctuating are In, and so on." The truth of this remarkably logical philosophy appears even more self evident when we pause to admire the wandering vines on a plain, white wall or the delicate fern leaves against the same background. Recognition and application of this law of polarity have undoubtedly aided the popularity of a new type of architecture in Southern California, an architecture startlingly bare in its newness, but rivaling the ancient Missions in the charm of its vine covered completeness. The work of Mr. Gill, founder of the school, is its most daring exponent and the Ruddy house is an excellent example of the principles he applies with equal fervor to both manor and cottage.

For sanitary reasons there are no door or window casings used in this house either inside or out; no cornice and no stucco ornament. Climbing plants and shrubbery have been depended on to furnish all exterior decoration and pictures and furnishings the interior. The living room is twenty-two feet long by sixteen feet wide. It opens to a garden on the west, with a patio on the east. Glass doors have been used for all patio entrances so that light is received from both sides in the living room. Bookcases with a fireplace between them occupy the north end of the room and every effort has been made to avoid useless ornament in their construction. There is a border of plain, flat tile around the opening and the balance of the mantel front is of hardwood enameled white. The shelf is three inches deep and extends over the bookcases on either side of the fireplace. There are no brackets under the shelf and no filigree work or panels on the woodwork. No ceiling beams, picture molds or baseboards are used, as the owner considered them useless and the house is much more easily cleaned and dusted without them. The walls are tinted a warm neutral tan, which forms an excellent background for any color or material. Figured draperies which hang to the floor from a rod above the window constitute an attractive window treatment which serves as a substitute for shades. The hangings are lined and have proven a most satisfactory window decoration. Double doors lead from the living room to the dining room. Doors are treated with hangings of the same material as the windows. Double glass doors lead to the dining room which opens on the south to the patio, where ferns and palms have been placed as an added attraction. Good light and excellent ventilation are assured by the southern exposure and wide, glass doors, in spite of the fact that there is no window on the north side of the room. The house to the north was so close that no view was obtainable in that direction and not enough light was available to make a window worth while, so none have been provided on the entire side. A plate rail was thought more harmful as a dust catcher than useful as an ornament, and consequently was dispensed with.

Between the kitchen and dining room is a pantry which opens to the maid's room with its connecting clothes closet and bath.

The kitchen has been placed outside the main portion of the house, so that the noise from handling dishes will not be heard through the two partitions and no odors of cooking will be perceptible in any rooms of the living part of the house. The woodwork is white enameled and the walls are painted white so as to reflect the light admitted through an east window and sash door. The cupboard doors are plain so that there will be no place where dirt may gather and there is no baseboard where wall and floor join. The door and window jambs are of metal, finished flush with the plaster, so that there is no wood casing to warp away from the plaster and leave a crack, where dirt may collect. As the floor is of cement, the hose may be turned on it and in a few minutes. It is as clean as the living room floor. The kitchen court, or equivalent of the ordinary screen porch, is simply a bit of green lawn surrounded by a wall eight feet high, over which vines are climbing. There are hooks for a clothes line and provision for the garbage can here, while the wall gives all the protection of a screen.

Sanitation has been given especial attention in the construction of the bathroom. The bathtub sets back in a recess, which is so treated as not to allow any debris to gather under the tub. A magnesite composition fills the space between the edge of the tub and the wall of the bathroom, meeting the south wall at right angles. The composition is laid on rough boarding covered with chicken wire and is handled something like plaster, although it is much stiffer and is composed of wood fiber in large quantities. It is pliable when laid but hardens almost to the consistency of concrete when thoroughly dry. The work is done in two coats, the finish coat being smooth and slick, not effected by water and very easily cleaned. Magnesite composition may be painted with any washable wall enamel or left in the color which the owner selects before it is put on. This color is put in the composition when it is mixed and is unchangeable except by external application.

The word 'patio" is of Spanish origin. It is derived from the Latin "patere" meaning "to be open." Doors and windows into the patio were kept closed during the heat of the day (for in the semi-tropical countries even the average winter day is warm at noon) but in the cool of the evening they were thrown open and the music of the guitar announced the social gaiety of the day had begun.

In our milder northern climate concessions have to be made on account of occasional winter cold spells. Large windows are therefore placed on the exterior walls of the house as well as on those California patios as coolness during summer evenings and both must be considered in modern patio houses. A great advantage of the Ruddy arrangement is the possibility of opening end rooms on three sides and most of the others on two sides and most of the others on two sides so as to secure a clean sweep of air through them. The top of the patio is covered by a heavy canvas curtain stretched on iron bars fastened to the parapet walls. During the warm part of the day the canvas may be pulled over the court, but when cloudy it is easily withdrawn. Good ventilation is secured by opening doors or windows to east, south or west, according to the direction in which the wind is blowing.

The front porch is enclosed in glass, and affords a splendid view to both south and east. A pergola, which runs to the driveway, extends over its entrance. The garage is situated at the southeast corner of the lot and a charming little garden occupies the balance of the space back of the house. It is not a "back yard garden" except in its location, for it is entered from the living room and enjoyed from the living room and enjoyed from the living room as much as any front garden. The house has not turned its back to the street for the front porch, as well as the screen porch, of the Ruddy house faces the street. It has no back! All the rooms have been arranged and designed to fulfill certain needs and in fulfilling them have left no environment in which the owner might live and work has been the aim of the architect and, in this instance, it was made possible by bringing the garden into the house.

