'50s Tract Home Architect Recalls a Simpler Style

After World War II, the San Fernando Valley became a mecca for GIs and their families, looking for a place to settle and live the American dream.

For many in pursuit of affordable housing -- tract homes provided the answer.

During the 1950s, the architectural firm of Palmer and Krisel designed and built about 4,000 homes in the Valley. As purveyors of ``modernism for the masses,'' the duo was known for creating high-quality yet affordable work. Their homes, originally priced below $25,000, now command $600,000 and up.

``They brought the quality of good architecture to the mass housing industry,'' says Alan Hess, author of ``The Ranch House,'' and architecture critic for the San Jose Mercury News.

``Developers would come to Southern California from other parts of the country and see what they were doing and take those ideas back with them.''

On Sunday, two Palmer and Krisel homes are featured on an L.A. Conservancy tour of modern homes in the Valley.

Bill Krisel, now 81 and living in Brentwood, will be at one of the residences to discuss his work.

Krisel was born in Shanghai, China, and says he was inspired to pursue architecture at age 12 when he read a piece about Frank Lloyd Wright in Life magazine. He received a degree in architecture from the University of Southern California in 1949, after serving in the U.S. Army as a Chinese interpreter during World War II.

In addition to designing tracts in the Valley, he and Dan Palmer worked in Palm Springs, San Diego and throughout the southern U.S. After their partnership dissolved in 1964, each went on to pursue successful independent careers.

Krisel sat down recently with the Daily News to reflect on his career.

Daily News: Who were the tract houses in the San Fernando Valley designed for?

Bill Krisel: It was for what you would call a ``hypothetical family.'' We created different families and that's why we had different size houses. You visualized a mother, father, two kids in the smaller houses, three kids in the medium house and four kids in the bigger house.

DN: You've done both custom design for individuals and tract work. Which did you like better?

BK: I much preferred doing tract work because we could create this hypothetical family as the client, whereas when you have a real client, they want you to measure how many pairs of shoes they have and how many neckties they have and how they fold their socks.

DN: But even though your homes weren't custom-built, they did come with a lot of special features.

BK: Because I did such a large volume of houses, manufacturers of lighting fixtures, kitchen appliances, windows, doors all came to me and said `What would you like to see?' So I would design light fixtures, appliances, carpets, doors, windows, everything. And they would use them in the houses.

DN: You lived in one of your own tract homes in the '50s right after you got married to your wife, Corinne. You had two kids there. How much did that house cost?

BK: We bought it for the regular price, we didn't get any special deal, and it was $14,500.

It was $500 down and the payments were $60 a month. It was a four-bedroom, three-bath house and it was very comfortable. We lived there for about three years.

DN: What set your work apart from others during the same time period?

BK: Our houses were unique in that we had a system. The materials that we used, we used efficiently. For example, if something came in a 4-foot size, we used it in a 4-foot size so there would be no waste.

Traditional, conventional houses paid no attention to those kinds of economies. There was total efficiency. The houses went up very quickly, they didn't get expensive to build, and they made the builders a lot of money.

DN: And the materials were durable.

BK: Well, they've lasted 50 years, so I can't argue with that.

As a matter of fact, at the time I made them I didn't believe they would still be around. I thought the world would change, people would tear them down or other things would be built there. And so I'm very pleased that so many of my houses are still being lived in 50 years later.

DN: Lately it seems like there's a renewal of enthusiasm for these homes.

BK: There's an appreciation of what was midcentury design. Because what tract builders went on to build after 10 years of modern houses are what we call Cinderella houses. These had cutesy little shutters and pot shelves and looked like Disneyland.

And the other sad thing is that houses got so big they had to go two stories and crowd the lots and so forth. I think there's going to be a resurgence to going back to the type of living we had in the '50s where you don't build monster houses.

DN: So midcentury modern was not a fad?

BK: No. It's still there. There are people still loving it. People still call me and say `I wish you would do some new ones.' So it's nice to have all that happiness going on.