Heart of Bankers Hill Architecture Examples

Over Kate Sessions Canyon, 1912
Edwin Capps
At 375 feet long, the bridge was built to connect Bankers Hill residents with the San Diego Electric Railway that had a substation at Spruce and 4th. This is the only suspension model pedestrian bridge in San Diego

Willard & Agnes Watson House, c. 1955
Unknown Architect
Mid-Century Modern

Philip & Norma Fiske House, c. 1940
Unknown Architect
Custom Ranch Style

Morris & Lillian Herriman House, 1926
Unknown Architect
Neoclassical

Lucy Killea House, 1920
Alexander Schreiber
Italian Renaissance
Senator Lucy Killea lived here from 1968-1999, she coauthored San Diego’s first municipal Historic Preservation code, which led to the Historic Site Board (now Historical Resources Board). An interior fire in 1977 required a remodel of the home as well as an addition.

Edward Alling House, 1912
William S. Hebbard
Italian Renaissance

Ralph D. Lacoe House, 1922
Quayle Brothers
Italian Renaissance
The sons of master architect William Quayle, Charles and Edward Quayle relocated to San Diego from Denver shortly after the turn-of-the-century. They produced a vast catalogue of commercial, residential, and public buildings of all styles and types throughout San Diego

Ralph & Nettie Hurlburt Spec House, 1923
Hurlburt & Tifal
Spanish Revival

Sweet Guest House, 1914-15
Mead & Requa
Spanish Revival

Adelbert “Del” H. Sweet House, 1914
Mead & Requa
Spanish Revival
The Frank Mead and Richard Requa partnership lasted from 1912 to 1920. This house was the firm’s most lavish & finely crafted residence. It was designed so that a series of massive retaining plaster walls would ascend “the sloping lost in fortress-like grandeur”, providing a “sense of drama and privacy” as one approached the grounds and residence through a large arched entrance.

Dr. James & Virginia Churchill House, 1922
William Templeton Johnson
Spanish Revival
Asymmetrical design by one of San Diego’s greatest architects, William Templeton Johnson – this grand home demonstrates the classical Beaux-Arts training that Johnson had, and that he also favored the popular 1920s Spanish Revival style.

Captain Albert A. Ackerman House, 1912
Hazel Wood Waterman
Mediterranean Revival
An asymmetrical façade with classical detailing, which focuses on the balustraded balcony projected on brackets and pilasters above the main entrance. Waterman also designed the large garden to the south of the house – it features numerous terraces, angular dirt paths and concrete stairs.

Herman & Mary Ascher House, c. 1919
Unknown Architect
Georgian Revival
Ascher co-owned the Aldrich-Ascher Arms Co. during WWI. Wood frame building with brick veneer and classical cornices.

Ralph & Nettie Hurlburt House, 1925
Hurlburt & Tifal
Tudor Revival
A master designer, Ralph E. Hurlburt built this Tudor Revival home for his own family.

Rie F. Anderson House, 1922
Unknown Architect
Colonial Revival

Raymond P. & Edith D. Low House, 1920
William Templeton Johnson
Classic Revival
Raymond P. Low was a banker at the California Company, selling Municipal and Corporation Bonds. Recessed casement windows give the impression of a thicker wall. Banding midline on the elevation draws the eye to the horizontal lines
of the home. Original sleeping porch on second floor makes the house look as though it expanded over time.

Dr. Edwin Forrest Hallenbeck House, 1912
William S. Hebbard
Craftsman

Frank B. & Minnie N. Marshall House, c. 1910
Unknown Architect
Foursquare Craftsman

Charles Clifford & Beatrice May House, 1906
C.C. May
Craftsman
Cliff May’s boyhood home. According to May’s 1980s taped memoirs, May played in the Gill homes across the street as they were being constructed, “…you’d jump the window…I just had an awareness of Gill’s feeling of arches and yet when I look
back, they were typical houses…they were not adobe. They were not on one floor. They did not have patios. They were true boxes, two-story boxes.”

Harry & Hattie Stone House, 1908
Unknown Architect
Eclectic Craftsman

Jane Harris House, c. 1911
Attributed to Richard Requa
Craftsman

Charles A. Martin House, 1912
Mead & Requa
Craftsman
One of Richard Requa’s and Frank Mead’s early modern designs, it exhibits the clean lines of Irving Gill. Mead & Requa are protégés of the Hebbard & Gill partnership.

Charles F. O’Neall House, 1912
Emmor Brooke Weaver
Craftsman
This is one of Weaver’s finest Craftsman homes, and displays his careful attention to detail – the structure of the entrance pergola, designed to filter light on the approach walk, is paralleled in the vent slats of the gable roof.

Alexander Schreiber Spec House, 1920
alexander Schreiber
Prairie

G.W. Simmons House, 1909
Irving Gill
Cubist/Early Modern Gill had been experimenting with cubism but this was his first and was built a year or more before the earliest cubism showed up in Europe.

Katherine Teats House #2, 1912-13
Irving Gill
Cubist/Early Modern
The house is composed as a series of squares, cubes and arches. Originally, there were eight proposed houses, of these, only the four on Albatross were built as planned, with another on the east side by Louis Gill in 1924.

Alice Lee House #4, 1912-13
Irving Gill
Early Modernist with Spanish Influence
Features balanced asymmetry, a romanticized home that is
in concert with its balance with nature. These unique Cubist
residences are integrated into the site along the canyon in the
Arts & Crafts fashion.

Alice Lee House #2, 1912-13
Irving Gill
Cubism

Katherine Teats House #3, 1912-13
Irving Gill
Prairie
The Lee-Teats houses were stylistically a melding of the Prairie style houses on Seventh Ave. The women, Alice and Kate, were modernists and progressives and were inspired by Gill’s developing architectural styles

Gustavus G. Henry House, 1912
Gustave A. Hanssen
Prairie Modern