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MERCEDES AVENUE STREETSCAPE HABS CA-2904 Between Serena Court and Magdalana Avenue HABS CA-2904 Atascadero San Luis Obispo County California PHOTOGRAPHS WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA FIELD RECORDS HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY PACIFIC WEST REGIONAL OFFICE National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior 333 Bush Street San Francisco, CA 94104 HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDING SURVEY MERCEDES AVENUE STREETSCAPE HABS No. CA-2904 Location: The original segment of Mercedes Avenue ran approximately from slightly south of the present day Serena Court near Stadium Park, north to Magdalena Avenue, in Atascadero, California. Atascadero 7.5’ USGS Quadrangle; Township 28 South, Range 12 East Mount Diablo Base Meridian. Latitude 35°29'29.50"N, Longitude 120°39'44.32"W (south); Latitude 35°29'42.43"N, Longitude 120°39'43.42"W (midpoint); Latitude 35°29'58.04"N, Longitude 120°39'39.77"W (north). Present Owner: State of California Present Use: California State Highway 41 Significance: The Mercedes Avenue Streetscape is significant as part of the original street network of the city of Atascadero. The streetscape is a contributing feature to the historic district known as: Atascadero Estates Residential District Plan (AERDP). The AERDP was determined eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places through consensus determination in 1987 under Criterion A, B, and C. The AERDP is one of the few extant examples in the United States of an executed original town plan that combined Beaux-Arts and Olmsteadian design principles, otherwise known as the Garden City model. The AERDP includes a skeletal street network, associated landscape features, and buildings and structures which were part of the original town plan. No houses were eligible for inclusion in the district. Historians: Genevieve Entezari, Architectural Historian Margo Nayyar, Architectural Historian California Department of Transportation 1120 N Street Sacramento, CA 95814 Project Information: The Mercedes Avenue Streetscape recordation was completed as a mitigation measure for the State Route 41 Highway realignment project (Caltrans #05-SLO-41, P.M. 16.0/19.7) and was prepared as stipulated in the Memorandum of Agreement submitted to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, in compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended. Photographs were taken by Don Tateishi in 1994. Date: Completed November 2014 MERCEDES AVENUE STREETSCAPE HABS No. CA-2904 Page 2 Part I. Historical Information1 A. Physical History: The history of Mercedes Avenue falls under the context of the history of AERDP. The following information includes a brief history of the builders and components of AERDP.2 1. Date of erection/establishment: ca. 1914. Prior to Atascadero’s establishment, the area was part of Rancho Atascadero, one of the original Mexican land grants. After a number of ownership changes, the land was owned and used by John H. Henry for cattle ranching. In 1913, Henry sold 23,000 acres of land to Edward Gardner Lewis, who, shortly after acquiring the land, hired a team of experts including: architects, engineers, a soil expert, and construction workers, and surveyed the area for Atascadero’s town development. By early 1914, construction began on various civic buildings using materials readily available from the lumber and planing mill, and a brick plant “…capable of producing 50,000 bricks a day.”3 2. Architects: Walter Danforth Bliss (8/23/1872-5/9/1956) was born in Nevada; he had three brothers and a sister. His parents relocated from Massachusetts to Carson City, Nevada in 1872 to pursue several money-making ventures. Bliss attended college at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in c. 1895-1898. Early in his career he worked as a draftsman for McKim, Mead and White, a prestigious architectural firm in New York City. Bliss moved to San Francisco in 1898, and partnered with William Baker Faville to form the architectural firm “Bliss and Faville.” Bliss and Faville worked together until 1925. During their partnership they produced numerous prestigious works including the Panama-Pacific International Exposition – Palace of Education, the Oakland Public Library,4 the Bank of California in San Francisco,5 and the NRHP listed, Matson Lines Building in San Francisco.6 They also designed the Atascedro civic center and Printery. 1 The Memorandum of Agreement for this project was written prior to the establishment of HALS. In order to fulfill the requirements of the Memorandum of Agreement, HABS language is primarily used throughout document. However, because the site is a landscape, HALS language is included for descriptive purposes where applicable, particularly in Part II. 2 Unless otherwise noted, all information is derived, but extensively edited, from the unpublished report title: Historic Architectural Survey Report, State Route 41, Highway 101 to Salinas River, 05-SLO-41, P.M. 16.0/19.7, by John Snyder and Aaron Gallup, California Department of Transportation, March 1987. Footnotes in the HASR were used sparingly and generally not included in the original report; the sources used are in the bibliography. 