Highland Park Historic District
The Highland Park Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. Portions of the content on this web page were adapted from a copy of the original nomination document. [‡]
Description
The Highland Park Historic District in Salt Lake City is located just south of the Sugar House business district, separated only by lnterstate-80, which covers historic Parley's Creek. The subdivision sits on Salt Lake City's east bench and is primarily represented by residential building stock on tree-lined gridded streets. The neighborhood is characterized by landscaping features including uniform setbacks and similarities in house types, styles, and materials. Most of the homes are moderate single-family dwellings with a small mix of duplexes and apartment buildings. There is a small business district running along the west side of the south end of Highland Drive, which was established during the historic period, but has been altered and does not contribute to the Highland Park Historic District. However, several contributing commercial buildings at the north end of Highland Drive are historic (having replaced homes built by the original developers, Kimball & Richards in the late 1920s. There are two churches in the Highland Park Historic District, both built by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon). Thirteenth East has been widened on the east side, and this boulevard now bisects the Highland Park Historic District running north and south, but does not significantly impact the historic association and feeling that remains across the width of this street. The twenty-six block Highland Park Historic District retains a high degree of historic integrity with 97% of the buildings dating from the historic period of significance (1910-40s), with 78% of the building stock contributing to the district and, 18% altered to the point of being non-contributing, and 3% constructed outside the historic period.
Landscaping Features
Highland Park is an excellent example of the landscaping influenced by the "City Beautiful" movement in Salt Lake City because of its high density of shade and fruit trees, other decorative plantings, and its hillside grading. Kimball & Richards planted thousands of shade trees along the streets, many of which still can be seen, especially above 1300 East. Highland Park was built on a naturally sloping hillside, so grading was required for the lots as well as the streets. All of the land was sculpted to create uniform yards throughout the tract. Every house on the east side of each street has a similar berm leading up to a flat lawn the same height as its neighbors. Houses on the west side of each street have uniformly flat yards. Lots on the streets running east-west are sculpted with berms leading up to flat yards, and each lot is stepped down from the one above it, giving each street a terraced effect.
Residential Building Stock
Types
The most common house type represented in Highland Park is the Bungalow, which comprises 45% of the contributing housing stock in the Highland Park Historic District. There are three main Bungalow types found in Utah, all of which can be found in Highland Park. The first is narrow and deep and can have either a hipped or gabled roof. The second type is one and a half stories and has a gabled roof which runs parallel to the street. The roof usually projects out over a full-width porch and almost always has a central dormer. The third is a small gabled cottage with its wide end placed toward the street, and it usually has a small central front porch. This type can occasionally be found as a duplex.
The Period Cottage is the second most represented contributing house type in the Highland Park Historic District, incorporating 30% of the housing stock. It is built in a range of types and styles, and its ornament usually quotes medieval building forms. It can have multiple gables or just one, and its floor plan often has an open circulation pattern similar to the Bungalow.
The third basic house type is the World War II Era Cottage. Comprising 25% of the housing stock, these houses were constructed post-Kimball & Richards. These structures are usually small one-story brick boxes (or double boxes in the case of duplexes) with hipped roofs and little or no ornamentation, but they can also be one or one-and-one-half story gabled rectangles with brick or clapboard veneer.
Styles
A number of architectural styles in Highland Park represent the prevailing tastes of the early twentieth century. Bungalows are often designed in the "Arts & Crafts" style (5%) and are characterized by their gabled roofs which extend over wide porches and are pierced by dormers and sleeping porches. They have wide overhanging eaves with exposed rafters and purlins, and often gable ends have framing members exposed through stucco. Windows are either casement or double-hung and usually have either stained or leaded glass or small square lights in the upper section. The most popular veneers are regular or clinker brick, shingles, stucco and cobblestone.
The "Prairie" style (12%) can be seen in two types of Highland Park houses. This genre emerged from the early work of Frank Lloyd Wright and his Midwest associates. It emphasized clean angular lines in a horizontal composition and reduced the complex Victorian home to a simple rectangular box with a low pitched hipped roof. Horizontality was achieved through the use of repeated brick or cast-stone banding, roman bricks, long banks of stained or leaded glass windows, wide overhanging eaves, accentuated foundations and broad porte-cocheres. Bungalows and Prairie boxes were the two types that incorporated this style.
The "Colonial Revival" style (17%) was also used in several house types. Bungalows included clipped gables and small porches with white painted turned columns under pedimented roofs. Period cottages featured such characteristics as clapboard siding or brick siding with clapboard gables, bay windows, double-hung windows with shutters, cornice returns, and turned porch columns. The Colonial Revival style continued to be used in World War II Era cottages. These were often clad in brick with clapboard gables and featured double-hung windows with shutters, dormers and turned column porches or fluted pilasters flanking the entrance.
The "California" style[1] was applied to Bungalows, and it evolved from the architectural designs of California architects Charles Sumner and Henry Mather Greene, It is best characterized by very low pitched gable or hipped roofs. These buildings can be one or one and a half stories and usually have several different gables which project out at right angles and at several different heights. Stucco and brick versions are popular in Highland Park, and framework, such as rafters, purlins and timbers, is usually exposed and often decoratively carved.
