The Gamble House is once again hosting guided tours of some of the most extraordinary houses in Pasadena.
Join them on Zoom Saturday, Feb. 27, for their exploration of Wallace Neff, the man behind the bubble houses of Southern California.
This lecture event, “Wallace Neff: Elegance, Integrity, and Bubbles,” is presented in partnership with FORT (Friends Of Residential Treasures): LA.
Jeffrey Head, author of “No Nails, No Lumber: The Bubble Houses of Wallace Neff,” will talk about how Neff spent most of his career building a reputation as Southern California’s artful regionalist.
Born on Jan. 28, 1895, Edwin Wallace Neff was a grandson of Chicago printing tycoon Andrew McNally, who moved to Altadena in 1887 and founded Rancho La Mirada, Neff’s birthplace. Neff spent a great deal of time at the Altadena residence, the Andrew McNally House, a grand Queen Anne Victorian mansion on Millionaire’s Row, Mariposa Avenue. His surroundings at the hillside community would inspire him to take up an interest in architecture.
His family moved to Europe when Neff was 9 but returned to the U.S. at the outbreak of World War I. He studied architecture under the revered Ralph Adams Cram in Massachusetts, eventually returned to California, and took up residence in Altadena while working as a shipyard draftsman in Wilmington.
He eventually found himself creating designs of the Spanish Medieval period, including his own home parish church, St. Elizabeth of Hungary Roman Catholic Church, established 1918 in Altadena. The church building was finished and dedicated in 1926.
Neff later moved to San Marino as his style became more popular and in demand. Clients were among the elite, rich and famous, and his designs included the Singer Mansion, Gillette Mansion, the Gates Residence, Libby Ranch, and the Pickfair Estate.
His other designs line the streets of Chapman Woods, Hancock Park, San Marino, Glendora, Beverly Hills, San Pascual Avenue, California Boulevard, and lower East Pasadena.
In 1946, Neff designed the “bubble” house, a distinctive dome-shaped inexpensive construction made of reinforced concrete cast in position over an inflatable balloon, the airform. The design did not gain much support in the U.S. but it was used for large housing projects abroad, in Egypt, Brazil and West Africa during the 1940s and 1950s.
Neff designed the Straus House for Macy’s Department Store heir Robert K. Straus in 1970. The house sits on a bluff which looks out over the Santa Barbara Channel in the Hope Ranch community, north of the city of Santa Barbara.
In 2001, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston reportedly paid $13.5 million for a house designed by Neff and owned at different times by actor Fredric March and the philanthropist and USC trustee Wallis Annenberg. In 1998, Diane Keaton, an avid fan of Neff’s work, purchased a Neff house in Beverly Hills, with the front lawn covered in lavender, for $7.5 million. This home was later purchased by Madonna and Guy Ritchie.
In 1990, Bob Newhart purchased a Neff house in Bel Air for $4.2 million. Newhart later sold it to developer Robert Quigg in 2016 for $14.5 million, according to reports.
In Saturday’s online lecture, FORT: LA founder Russell Brown will introduce the program, and architect Douglas Stanton will show how he has brought Neff’s explorations in shelter and architecture forward in his own practice.
To purchase tickets, visit www.gamblehouse.org/
Tickets are $5 for members of Friends of the Gamble House and $10 for non-members.
