James E. Dolena Collection
Eager Collection (Eager, A.W. & Wesley Waugh)
Foss Construction & Building Company Collection
Billy Haines Collection
Jack Heaney Papers
Edward Warren Hoak Collection
Roger S. Hong Collection
Myron Hunt Collection
Reginald D. Johnson Collection
Samuel Lunden Collection
Morgan, Walls & Clements Collection
Wallace Neff Collection
Denis O’Connor Collection
William A. Peschelt Collection
Hudson Roysher Collection
Edward Durell Stone Collection
Martin E. Weil Collection
Draver Wilson Collection
Florence Yoch Papers
James E. Dolena Collection, approximately 1930s-approximately 1970s
Dolena designed homes in West Los Angeles and Bel-Air for movie industry clients such as Irving Thalberg, Walt Disney, Constance Bennett and Hilda Boldt Weber. Dolena’s public building designs include the Farmer's Market on Fairfax and the Lockheed Air Terminal. The collection contains 150 projects with working plans and original drawings. There are also presentation albums by photographer Fred Dapprich and several mounted photographs by Maynard L. Parker.
Call number: archDolena. A summary list is available; contact the library to inquire about accessing materials.
Eager Architectural Collection, approximately 1907-1940
Architect A.W. Eager started his practice in Los Angeles with Sumner P. Hunt in 1899. They continued working together through 1910, with architect Silas Burns joining the firm in 1907. Hunt and Eager, Architects, had a successful practice building large homes in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles and Pasadena and the second Raymond Hotel in South Pasadena. A.W. would leave the firm in 1910 to go into practice with his brother Frank where they played a significant role in the design of the pier at Ocean Park and the new residential development Palisades del Rey. The collection contains two sets of drawings by Eager & Eager for the Dance Pavilion at Fraser's Pier, Santa Monica, 1910, and the H. Jevne House on San Rafael Road, Pasadena, 1912. A.W.’s son, Wesley Eager, designed both residential and commercial buildings in the 1920s and 1930s, mostly working in the Spanish Colonial Revival and Moderne styles. There are renderings by artist Paul D. Fox and several architectural plans by Lee Woollett for Grauman’s Metropolitan Theatre. The collection contains architectural plans, renderings and photographs from 1907 to 1940.
Call number: archEager. A summary list is available; contact the library to inquire about accessing materials.
Related Collection:
Hunt & Eager, Architects, Los Angeles, presentation album, approximately 1900s
Call number: photCL 472
Foss Designing & Building Company Collection, approximately 1900-1920s
Foss Company began designing and building houses and commercial structures in the Pasadena area around 1900 and was one of the more prolific bungalow-builders in the region until World War II. They designed much of their construction, but the collection also contains working drawings of homes by architect Wallace Neff, the Rose Bowl designed by Myron Hunt and other projects. The collection contains primarily ink on linen presentation drawings and watercolor renderings as well as photographs and office records for approximately 300 projects.
Call number: archFoss. A summary list is available; contact the library to inquire about accessing materials.
William Haines Collection, approximately 1930-2012
Interior designer William “Billy” Haines was a movie actor who opened an antique shop in Hollywood during the 1930s while still under contract with MGM. He left the movie business and parlayed his Hollywood friendships into a thriving interior and furniture design business. Haines received commissions from some of the most celebrated players in Hollywood, including Joan Crawford, Jack Warner and George Cukor. After Haines’ death in 1973, his protégé Ted Graber managed the firm, continuing to serve the needs of Hollywood and other wealthy clients and redecorated the White House in the 1980s during the Reagan administration.
Part I: 13 gouache renderings of the Sidney and Frances Brody residence in Holmby Hills was given to the Huntington by the Brody estate in 2010. These include exterior elevations and interior renderings showing Haines' furniture.
Part II: Office records, photographs, and publicity (magazines and tear sheets), fabric and wallpapers samples, correspondence and photos related to antique purchasing and correspondence and photographs related to the White House, kept by Haines’ assistant, Jean Mathison.
Call number: archHaines, Parts I and II. A summary list for both parts is available; contact the library to inquire about accessing materials.
Jack Heaney Papers, 1906-2009
Scottish-American naval architect and interior designer Jack Heaney worked at the architectural firm of George G. Sharp Inc. in New York City and later at Jack Heaney and Associates. The bulk of the collection dates from the late 1930s to the 1960s and includes Heaney's design drawings and renderings, photographs of ship interiors, ephemera, miscellaneous business records and personal papers. Notably, the collection includes drawings, photographs, clippings and ephemera related to Heaney's work on the design of the NS Savannah, the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, built in the late 1950s.