"Tudor Revival" or "English Cottage" was the stylistic term applied to period cottages with Gothic and medieval references. These characteristics included steeply pitched gabled roofs, complex and asymmetrical facades, decorative half-timbering in the gable ends, battered chimneys, ogee arches and leaded glass windows.
Churches
The Highland Park Ward House of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is located at 2535 S. Douglas Avenue. An excellent example of the Tudor Revival style, this impressive edifice was designed by prominent local architects Pope & Burton in 1924 and features an interior mural by well known Utah artist Lee Green Richards. Its exterior incorporates the use of brick, stucco and exposed decorative half-timbering.
The Stratford Ward House, begun in 1938, is located at 2605 S. 1500 East. This building predominantly reflects the Tudor Revival style with influences of the popular "Art Moderne" style in the two main entrances. This imposing structure primarily relies upon flagstone and brick to accentuate its stylistic characteristics.
1300 East
An important change took place in 1967, when 1300 East was widened throughout Highland Park to accommodate increasing traffic from the nearby freeway exit. All of the homes on the east side of the street between I-80 and 2700 South were demolished in order to make way for this work. The new boulevard clearly bisects the Highland Park Historic District; however, each side is still very intact and continues to relate to the other.
The Highland Park Historic District possesses a high degree of cohesiveness because of the compatibility of the architectural styles and types combined with the landscaping features. With nearly 80% of the buildings retaining most of their original features, along with the subdivision design, the integrity of the neighborhood is strong and contributes to the historic qualities of Salt Lake City.
Significance
Highland Park, developed between 1910 and 1926 by Kimball & Richards Land Merchants, with development continuing through the 1940s, is an important historical subdivision in Salt Lake City, Utah and is significant under National Register Criteria A and C. At the turn of the century America experienced a huge speculative real estate boom outside the core urban areas as cities became more industrial. Highland Park is significant for its place in this movement as a local forerunner of subdivisions providing complete real estate services. It is also significant as an architecturally cohesive neighborhood from the early twentieth century, having a high percentage (80%) of buildings that retain their historic integrity.
Within the context of local land development there are a number of important themes which contribute to the significance of Highland Park: (1) the scale of the subdivision; (2) its distance from the city core; (3) the landscaping of the subdivision as a whole; and (4) its architectural styles and types. Highland Park is important for its grand scale, having approximately twenty-five times as many lots in its first plat as most typical local subdivisions of the same period. Annexation was important to subdivisions in unincorporated areas because of the lack of city services, and Highland Park is an early and very large example of annexation into Salt Lake City. Between 1890 and 1909, three annexes were added to the city, none larger than thirty acres.[2] Kimball & Richards lobbied to pass the Sugar House Annex of 1910, which included nine hundred acres, one-third of which was Highland Park. They also arranged for an exclusive and innovative express trolley service. This subdivision is also significant for its distance from the city core beyond most pre-existing suburbs and for being the first subdivision on the south side of Parley's Creek, a natural boundary at the time.
Landscaping is another recurring theme in local development, and Highland Park stands out because of its high density of shade and fruit trees, other decorative plantings, and its grading. During the early part of this century many local realtors looked to the City Beautiful Movement and to California for innovative concepts in planning and architecture, and Kimball & Richards are believed to be the first in Salt Lake City to document their use of California-influenced landscaping in Highland Park. Kimball & Richards were also one of the first realtors to build the "California" Bungalow in Utah, in Highland Park. Highland Park Historic District displays good examples of architectural types and styles popular in Utah during the 1910s-40s, such as Prairie, Arts & Crafts & California, Colonial Revival, and English Tudor style homes. There are also good examples of houses and churches designed by locally prominent architects such as Taylor Woolley, Pope & Burton, and Dallas & Hedges.
The First Sixty Years of Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City was settled by Brigham Young and his followers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon) in 1847. The Mormon town plan of gridded streets was designed by Joseph Smith, founder of the Church, in 1833[3]. Suburban expansion in Salt Lake City began in the late 1880s with the aid of the city's street car system established in 1882.[4] Although the city was still small by national standards, Utahns followed the larger trend and were driven by the desire to escape the polluted core and growing influx of new immigrants that were perceived as a threat to the social balance of middle class homogeneous neighborhoods. By 1900 more than 300 subdivision plats had been filed,[5] mostly outside the original city boundaries.
