Historic Home Tour
If you love touring historic buildings and hearing the stories associated with them, exploring the workmanship that is so often evident in historic structures, experiencing a sense of neighborhood and residential landscapes------- then you will enjoy this event.
You’ll walk down streets of an established neighborhood, and have the opportunity to step into four or five homes in that neighborhood. You will have the opportunity to sit in on a talk that explores the history of the area, the architecture of the neighborhood, and details regarding each of the homes on the tour. A special evening event will also be held, staged in the garden of one of the homes that includes a light supper and nighttime tour of all the residences.
Home tours of this sort have been part of the preservation movement for decades. In fact, it was a home and the desire to save it that brought many of the nation’s women together in the 1860s, and gave birth to the preservation movement. That home was George Washington’s Mount Vernon.
For the past 28 years the Fresno Historical Society has sponsored this annual tour of historic homes in the Valley, celebrating residential architecture, landscape and the life styles associated with them. Each year the tour inspires us to value our built heritage, to participate in preserving it, and to take part in the dialogue regarding the development of neighborhoods. We hope this year’s tour will inspire you.
We include here for your perusal descriptions of three previous tours. Make your way through them and join with us in appreciating how it is that an important piece of our region’s story is captured in its architecture and its neighborhoods.
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| Built in 1888, the F. Dean Prescott home in Fresno. |
Historic Home Tour 2007
Old Fig Garden
The 2007 home tour featured Old Fig Garden, one of Fresno’s most historic neighborhoods. The tour included five beautiful homes that epitomized gracious living in The Gardens.
It’s hard to imagine that Old Fig Garden was once called “outlaw” hog wallow land. Former Kansan, J. C. Forkner, believed it could be otherwise and set out in 1912 to transform this barren landscape into one of Fresno’s most prestigious neighborhoods.
Forkner purchased 12,000 acres of land between downtown Fresno and the San Joaquin River. After much research, he selected a crop--figs--that could grow despite the hardpan and sandy soil. In order to clear the land, Forkner used teams of six horses that pulled Fresno scrapers to level the hog wallows and prepare irrigation ditches. Later he created smaller scrapers and purchased 100 Fordson tractors to pull them, attracting the attention of Henry Ford who drove out in a “Tin Lizzie” to meet the man who had purchased so many of his tractors.
To break through the hardpan, Forkner then used 660,000 pounds of dynamite and proceeded to plant some 600,000 figs as well as 60,000 Deodar cedars, oleander and eucalyptus along the nine-mile Van Ness Boulevard. Forkner called this new landscape he had developed “Fig Garden”. It was an undertaking that captured everyone’s attention!
According to Forkner, “Fresno County’s wealth comes from the soil. It is created by that sure partnership, nature and man.” It was from this vision that Forkner crafted a creative marketing plan. He set out to convince prospective buyers to purchase 10 to 40 acres of Fig Garden land, build a home on it and raise figs for profit. He extolled the virtues of the fig, including the fact that fig trees can have a lifespan of over 150 years. At one time there was no fruit in California more profitable than the fig. Even Forkner’s employees, including sales staff, lived in the tract, demonstrating their commitment to this idea of a neighborhood set amid fig orchards. It was meant to be country living at its best.
Regional architectural historian, John Powell, noted that from its earliest days Fresno’s citizens planted “beautiful private and public gardens and rural landscapes.” Today mature remnants of these early landscapes grace Fresno’s numerous historic districts of which, Old Fig Garden is the best example.
The Fig Garden development is considered an historic landscape----in great part because of its prominent boulevard, Van Ness, and the Herndon Canal that helped bring irrigation water to the land. And while the idea of growing figs for profit has gone by the way, what remains is reminiscent of the search for an idyllic life in a planned community close to an urban center that retains some of the amenities of country living.
Historic Home Tour 2005
Wilson Island
The “Wilson Island” tour featured not only an early 20th century Fresno neighborhood but a wonderful group of fine period revival homes.
The area called “Wilson Island” is a six block neighborhood that is part of Fresno’s Tower District and bounded by North Echo Avenue on the west, East Carmen on the north, the northern side of East Floradora on the south and the back side of the commercial lots along North Wishon Avenue. The name “Wilson Island” is a local term that’s been in use for at least 70 years and refers to the original platting of the neighborhood which formed a backwards P shape, or “island.” Thanks to the dedicated years of research on the part of Dr. Jeannine Raymond, with support from other residents, the area is currently being proposed as a Local Historic District.
The neighborhood is a part of the larger “Wilson’s North Fresno Tract,” a subdivision first developed in 1908 by Rosanna Cooper Wilson and her son Albert Polette Wilson. The subdivision included twenty full or partial blocks. The opening of the Roeding street car line in 1912 and the Wishon Avenue line in 1014 connected this subdivision on the northern edge of town with the business community in downtown Fresno.
The first house in the Wilson Island was a traditional Craftsman Bungalow built I 1910 by William A. Mosgrove. It was eight years before the Mosgroves had any neighbors. Between 1918 and 1920, however, nineteen mansions were built by and for many of Fresno’s most influential families who had important ties ot banking, education and commerce. Lena Shaver, widow of SC. B. Shaver and architect Harrison Traver were two early residents. They were joined in the 1930’s by Dr. Frank Twining (of Twining Labs), William Eilbert (Fresno Brewery) and Louis Gundelfinger (banker). In 1954 the last two parcels in the island were developed (Raymond 2004).
Historic Home Tour 2004
Bungalows
The 2004 home tour focused on a particular residential style of architecture: arts and crafts, and the bungalow. Fresno has an extraordinary number of classic bungalows, including homes that feature the Prairie Home style, the Mission style, the Spanish Colonial, the Foursquare (or the box) style and the Log Cabin. The tour took the public into three different Fresno neighborhoods to view four very different arts and crafts homes.
The origin of the term “bungalow” is traced to the Indian province of Bengal. With the root word bangle or bangala, the common 18th century native dwelling was a one-story building with a thatched roof. They were adapted by the British, who used them as summer houses for Colonial administrators. Early bungalow designers clustered dining rooms, bedroom, kitchens and bathroom around central living rooms and created the essential floor plan of the bungalow. The house type spread to other parts of the British Empire and, eventually invaded North American. This economical, practical residential structure was well suited to our country’s population growth in the late 19th – early 20th century.
The development of the predominant house design in early 20th century American was closely associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. Founded in England in the late 1880’s as a reaction to the industrialism, this aesthetic called for a return to individual craftsman magazine, which was the main organ for the movement’s ideas. Stickly championed the use of the bungalow, and his publication did more than any other to popularize the concept of the bungalow in the United States. From his United Crafts factory, he designed and produced beautifully crafted furniture that has become synonymous with the Arts and Crafts movement and perfect furnishings for a bungalow.
The term “California Bungalow” or “California Craftsman” comes from the designs presented in Stickley’s popular magazine. Gradually, however, the word took on a life of its own, going beyond any specific connections to Stickley and was used as being characteristic of the period and associated with classic bungalows throughout the country. Typically one to one-and-a-half stories, the bungalow’s long, sloping roof line and wide overhang over the porch created a sense of closeness to the earth which was accentuated by the foundation work and porch pillars that broadened at the base.
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