Call number: archHeaney
Edward Warren Hoak Collection, 1910-1974
Hoak began as a draftsman and later worked for prominent Pasadena architects Myron Hunt and H.C. Chambers from 1922 to 1924 on the Pasadena Public Library project. During the 1930s, Hoak designed for several well-known Los Angeles architectural firms, including Morgan, Walls, & Clements and Parkinson & Parkinson for the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal building. During World War II, Hoak designed buildings for the U.S. Navy with engineering firm of Holmes and Narver. After the war, he was a self-employed architect until he returned to the firm in the early 1950s as an engineer on atomic test structures. The collection documents much of the architect's career, including biographical material, letters, clippings, albums, drawings, plans, renderings, sketches and scrapbooks.
Call number: archHoak
Roger S. Hong Collection, 1936-2001
Roger S. Hong was an architect who worked primarily on commercial projects in California from 1960-2001. Hong was actively involved in efforts to revitalize Chinatown in Los Angeles, and the collection includes early drawings of the building of “New Chinatown” in the late 1930s and proposals by Hong for renovations and improvements in the 1980s-2000s. Collection contains personal papers, childhood artwork, examples of student work and project plans, drawings and photographs.
Call number: archHong
Related Collection:
Hong family papers, 1764-2006
Call number: mssHong Family papers
Myron Hunt Collection, 1912-2006
This collection contains 28 original drawings and blueprints of Hunt's Ambassador Hotel, located at 3400 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles as well as two photographs of the structure: one construction shot, ca. 1920, and one of the completed project. There are also plans and manuscripts for the Seibert residence on El Molino in Pasadena, ca. 1912-1914.
Call number: archHunt. A summary list is available; contact the library to inquire about accessing materials.
Reginald D. Johnson Collection, approximately 1906 to approximately 1947
This collection consists primarily of plans, photographs and drawings of Reginald D. Johnson's architectural projects in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, Calif. It includes material that was acquired as two separate donations between 1988 and 1993: an album of photographs and drawings of the Baldwin Hills Village planned residential community in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, an album of photographs of residential projects in Pasadena and Santa Barbara, and three drawings for buildings in San Marino, Pasadena and Alhambra. An additional donation made in 2011 includes blueprints and photographs of "Penjerrick," the residence of Pierre E. Letchworth in Covina, Calif., built in 1915. Credited photographers represented in the collection include William M. Clarke, E. M. Pratt, the Padilla Company and the Gill Engraving Company.
Call number: archJohnson
Samuel E. Lunden Collection, approximately 1920s-1970s
This collection contains renderings, drawings, business files and photographs documenting the work of architect Samuel E. Lunden in Southern California chiefly from the 1920s to the 1950s. Notably, the collection includes drawings and business files for Lunden's work on the University of Southern California Doheny Memorial Library in the 1930s, the Los Angeles Stock Exchange in the late 1920s and people movers in the 1950s. He also assembled government and private publications on regional planning and transportation in the Los Angeles area.
Call number: archLunden. A summary list is available; contact the library to inquire about accessing materials.
Morgan, Walls & Clements Collection, approximately 1905-1955
Collection contains original drawings, blueprints and microfilm representing the work of the Southern California architectural firm Morgan, Walls & Clements from approximately 1905 to 1955. Materials include 129 plans for jobs undertaken by the firm between 1905 and 1955, as well as 26 reels of microfilm and a set of architectural blueprints for the Octavius Morgan residence, Alta Vista Blvd., Los Angeles, dated 1929. The digitized microfilm reels contain the only copies of more than 10,000 images of architectural drawings, dating from the 1890s to the 1950s, and approximately 15,000 pages of project correspondence files dating from the 1930s, for which the originals were destroyed by the firm after photographing. The firm, which was one of the largest architectural offices in Southern California, designed the Samson Tire Plant (now the Citadel outlet shopping mall), the Pellisier Building (now the Wiltern Theater), the Richfield Building (demolished) and the Mayan Theater in downtown Los Angeles.
Call number: archMWC. A summary of the plans is available; contact the library to inquire about accessing materials.
Wallace Neff Collection, approximately 1914-1982
Wallace Neff, a Los Angeles architect, designed many houses and public buildings of note in Southern California from 1919 to 1975. Although best known for magnificent homes for famous clients such as King Vidor, Edward L. Doheny, Darryl Zanuck and Amelita Galli-Curci, he also created and patented a mass-produced and inexpensive dwelling called the Bubble House. The collection contains about 10,000 items, including renderings, sketchbooks, photographs, contracts, patent papers, letters and daily business diaries from 1914 to 1982.