The population of Salt Lake City increased from 40,000 in 1890 to 112,000 in 1908,[6] and the need for housing was explosive. It was the expansion of public transportation at the turn of the century that enabled developers to move farther out of the core area, as only 1,320 passenger cars were registered in Utah in 1910.[7] By 1891 there were several railroad and streetcar lines that reached the city limits. In 1889 the streetcar system extended to 900 South, and in 1898, the lines were extended to 2100 South on 1100 East. A bus line was in place along 1300 East by 1926.[8]
Early Salt Lake City developers were usually non-Mormons from out of state.[9] LDS Church members had long been advised to hold on to their 'inheritances of Zion' and initially shunned the idea of selling off their land holdings until scores of speculators arrived eager to scoop up as much land as they could. Eventually the Mormons realized the money that could be made in land development, and they joined in the business of subdividing. During 1906-30, there were 439 new residential subdivisions platted in Salt Lake City.[10] By 1911 the city consisted of compact residential areas and well-established transportation lines, and in 1922 zoning was established in response to the problems of indiscriminate commercial, industrial, and residential development in all parts of the city.[11]
Nationally the Progressive Era was effecting social changes through governmental reform and the related City Beautiful Movement encouraged the design of public spaces that would improve urban life. The movements that defined the early twentieth century, the Progressive Era and the City Beautiful Movement, were also aimed at improving urban life and bringing rational order and efficiency to the forces of progress that had begun in the past century. A result of the World Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893, the City Beautiful Movement not only encouraged large-scale grand boulevards, classical memorials, and formal landscaping, but also elevated the status of the nascent planning profession and contributed to the realization that the physical elements of a city affected its citizens. Private citizens and Salt Lake City's government moved to join the City Beautiful Movement. In 1900, they planted trees in local parks and around the City and County Building, and improved walks and drives in Liberty Park, then considered a showplace of Salt Lake City open spaces. In 1908, due greatly to pressures by the Civic Improvement League, the city established a park board to make Salt Lake into a "City Beautiful". In 1909 a Parks and Playground Association, with members largely from upper-middle class was formed to provide playgrounds for children.[12] Civic improvements throughout the city included the planting of trees and building of sidewalks.
During the Progressive Era, the first two decades of the twentieth century, Salt Lake City underwent industrialization and urbanization like other cities across the nation. It experienced a shift from an agricultural to a commercial and industrial economy. The city was no longer isolated but was politically and economically integrated into the mainstream of the country. In general, Utah experienced the commercialization of agriculture, the emergence of a substantial business sector, and the development of corporate mining and manufacturing. The combination of agriculture, mining, manufacturing, commerce, and transportation produced prosperity for Salt Lake City.[13] The changing American landscape through suburban development was visible in Salt Lake City.
Contemporary Suburban Development
The earliest suburbs were thought of in a different light than they have been perceived in the 1950s through today. Early suburbs were sub-urban, or not fully urban. By the late 1890s, suburbs were occupied mostly by upper class families because they could afford a retreat from the city heat and filth. The residential developments outside the urban setting were considered a retreat from the grime and grit of the city and afforded the middle and upper classes a chance to have the American dream of a single family home that accommodated private space inside and outside. By 1910 things changed and the middle-and working-class citizens were moving out to the suburbs by the thousands, facilitated by public transportation. People moving in from the farm and out from the city combined to create an altered architectural pattern. With this came the creation of a significant architectural type — the suburban house form.[14] It wasn't until the advent of the post-WW II housing development that the pastoral qualities of the suburb of the late 19th and early 20th century began to vanish.[15]
The urban space, divided into plain rectangular strips without concern for topography or aesthetics and whose gridiron plan produced straight streets intersecting at right angles, appealed to the city residents' preference for rational solutions and scientific methods. It was a practical approach for ordering space and simplified surveying and facilitated speculation. Early suburbs followed this plan because the rectangular layout of the streets extended beyond the city to make easier the sale and resale of lots possible in advance of settlement; it also stimulated promotion of undeveloped areas. "The price that the grid exacted in ugliness appeared small in a strange world where monotony also suggested familiarity."[16]
Just after the turn of the century the suburban form began to change. The increased cost of real estate in the city led land speculators and real estate developers to survey fields and meadows, imprinting streets and creating a landscape, neither rural nor urban, where people could enjoy both city and country lives.[17] Profits were abundant for developers of the early twentieth century. Some learned that greater profits could be realized from "new arrangements of streets and structures, from new building materials, and from integrated beauty." People in search of rural settings and something "unique would force private developers to reach new levels of residential design and new levels of profit."[18]
Large-scale suburbs on curvilinear street systems, like Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, were planned as early as 1895 by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.[19] Olmsted (landscape architect of the nineteenth century) had outlined the requirements of city planning. His plan stated that first, main thoroughfares "should be direct, ample, and convenient no matter how they cut the land." Second, other roads must be "quiet, attractive" residential streets, not "fantastically rooked," but laid out "so as to discourage their use as thoroughfares." Third, was the necessity of park land and public open spaces.[20] Some suburban developments were not successful while others continue to be known. Some subdivisions were developed to follow the natural topography. Roads followed the trails established when lands were first settled. Post-Victorian suburbs were individualistic, egalitarian, and comfortable.[21] The idea was to live in a location far enough from the city to have rural qualities that included an open field nearby, a garden behind, and a front lawn, while living close enough to commute to the city to earn a living. This was a new era for housing development.[22] The suburbs were practical because land was less expensive and afforded an individual home on a lot. They provided psychological advantages because they were "images of sturdy independence in their apartness from their neighbors." And, they were traditional as an American idea and historical experience in contrast to European. The American house-designer conceived of houses as individual units set in landscapes rather than one among many similar buildings.[23]
By the mid-1920s Salt Lake City mirrored the national trends of contemporary planning. Growth in the city during this period was occurring primarily to the east and south of the city center and between 1906-30, 439 new residential subdivisions were recorded with the county recorder's office. Land subdivision was relatively stable during this period and was marked by the desire to make the city a good place to live.[24]
Other Suburban Developments in Salt Lake City
Federal Heights, roughly bounded by Virginia Street, University Street, First South, the University of Utah, and the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains was developed by Telluride Real Estate Company began developing the area in 1909 and named it Federal Heights in reference to the government's previous ownership of the property and its neighbor, Fort Douglas. The street patterns were designed to take advantage of the sloping topography and to create green spaces within the neighborhood. Federal Heights has maintained its historic integrity and widespread identity. Differences occur in the scale of the homes from those in Highland Park as the number of large-scale residences in Federal Heights are greater.