Illustrations:

Bungalow Home of Mrs. George D. Ruddy of Los Angeles, Cal., Designed by Irving J. Gill, Architect

To Bring the House and Garden Into a More Sympathetic Relationship, the Usual Placing of Rooms Has Been Completely Reversed

For Sanitary Reasons, There Are No Door or Window Casings in This Home Either Inside or Out

An Effort Has Been Made to Avoid Useless Ornament in Construction of Bookcases and Fireplace

It is the Combination We Admire--Plain Walls, With Delicate Clinging Leaves or Trailing Vines

Note the Effect Produced by those Wandering Vines and Delicate Plants on the Simple White Walls.

N.B. Mrs. Ruddy is more commonly known as Ella Giles Ruddy, the author.

The true architect will sternly set his face against all structural sham or dishonesty. Sincerity will be his first watchword, both in "style" and material. He is as close to God as were the first great architects--the Greeks, Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Moguls, Tartars and others who created what we are pleased to term "styles" of architecture. These creators put into stable and beautiful forms the high ideals of their age, or of their own souls. Why cannot our architects do the same? Why not embody the spirit of our age, of our beautiful country and its friendly climate? The inspiration is here in the atmosphere, in the "everything" of this highly favoured land. That there are some sincere, true, earnest souls reaching out for these things in architecture the observant visitor will discover. San Francisco, Oakland, Piedmont, Berkeley, Fresno, Stockton, Los Angeles, Pasadena, San Diego--all, and many other cities possess these men and women; for it must not be forgotten that many women have successfully entered the architectural field in this State of Equal Opportunities. But there is one architect whose work I wish especially to call attention to because he has dared to endeavor to do fully what I have tried to express.

This architect is Irving G. (sic) Gill, of Los Angeles and San Diego. Early impressed by the wonderful adaptability of the architecture of the Missions to the climate and scenic environment of California he sought, not as so many architects have done, to imitate or follow after in their work, but to absorb from the original sources of their inspiration. There is all the difference in the world between more or less slavish copying, even though genius may aid one to modify with pleasing effect, and gaining the original inspiration and allowing it to work out in its own way, as, in the Missions it then worked.

I would enjoy giving several pictures of Mr. Gill's work, but the limitations of space forbid. The interested visitor to Los Angeles will find them. He may not be pleased with them at first sight, but as he studies and his vision becomes clearer, he will find that truth, purity, simplicity and naturalness have been his guides. He will also discover that the "colour" values of this colourful land have been utilized in a remarkable degree.

Slowly, but surely, architects are awakening to the possibilities colour in verdure, in sunrise and sunset, in atmospheric glow, affords them not as a chance or haphazard, but as a definite and reliable factor. Californians, some day, will cooperate with Nature in the use of colour as the Italians do. Comparatively few now do it, but when they do, who can conceive the results? Here is a Congregational church in Riverside with a square tower in the style of the Spanish renaissance. The base for forty feet up is one square solid wall of gray concrete. What a background for trailing Boston vines, masses of poinsettias, and banks of reddish-yellow cannae.

On Raymond Hill in Pasadena, stands the hotel of that name, with a proprietor who has an Italian sense of colour. The building is a modern California manifestation of Spanish renaissance, with red tiled roofs, square towers of brownish yellow, and great walls, cut up with a thousand and one windows that reflect the sun. It is a joy to see the bougainvilleas climb the verandas, the masses of roses of different shades, the beds of alluring pinks, the great stretches of green lawn, the cunningly placed cypresses, the deep-toned oranges with their winter waxen blossoms, green fruit and yellowing globes beautifying the walls and angles, porches and entrances of the simply coloured buildings.

Mr. Gill is so fully imbued with this idea that he demands the privilege, as part of his work as an architect, of laying out the garden that is to surround it. Here in California we have gardens all the year around, hence flowers, shrubs and trees are a stable factor in the beautifying of a home. The house colour or tint should set off the colour scheme of the garden, so that every view coming towards the house is pleasing both to its permanent and temporary resident.

In house interiors, also, colour must be taken into consideration, not alone in the loud and vivid "colour schemes" so often used, or even in the more modest and gentler "tones," but in those subtler influence that one at first scarce perceives, but which, when his senses are attuned to them give the perceptive mind the keenest delight.

Who has not noticed how a room has taken on a new and pleasing tone by the introduction, say, of a burnished copper bowl, or a piece of blue china? Who has not seen a dining table illuminated with a basket of roses, a greater or lesser mass of violets or jonquils? Banks of golden cosmos will give a new glory to the yellow candle-shades and add a richness to the hue of any room, while the glare of an electric light is transformed into a poem of colour by surrounding it with a sea shell in which lurks the tint of the abalone or the pears.

When the building of homes is considered in accordance with the fundamental spirit I have sought to outline true architecture is bound to be the result, and this distinction I claim for the work of Mr. Gill.