3 William H. Lewis, Atascadero’s Colony Days, (Atascadero, California: The Treasure of El Camino Real, The Atascadero Historical Society, 1974), 3. 4Oakland Heritage Alliance, “List of Oakland City Landmarks (Number 48),” Oakland Heritage Alliance, accessed August 2014, http://www.oaklandheritage.org/oakland_landmarks.htm. 5 NoeHill in San Francisco, “San Francisco Landmarks: San Francisco Landmark #3,” NoeHill in San Francisco, accessed August 2014, http://www.noehill.com/sf/landmarks/sf003.asp. MERCEDES AVENUE STREETSCAPE HABS No. CA-2904 Page 3 In 1925, Bliss partnered with architect, Julian Stewart Fairweather, to form “Bliss and Fairweather.” They produced a small, but prestigious body of work, which included buildings such as the NRHP listed United States Main Post Office in Stockton.7 William Baker Faville (11/13/1866-12/15/1947) was born in San Andreas, California. He also attended MIT and worked as a draftsman at McKim, Mead and White, where he met Walter Bliss. Faville and Bliss moved to San Francisco together and opened their architectural firm, “Bliss and Faville.” In 1924, Faville applied for a passport to travel with his wife Ada Cockbaine to Europe for the “study of architecture and allied arts.”8 The following year, he and Bliss dissolved their partnership. He remained in San Francisco Bay Area for the rest of his life, and he died on December 15, 1947 in Marin County, California.9 John J. Roth of “Roth and Study,” in St. Louis, Missouri, was married to Edward Lewis’ niece. In Missouri, Roth served as Building Commissioner. Lewis wrote: “Mr. John Roth, formerly of the architectural firm of Roth & Studie [sic], St. Louis, came out to live with us, and designed the great store building and the schools, as well as most of the more than four hundred beautiful homes that have since been built.” 3. Planner, manager, builder/contractor: Leon G. Sinnard, an urban planner, platted land in Atascadero for industrial, commercial, residential and civic uses. Little is known about Sinnard. He married Hazel Henderson in Oakland on June 4, 1907. At that time, Sinnard was a clerk for Southern Pacific’s general passenger department and was, “…considered one of the able and rising young men with the company.”10 By 1912, the San Francisco City Directory lists him as a “land expert.”11 Between 1921 and 1926 he managed the development of Rancho Santa Fe, a prosperous planned community in San Diego County.12 John F. Sullivan was the project’s general manager. No further information is known of Sullivan. 6 Listed in the National Register on November 29, 1995; National Register Number: 95001384. 7 Pacific Coast Architecture Database (PCAD), “Walter Danforth Bliss,” accessed May 18, 2014, https://digital.lib.washington.edu/; Listed in the National Register on February 10, 1983; National Register Number: 83001236. 8 Ancestry.com, U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925, [database on-line], Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007, accessed May 18, 2014. 9 PCAD, “William Baker Faville,” accessed May 18, 2014, https://digital.lib.washington.edu/. 10 “Miss Hazel Henderson to Become Mrs. Sinnard at Noon Today,” The San Francisco Call, June 5, 1907, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov. 11 Crocker-Langley San Francisco Directory, “1912 San Francisco Directory,” accessed May 16, 2014, https://archive.org/. 12 The Rancho Santa Fe Association “History: Our Community”, The Rancho Santa Fe Association, accessed August 2014, http://www.rsfassociation.org/our-community/history/. MERCEDES AVENUE STREETSCAPE HABS No. CA-2904 Page 4 F.O. Engstrom Construction Company built the Administration Building and the Printery in Atascadero. F.O. Engstrom was active in southern California during the early 1900s. In 1904, the company won a construction contract for a polytechnic high school in Los Angeles, as well as a bath house in Ocean Park, California.13 F.O. Engstrom also built the 1903 Riverside County Courthouse, which implemented Beaux-Arts sculptural design elements such as columns.14 4. Original and subsequent owners: John H. Henry sold Rancho Atascadero to Edward Gardner Lewis in 1913. Lewis used the land to develop the town of Atascadero. Mercedes Avenue is part of the town’s original, planned, curvilinear, streetscape design. Lewis (3/4/1869-8/10/1950) was born in Winsted, Connecticut. He attended Trinity College in Hartford in c.1890-1892.15 In 1890, Lewis married Mabel G. Wellington in Baltimore and moved to Nashville, Tennessee where he worked as a salesman wholesaling pharmaceuticals.16 He later spent several years pursuing different entrepreneurial ventures, including the development of various insect-repellents. Lewis borrowed small amounts of money from numerous individuals in order to finance many of his business ventures.17 By 1913, he went bankrupt and moved to California with his wife in search for a new business venture.

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