Other suburban developments in Salt Lake City of about the same time did not follow the planned landscaped community as completely as did Highland Park. Westmoreland Place, with entrance gates at 1500 East and 1300 South, was platted in 1913 just a few years later than Highland Park and developed by Earl and Clark Dunshee. Amenities similar to those found in Highland Park included the landscaped spaces and it maintained the rectilinear street grid.25 Restrictive covenants were also a part of the advertising for this development.
Many areas were developed not as a single subdivision but by speculative developers purchasing a few lots within an area. For example, the University Neighborhood Historic District, roughly bounded by South Temple and 500 South between University and 1100 East, was not a 'subdivision', but built with small speculative developers and owner/builders. In addition to its single-family residences there are numerous apartments, and commercial buildings.[26]
The History of Kimball & Richards
Kimball & Richards was perhaps the biggest of the early twentieth century developers in Salt Lake City. Between 1908 and 1925 they platted more than thirty local subdivisions. The firm was organized in 1907 by Don Carlos Kimball and Claude Richards, prominent members of the LDS Church. The company grew rapidly, and by 1910 they had a large office staff which handled a variety of responsibilities, including property sales, rentals, loans, construction, and insurance. Prominent local architect Taylor Woolley is credited by a family history[27] with planning Highland Park, as well as designing several homes in the subdivision for Kimball & Richards.
By 1908 Kimball & Richards Land Merchants had split into three companies, adding Kimball & Richards Building Company and Kimball & Richards Securities Company in order to provide a complete real estate service for prospective purchasers. The Land Merchants were responsible for purchasing, subdividing, and improving large tracts of land. They also sold the improved property, and by eliminating banks and offering their own credit plan to customers, they were able to increase their profits. The Building Company handled the construction of both speculative and custom ordered homes. They primarily used five independent contractors: Elijah and John Thompson, Henning Henderson, George and Thomas Biesinger, Walter Stumm, and Louis H. Sims.[28] The Securities Company provided the financing for the company's real estate development activities. It raised the large amounts of cash needed to run the business by acting as an alternative institution to banks for saving and investing money.
In addition to developing more than thirty local subdivisions during its nineteen year reign, Kimball & Richards also acted as listing agent for individual homes and businesses in Salt Lake City, handling both sales and rentals.[29] It also invested heavily in large rural properties covering much of the Intermountain West during World War I when food shortages were prevalent. This farm and ranch department was mostly speculative, based on the firm's anticipation of the desire for farmland by returning war veterans.
By the mid-1920s, however, the land rush had not occurred, and its investments were virtually impossible to liquidate.[30] In 1926 Don Carlos Kimball and Claude Richards closed their offices, and they each continued to pursue real estate careers independently.
The History of Highland Park
Kimball & Richards bought 245.73 acres of vacant unincorporated land along with all water rights on August 3,1909 from the LDS Church, taking out two mortgages totaling $90,000 that same day.[31] The land was completely unimproved and had been used as the summer training grounds by the Utah National Guard. The land was subsequently surveyed into five plats totaling 3124 lots during a six year period. Annexation was important to suburbs outside of city limits, because the county did not provide services such as city water, garbage pick-up, mail service, schools, and police and fire support. In March, 1910 Highland Park Plat "A" became part of the Sugar House Annex, the largest in Salt Lake City's history by thirty times.
Kimball & Richards' next priority was to put in place the infrastructure of Highland Park. Streets were graded, and the water and sewer lines were laid at six times the rate of those in the city.[32] In 1910 more than twenty-two miles of sidewalk were laid in the subdivision during a three month period. During the same entire year only three miles were laid in all of Salt Lake City, which was almost ninety-six times larger than Highland Park.[33] In 1914 more than one third of the city's road paving took place in the tract, mostly funded by the developers.[34] Kimball & Richards contracted the Utah Light & Railway Company in 1912 to extend the Sugar House line through Highland Park. It was similar to other suburbs in its dependence on the trolley lines for access; however, it was significant for its exclusive express service, which carried passengers from downtown to Highland Park in seventeen minutes at a cost of five cents.[35] By 1914 Highland Park had running water, a new fire station, a new police station, and regular mail service.[36] Two years later services included garbage pick-up and a four room school.