Call number: archNeff. A summary list is available; contact the library to inquire about accessing materials.
Related Collection:
Wallace Neff Photograph Collection, approximately 1913-1980s
Call number: photCL 211
Wallace Neff Family Collection, approximately 1890-1979
Call number: photCL 450
Denis O'Connor Collection, approximately 1950-2007
Denis O’Connor was raised and educated in England where he earned an advanced degree in art from the Royal College of Art, London. In 1959, O’Connor moved to Claremont, Calif. where he became involved with famed artists Millard Sheets and Susan Hertel. O’Connor worked with Sheets, specializing in the fabrication and installation of mosaics created for Home Savings & Loan in California. O’Connor took over the business in 1976, forming Denis O’Connor Mosaics which expanded the program to a national level. The archive consists of extensive files related to Denis O’Connor Mosaics, photographs and slides detailing the fabrication and installation of his pieces, tile samples, sketches and drawings and 45 gouache renderings (mostly by Hertel) from which the mosaics were fabricated.
Call number: archDOC. A summary list is available; contact the library to inquire about accessing materials.
William A. Peschelt Collection, approximately 1905-1912
Collection contains renderings and plans by William A. Peschelt (1853-1919), a German immigrant who practiced landscape design in Los Angeles in the early 20th century. Peschelt assembled an exotic plant collection and formal landscape plan for Broadway Department store founder Arthur Letts’s garden in east Hollywood, the Inglewood Park Cemetery, the Isaac Millbank garden in Santa Monica and the Seventh Street Park in Santa Monica. Some of this material is extremely oversized; digital surrogates are available for use in the reading room.
Call number: archPeschelt
Hudson Roysher Collection, approximately 1950-approximately 1970
Hudson Roysher was an industrial designer, art professor and silversmith whose career began as the house silversmith for Gump’s in San Francisco. After 1950, Roysher put most of his effort into large scale work for universities (maces) and churches (tabernacles, candlesticks, crosses, sanctuary lamps, chalices and other pieces). The bulk of the material in the Roysher archive is related to his ecclesiastical and university pieces and includes photographs, slides, sketches, drawings, articles and personal and business files.
Call number: archRoysher. A summary list is available; contact the library to inquire about accessing materials.
Edward Durell Stone Collection
Collection contains papers of Edward Durell Stone, architect of the American Embassy in New Delhi and the Stuart Pharmaceutical Company building on Foothill Blvd., Pasadena, ca. 1956. It includes architectural sketches, blueprints, promotional materials, photographs, ephemera and periodicals pertaining to the Stuart Pharmaceutical Company, which Stone designed in conjunction with landscape designer Thomas D. Church. There are also sketches for residence in Pasadena for Ludwig Lauerhass, who donated the collection.
Call number: archStone
Martin E. Weil papers, approximately 1964-2009
Martin Eli Weil was a restoration architect who specialized in restoring landmark historical homes and properties by some of the world's most famous architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles & Henry Greene, Rudolph Schindler and Morgan, Walls & Clements. Collection includes project files, personal papers, objects (such as paint & concrete samples), photographs and ephemera.
Call number: archWeil
Draver Wilson Collection, approximately 1935-1962
West Los Angeles architect Draver Wilson designed multi-purpose buildings in Westwood Village, the Malibu pier building, movie sets for 20th Century Fox, pavilions for Magic Mountain and a moderne-style theatre as well as other commercial buildings and residences. Collection contains about 350 items, including architectural plans, sketches and photographs, ca. 1935-1962.
Call number: archWilson. A summary list is available; contact the library to inquire about accessing materials.
Florence Yoch papers, 1869, 1906-2013
The collection contains the professional papers of American landscape architect Florence Yoch (1890-1972) relating to her work designing landscapes and gardens primarily in Southern California, but also in Northern California, Mexico and other locales, chiefly with her partner Lucile Council (1898-1964), and their firm Yoch and Council. It includes photographs, drawings, renderings, postcards, office records, travel journals, research materials, writings and artifacts. There are also research and administrative files of James J. Yoch, Florence Yoch's cousin, comprising photographs, slides, notes, articles, bibliographies, correspondence and publicity materials for his book, "Landscaping the American Dream: The Gardens and Film Sets of Florence Yoch," and for the exhibition he curated with Eric T. Haskell of Scripps College, "Personal Edens: The Gardens and Film Sets of Florence Yoch," which opened at the Huntington Library in 1992 before traveling to other locations.
Call number: archYoch