Manzanita Slope Development

    

This house, 9540 Haines Canyon Avenue, is one of sixteen homes originally built in the development called Manzanita Slopes near the Crystal View Development in Tujunga, California. The builder, Victor Sease, designed and built these hillside homes in the then contemporary post and beam idiom. The Manzanita houses have often been attributed to the firm of Byles and Weston. Although the Manzanita slope houses share many of the characteristics of the six other houses designed for Victor Sease by Eugene Weston III and Douglas Byles in the years prior to the building of Manzanita Slopes, the firm of Byles and Weston were not sited on the building permits and Eugene Weston has stated he didn’t design the Manzanita Slope houses. In spite of the lack of attribution, the Manzanita Slopes’ houses remain a unique mid century development of USC Pasadena School post and beam houses.In 1955, Victor W. Sease lived at 10223 Haines Canyon Avenue, Tujunga, California in a house he built in 1951 after designs purchased from Eugene Weston III and Douglas Byles. Using designs by Byles and Weston, Sease built four houses subsequently published in “Architectural Forum”. Sease further built a number of houses in the Descanso tract along Apperson Street and Haines Canyon. All of these houses were built between 1951 and 1953 in the post and beam idiom similar to the houses designed by Byles and Weston. In 1953, Sease built two hillside houses on St Estaban using designs purchased from Eugene Weston III. The two houses built on St. Estaban were published in “Arts & Architecture”. In January of 1955, Sease applied for construction permits for 16 houses of the Manzanita Slope development and by June of that year had completed their construction. The houses in Manzanita Slopes were the last houses built by Victor Sease in the Tujunga area.

The Manzanita Slope houses have many similar characteristics with mid fifties USC-Pasadena School post and beam contemporary houses. Victor Sease used a similar modular system of post and beam construction as the houses designed by Eugene Weston III and Douglas Byles. The house has a eight foot post and beam frame supporting a 2” x 6” tongue and groove slooping roof deck. As Eugene Weston III explained; “The discipline of a module was to some degree governed by the fact that 2x6 t & g (tongue and groove) lumber in 16 foot lengths was readily available, and could span 8’ and was a conservative use of lumber and thus was less expense. At that time a great deal of emphasis was placed on construction costs, that is why ….very little if any insulation in walls and roof. The 8’ spans were pretty much the module of the day and using 16’ spans gave us a good degree of flexibility of floor plans….”. The post and beam construction allowed for the open floor plan of the great room and the bank of floor to ceiling windows without the traditional load bearing walls. Like the Descanso Tract Houses, the slooping roof was achieved by tapering a beam 1/4” per foot from end. The beams extend beyond the roofline, drawing your eyes through the clerestory windows toward the exterior landscape and provide support for the roof extending beyond the walls. Due to the storm damage that occurred in 1956 and the remodeling of subsequent owners some of the original features of the houses are no longer extant. There were clerestory windows throughout the house, like the Descanso Tract houses, some with jalousies; when present this unique design feature give the impression of a floating roof. On the front of the houses were jalousie windows below the clerestory windows in each of the downhill facing rooms. The houses originally had locust wood floors, alder paneling in the living rooms and bedrooms and Philippine mahogany built-ins. The bedrooms had clerestory windows in the walls facing the hallway and great room allowing light into all the rooms throughout the day and give the impression of much bigger room. The rear bedrooms originally had sliding glass doors that opened out to the rear patio. The bedrooms are reached by a central hallway stretching from the great room to the master bedroom at the end of the house. The houses have an eight foot cantilevered balcony off the front of the house with floor to beam windows opening up to the great room. Like the St. Estaban houses, the Manzanita Slope houses rest on a continuous concrete footing along the uphill side of the house. The original floor plan is difficult to determine, due to subsequent remodels and the flexibility of the post and beam construction, but the ads indicate three bedrooms, two full baths, family room and workroom. Like the Haines Canyon houses in the Descanso tract all the Manzanita Slope houses have a great room that includes a kitchen, living and dining area. From the photos in the ads, the kitchen was open to the great room and included a sink, built in oven and range. The great room included a pumice stone fireplace with a dramatic cantilevered hearth; a design characteristic of Eugene Weston’s work. The exterior of the houses were redwood board and batten. Although larger in scale than the houses originally designed for Victor Sease by Byles and Weston, the Manzanita Slope houses share all the essential characteristics of their work and have often been mistaken as being designed by an architect or student of the USC Architecture school. Eugene Weston was unaware of the houses in the Manzanita Slope development and has stated he did not supply Victor Sease with designs for these houses. It seems, Victor Sease built the Manzanita Slope houses using design elements of Byles & Weston’s previous work, while avoiding paying any architectural fees.

Douglas Byles and Eugene Weston III met while working for Whitney Smith of Smith & Williams architects, an award winning Pasadena architectural firm well known for their post and beam house designs. They both left Smith & Williams and started partnership Byles & Weston a design /build firm and built a number of houses for clients and some for speculation in the Pasadena area. Eugene Weston studied at the Art Center to become an industrial designer, before working for his father’s architectural firm. Before working for Smith & Williams, Eugene worked for a time for Alvin Lustig preparing drawings for a building contractor. Douglas Byles received his Bachelors in Architecture from USC before joining the firm of Smith and Williams. In the early fifties, the work of Eugene Weston and Douglas Byles are well represented in “Arts & Architecture”, “Architectural Forum”, “House & Home” and “Architectural Record”, some of the premier architectural publications of the time. The houses in the Descanso Tract on Haines Canyon were published in June of 1951 in “Architectural Forum” and the houses on St. Estaban in March of 1953 in “Arts & Architecture”. In 1956 Eugene Weston moved with his family to La Jolla and later had a successful career with Fred Liebhardt in San Diego. Douglas Byles continued to practice in Los Angeles.

   

The Manzanita Slope Development houses were at the cutting edge contemporary design in 1955. Many of the characteristics of these houses became commonplace as post and beam designs flourished in the late 50’s and 60’s before code changes made these houses obsolete. Victor Sease’s houses in the Manzanita Slope development are representative of the designs of Byles and Weston although the houses were not actually designed by the firm. The unique cantilever post and beam design, the number houses built, and their design attributes contribute to making the Manzanita Slope a unique mid century development.