American planners at the beginning of this century devoted themselves to creating greater civic beauty via landscaping. Early newspaper ads for Highland Park claimed that 7,000 shade trees were planted in all of the "parkings" (parkways),[37] and in 1913 this subdivision became the first local neighborhood where lots were sold with six peach trees in addition to the shade trees.[38] Highland Park is also characterized by uniform landscaping. It was built on a naturally sloping hillside, so grading was required for the lots as well as the streets. Concerned with the uneven appearance of occupied and empty lots in 1915, Kimball & Richards spent several years planting the vacant lots with food crops.[39]
In the early twentieth century many local real estate developers looked to California for its innovative planning and architecture, and Kimball & Richards were among the first to do so. The wait stations for the streetcar line were designed after a thorough study of ornamental monuments in California.[40] The practice of planting shade trees in the "parking" may not come exclusively from California, but Don Carlos Kimball got the idea from a research trip to the west coast.[41] Highland Park was one of the earliest subdivisions to include California style Bungalows. Furthermore, several of the company's top executives made a month-long journey to the coast to increase their knowledge of California realty practices. Upon their return, they hosted a banquet and gave lectures on "California Business Methods," "California Salesmanship and Advertising," "California Farms and How They Are Sold," and "Things Said, Seen, and Done on Our Trip."[42]
Building restrictions appeared in Salt Lake City as early as 1890 in Perkins' Addition to ensure minimum building costs and to exclude commercial structures. In 1913 racial restrictions first appeared in the Dunshee Brothers' subdivision, Westmoreland Place.[43] This practice would not, however, become commonplace in Salt Lake City until 1920. Building restrictions were set in place from the beginning in Highland Park, but on January 19,1919 the first newspaper advertisement addressing racial restrictions appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune. They were used as a selling point, claiming that "you are securing protection for your home and property for all time." Restrictive covenants, especially those concerning race, continued to be popular until after World War II. This was common throughout the country. Beginning in 1934 the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) strongly encouraged this practice for fear of "inharmonious racial or nationality groups." The FHA had a strong interest in retaining the stability of suburban neighborhoods because it was responsible for the mortgages.[44]
Like most east side developments, Highland Park catered to middle-class, salaried white men with families. Its location and restrictions made it the perfect place to raise a family, up in the "pure air" and away from "questionable" neighbors. A random sample of Highland Park residents in the 1925 Folk's Salt Lake City Directory included thirteen clerks, eleven department managers, nine salesmen, three bookkeepers, seven engineers, eleven men in the various building trades, three teachers, six railroad and utility men, and six business owners.
Kimball & Richards used a variety of techniques to sell Highland Park. Between 1910 and 1922 they took out approximately two hundred illustrated advertisements for this subdivision in the Salt Lake Tribune. They also offered free advertising booklets which told the story of Highland Park. In their Main Street office the developers also created unique window displays designed to promote the peaceful and healthy lifestyle that could be achieved in the suburbs. Each year between 1910 and 1916 Kimball & Richards presented an exhibit at the state fair, including a seventy-five foot by twenty-five foot topographical model of Highland Park, showing cement walks, paved streets, parking strips, gutters, fire hydrants and trees.[45] In the spring of 1913 Kimball & Richards initiated a unique monthly design contest for homes to be built in the subdivision,[46] and the following year they sponsored a Kodak photo competition for the most beautiful views of Highland Park.
Highland Park's planning and development was intended to define an internally-structured and cohesive neighborhood. The visual quality of the Highland Park Historic District is created by a combination of several factors: the sloping terrain, sloped or terraced yards, uniform setbacks and spacing, landscaping, and the architectural quality of many of the homes. While all subdivisions in Salt Lake City were named when they were developed, few remain easily identifiable today. Highland Park has withstood the test of time and most people recognize the name with the area that is designated Highland Park Historic District.
Highland Park Historic District is also important because it contains numerous buildings that are both significant and modest examples of the work of prominent Utah architects. Since several architects participated in the subdivision's development, their awareness of current trends in suburban planning no doubt influenced its plan. It may be that the layout of much of Highland Park was designed by Taylor Woolley, a prominent Utah architect, although no primary sources found to date reflect that idea. The architectural firm he formed in 1917, Miller, Woolley, and Evans, was one of the first to include a landscape architecture department. They did not limit their designs to buildings but included the planning of the State Capitol grounds and Memory Grove. Woolley's firm also believed to have influenced the architecture in the area.
Other architects who influenced the area included Samuel C. Dallas and William S. Hedges, and their firm known as Dallas & Hedges, Architects, prominent in Utah during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dallas was born in Salt Lake City in 1858 and practiced architecture in Utah during 1885-1920. According to a booklet from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition booklet, Dallas designed the Utah pavilion for the Fair in Chicago.[47] He worked as the school board architect for 30 years, and designed many homes and public buildings, including the McCune residence.[48] He died in October 1920.
Hedges was born in Indiana in May 1860, coming West in 1881 with the engineers that surveyed the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. Shortly after his arrival in Salt Lake City, he and Dallas formed their architectural partnership. Hedges retired from the firm in 1912 due to ill health, and died in 1914. Some of the firms projects include: five of the University of Utah buildings; and several commercial buildings in the Salt Lake downtown area including the Brooks Arcade, the Auerbach Building, and the Raybould Building; and the Hawthorne School. They also designed residences, including the W. H. Rowe in the Avenues, and in Highland Park, the Claude Richards[49] residence at 1354 Stratford Avenue.
Also, Pope & Burton were well known architects who designed the Highland Park Ward House at 2525 S. Douglas in 1924. Hyrum C. Pope was born in 1876 in Germany and studied at the Chicago Art Institute before opening an office in Salt Lake City c.1906. He was chairman of the board of temple architects for the LDS Church, and a member of the house during the 1933 legislature. He and Harold Burton, born in 1887 in Salt Lake City, formed a partnership and practiced together for 30 years. They designed many buildings in Utah, and as architects for the LDS Church, many temples, chapels, and stake buildings, including the Canadian, Hawaiian, and Oakland LDS Temples. They also designed schools, such as West Junior High, and the Fish and Game building at the Utah State Fairgrounds. Pope died of an apparent heart attack at the age of 63 while visiting in Idaho to inspect the building of the Franklin County Courthouse in 1936.[50] Burton lived to be 81 when he died in 1969 of natural causes. Their architecture was influential in the state of Utah, especially through their use of Prairie School design.[51]
Highland Park Historic District contains a large number of excellent examples of the styles popular in Salt Lake City and Utah during the period of significance, 1910-40s. The houses display the craftsmanship of design and construction materials associated with the era of the significant period. Attention was paid to the quality of design and cohesiveness in the neighborhood. The residential building styles are predominantly Bungalows and Period Revival Cottages that portray the sequence of its development and its association with the growth of the city during a progressive era.
The majority of buildings constructed in the Highland Park Historic District were Bungalows and period revival Cottages. Nearly 29% percent of the homes are Bungalows, either Arts and Crafts or Prairie School. These styles were popular in Utah from 1905-25 and incorporated many similar stylistic features such as low, hipped roofs and wide, overhanging eaves. The wide porches help to create an impression of informal living and unite the houses to their sites. The Bungalow plan is open, informal, and economical and became the basic middle-class house, replacing the late-nineteenth century Victorian cottage. Like the Victorian style, the Bungalow's popularity can be attributed to the widespread use of architectural pattern books and a corresponding period of economic prosperity when many families were purchasing their first homes.[52]
Approximately 64% of the homes in the Highland Park Historic District are Period Revival English Cottages, English Tudor, and Colonial Revival homes. Period Revival styles were popular in Salt Lake City and throughout Utah primarily between 1920-40. Most of the Period Revival homes in Highland Park Historic District were constructed in the 1920s. A possible reason for the rise in popularity of the Period Revival style may have resulted from national pride following World War I which led to its increased use. English Tudor, Spanish Revival, and French Norman styles were most likely imported by soldiers returning from the war in Europe. These designs were based primarily on external decorative features rather than the historical building and planning traditions and "were simplistically massed, suggesting the informality that various architectural writers of the period stated was appropriate to the American way of life."[53]
Conclusion
Highland Park is significant as an early twentieth century suburb in Salt Lake City. Research indicated that its importance was based on its unusually large size and scale when compared with other previous local developments, as well as its stylistic and formal cohesiveness; but in order for this large scale to occur, other unusual conditions must have been in place. Kimball & Richards was by far the largest and most comprehensive developer in Salt Lake City. Eighty-six years have passed since this subdivision was graded and landscaped, and its appearance has changed little. Many of the original shade trees are gone; however, the uniform setbacks and grading remain as a visible tribute to the immense landscaping efforts of Kimball & Richards. Highland Park was the first suburb to be built on the south side of Parley's Creek, a naturally imposed boundary, and it occupied one-third of the 900-acre Sugar House Annex of 1910 and was the most significant local example of a national trend toward annexation as a means to provide vital utilities and services to peripheral suburbs. Most suburbs relied on streetcars for accessibility, but Highland Park was unique for its express service, another example of Kimball & Richards' comprehensive approach to real estate development.
Endnotes
- While this style is not a separate category in the data base at the Utah State Historic Preservation Office, the influence of the California Bungalow style is recognized as part of what is called the "Bungalow" style in Utah.
- Annexation of local unincorporated land began as early as 1890 when the residents of Perkins' Addition successfully petitioned to be within city limits. They were forced to pay city taxes but did not initially get city services in return. Perhaps as the result of these shortcomings, the practice did not take hold for another twenty years. In 1909, the second and third additions were made to the city, both of which were adjacent to Sugar House.
- John W. Reps, The Forgotten Frontier: Urban Planning in the American West Before 1890 (Columbia & London: University of Missouri Press, 1981). 124. Throughout Utah settlement patterns were based on the Plat of the City of Zion that was outlined by the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. The plan, though not fully implemented, served as a model for Mormon settlements across the west under the direction of Brigham Young. The plats were one mile square, the blocks were ten acres each and forty rods square, and the lots were laid off alternately within the squares. The towns were set out in a grid pattern with the public buildings and church located in the center of town, surrounded by residences, with the outlying areas being used as farmlands. Mormon settlements became characterized by in-town family farmsteads with a daily trek to the outlying fields. Out-migration became inevitable as populations grew, but much of the old pattern originating in the Plat of the City of Zion has persisted to the present in most Utah towns.
- A/P Associates Planning and Research: Salt Lake City Architectural/Historical Survey: Central/Southern Survey Area. (Salt Lake City, 1983). 24, 63.
- John Fred Aegerter, Inglewood and Park View: A Look at Urban Expansion and Early Subdivision in Salt Lake City's Original Agricultural Plats, Master's Thesis. (Urbana, Illinois, 1988). 132.
- E.V. Fohlin. Salt Lake City Past and Present. (Salt Lake City: E.V. Fohlin, 1908). 114.
- Ronald R. Boyce. An Historical Geography of Greater Salt Lake City, Utah. Master's Thesis. (Salt Lake City, 1957). 120.
- Aegerter, p.84.
- Roger V. Roper. "The 'Unrivaled Perkins' Addition': Portrait of a Streetcar Subdivision." Utah Historical Quarterly 54 no. 1 (Winter 1986): 49.
- [10]John Fred Aegerter, "Inglewood and Park View: A Look at Urban Expansion and Early Subdivision in the Salt Lake City's Original Agricultural Plats" (Master's thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1988), p. 29.
- Boyce, pp.82-84.
- Alexander, Thomas G. and James B. Alien. Mormons & Gentiles: A History of Salt Lake City. Boulder, CO: Pruett Publishing Company, 1984, p. 155.
- Richard D. Poll, et al. Utah's History (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1989), pp. 429-30.
- Gowans, Alan. The Comfortable House: North American Suburban Architecture. 1890-1930. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1986, p. 16.
- In the early 1930s a debate about the tackiness of the suburbs began, establishing the lines of argument still evident today (Stilgoe, John R. Borderland: Origins of the American Suburb. 1820-1939. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1988, p.5). Automobile transportation of the 1930s changed the dynamics between urban and suburban lifestyles. "The freedom of movement the automobile produced undermined the unity achieved by streetcars and eventually made suburbs independent entities (Barth, p.57). Also, massive federal intervention fueled the exodus of middle-class Americans from troubled cities and helped to change the concept of the suburb (Stilgoe, p.5).
- Barth, p.31.
- Barth, p.41.
- Stilgoe, p.226.
- Gowans, p.21.
- [20]Stilgoe, pp. 226-7.
- The houses in the suburbs that developed at the turn of the century incorporated the most advanced technology, including indoor plumbing, built-in gas and electric facilities, central heating, and all the luxuries that had been available only to the wealthy just a few decades earlier (Gowans, p.25), "Science" was the emphasis of the day.
- Gowans, p. 29.
- Gowans, p.30.
- Aegerter, p.29.
- Jane Brinckerhoff and Stephanie Turner, "Westmoreland Place", unpublished manuscript, December 1993. Available at Utah State Historic Preservation Office.
- University Neighborhood Historic District, National Register nomination, 1995. On file at Utah State Historic Preservation Office.
- This source has not been substantiated by any primary sources and evidence of Woolley's involvement in the planning of Highland Park is inconclusive. Woolley did spend five years under the direct tutelage of Frank Lloyd Wright. There is some speculation that he may have planned Highland Park while in Chicago working for Wright.
- Letter from Paul C. Kimball, son of Don Carlos Kimball, to Roger Roper, April 6, 1984.
- Folk's Salt Lake City Directories. 1909-1925.
- [30]This information is based on a 1984 telephone conversation between Utah State Historic Preservation Coordinator Roger Roper and Mary Kimball Johnson, daughter of Don Carlos Kimball.
- Abstracts and Mortgages, Salt Lake County Recorder's Office.
- Salt Lake Tribune. June 12, 1910. 20.
- Salt Lake City Engineer's Report. 1910.
- Ibid.
- Salt Lake Tribune. July 21, 1912. 12.
- Ibid., August 23, 1914. 21.
- Ibid., April 17, 1910. 23.
- Ibid., April 13,1913. 13.
- Ibid., May 7, 1916. 20.
- [40]Paul C. Kimball.
- Ibid.
- Salt Lake Tribune. April 4,1915. 23.
- Jane Brinkerhoff and Stephanie Turner. Westmoreland Place: A Retrospective of Homes Built Between 1913 and the Early 1920s. University of Utah, 1993, 1.
- Kenneth L. Jackson. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). 208.
- Salt Lake Tribune. October 1, 1916. 16.
- Ibid., March 23, 1913. 23.
- See University of Utah, Marriott Library, Special Collections, Western Americana.
- Reportedly Samuel Dallas, under Mrs. McCune's supervision, was allowed to travel and study for two years while he devised the detailed plans to carry out her wishes in the design of the McCune Mansion. There is a home in New York, the Matthews house at 19th St. & Riverside Drive, now demolished, that was the mirror image, and was built prior to, the McCune Mansion.
- Claude Richards was one of the developers of Highland Park (Kimball & Richards). The broad spacious verandas, roof design, dark red brick, red sandstone trimmings, and three sleeping porches, as well as the use of hardwood-oak, mahogany and walnut-throughout the interior, and built-in vacuum system, (Salt Lake Tribune, 10/30/1910) in this house combined to make it one of the prominent homes in that development.
- [50]Deseret News, August 25,1939, p.13.
- Burton was an advocate of Frank Lloyd Wright's designs, and had a large library of Wright's books. Deseret News, October 4,1969, B-2.
- Thomas Carter and Peter Goss, Utah's Historic Architecture. 1847-1940 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Graduate School of Architecture and Utah State Historical Society, 1991).
- Carter and Goss, pp.145-146.
References
A/P Associates Planning and Research. Salt Lake City Architectural/Historical Survey: Southwestern Survey Area. Salt Lake City: A/P Associates Planning and Research, 1985.
A/P Associates Planning and Research. Salt Lake City Architectural/Historical Survey: Central/Southern Survey Area. Salt Lake City: A/P Associates Planning and Research, 1983.
Aegerter, John Fred. "Inglewood and Park View: A Look at Urban Expansion and Early Subdivision in Salt Lake City's Original Agricultural Plats." M.S. Thesis, University of Illinois (Urbana), 1988.
Alexander, Thomas G. and James B. Alien. Mormons & Gentiles: A History of Salt Lake City. Boulder, Colorado: Pruett Publishing Co., 1984.
Arrington, Leonard J. Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints 1830-1900. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1958.
Barth, Gunther. City People: The Rise of Modern City Culture in Nineteenth-Century America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
Boyce, Ronald R. "An Historical Geography of Greater Salt Lake City, Utah." M.S. Thesis, University of Utah, 1957.
Brinkerhoff, Jane and Stephanie Turner. "Westmorland Place." University of Utah, 1993. unpublished.
Buder, Stanley. Visionaries and Planners: The Garden City Movement and the Modern Community. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Carter, Thomas R. and Peter L. Goss. Utah's Historic Architecture, 1847-1940. Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1991.
Christensen, Carol A. The American Garden City and the New Towns Movement. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Research Press, 1986.
City Engineering Department, Salt Lake City, Utah. Annual Report of the City Engineer. Salt Lake City, 1904-1930.
Cumming, Elizabeth, and Wendy Kaplan. The Arts & Crafts Movement. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 1991.
Deseret News, 1908-1927
Downing, Andrew Jackson. The Architecture of Country Houses. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., Reprint 1969. Eastlake, Charles Locke -Hints on Household Taste. New York: Dover Publications, Reprint 1969.
Fohlin, E.V. Salt Lake City, Past and Present. Salt Lake City: E.V. Fohlin, 1908.
Goss, Peter L. and Kenneth L. Trapp. The Bungalow Lifestyle and the Arts & Crafts Movement in the Intermountain West. Salt lake City: University of Utah, 1995.
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Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1986.
Haglund, Karl T. and Philip F. Notarianni. The Avenues of Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City: Utah State Historical Society, 1980.
Harris, Kip. Return to the City: A Study of Architectural Restoration/Renovation of the Context of the Avenues District of Salt Lake City. M.Arch. Thesis, University of Utah, 1978.
Hart, Polly S. "Cottonwood Heights." University of Utah, 1994. unpublished.
Hart, Polly S. "Federal Heights Area." Utah Heritage Foundation Newsletter 29 no. 3 (May/June 1995): 3-7.
Holt, Susan. Gilmer Park. M.S. Thesis, University of Utah, 1995.
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Plant, Jeff. "Highland Park, SLC 1910-1925: A Development by Kimball & Richards Land Merchants." University of Utah, 1989. unpublished.
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Poll, Richard D., Thomas G. Alexander, Eugene E. Campbell, and David E. Miller, eds. Utah's History. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1989.
Reps, John W. The Forgotten Frontier: Urban Planning in the American West before 1890. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1981.
Reps, John W. Town Planning in Frontier America. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1980.
Roper, Roger V. "The 'Unrivaled Perkins' Addition' : Portrait of a Streetcar Subdivision." Utah Historical Quarterly 54 no. 1 (Winter 1986): 31-51.
Roth, Leland M. A Concise History of American Architecture. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1979.
Salt Lake City Building Permits.
Salt Lake County Abstract Books
Salt Lake County Property Deeds.
Salt Lake County Subdivision Files.
Salt Lake County Subdivision Plat Maps
Salt Lake Tribune, 1907-1928
Sanborn Maps, Salt Lake City
Stickley, Gustav. More Craftsman Homes. New York: The Craftsman Publishing Company, 1912.
Stilgoe, John R. Borderland: Origins of the American Suburb, 1820-1939. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.
Tullidge, Edward W. The History of Salt Lake City and Its Founders. Salt Lake City: Edward W. Tullidge, 1886.
Weiss, Marc A. The Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Planning. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987.
Wooley, Leah. "Early History of Forest Dale." Unpublished manuscript, 1981.
Wright, Gwendolyn. Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America. New York: Pantheon Books, 1981.
- Polly Susan Hart, Highland Park Historic District, nomination document, 1997, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.
Nearby Neighborhoods
Street Names
Alden Street • Beverly Street • Chadwick Street • Dearborn Street • Douglas Street • E 2700 S Street • Elizabeth Street • Highland Drive • Parkway Avenue East • S 1300 E Street • S 1500 E Street • Stratford Avenue East
