Building on Old Ideas for New Tract

Driving the streets of San Diego’s newest tract neighborhoods, one gets a sense of something missing.

Sidewalks seem barren without the tree-lined, grass median strips common to older neighborhoods. Most of the new homes don’t have porches, lessening the sidewalks’ once-integral role in the social scene.

And stylistically, the Mediterranean look has been done to death.

But David Minter wants to change that.

Three years ago, the architect and developer moved here from Austin, Tex., and one of his first projects was a speculative house in La Jolla. He chose the predictably safe Mediterranean approach, and the home sold quickly.

But, during his first months in San Diego, Minter developed a love of the city’s older neighborhoods and wanted to save that look and feel. He chose the developing community of EastLake as his venue.

“The primary concept is that the street is part of the neighborhood and part of the house,” Minter said. “We didn’t want to turn our backs on it.”

The idea was to create a warm, traditional streetscape, with a progression of inviting landscape elements between the curb and front door: grass medians planted with trees (in this case magnolias), sidewalks, large front lawns, prominent porches.

When he bought eight lots in Chula Vista, he and executives at EastLake Development Co. decided to try to capture some of this traditional warmth in a small new development called Augusta Place.

Rather than hiring one of San Diego’s top tract architects to do a few standard designs, Minter commissioned five of San Diego’s best young architects.

Because Minter was relatively new to town, he asked San Diego Home/Garden Editor Peter Jensen to recommend a few architects. From that list, Minter chose Ralph Roesling, Lee Platt, Mark Christopher, Barry Bell and Marc Tarasuck.

Initial designs were finished during the summer, and Minter hopes to have the first homes--with an average price of $500,000--on the market by fall next year.

What’s innovative is the concerted effort to create a strong sense of place in a brand-new development.

He asked the architects to try to capture some of the charm of older houses.

“We weren’t after architectural masterpieces, but a series of compatible homes,” Minter said.

Although the resulting designs are all distinctive, they share a sense of ‘30s traditionalism.

“We’re calling our design a ‘super bungalow,’ ” Roesling said. “There’s a strong emphasis on the porch and the connection of rooms.”

Though original California bungalows were less than 1,000 square feet and Roesling’s house is more than 3,000, certain design elements have been effectively re-interpreted. Gabled roofs will have prominent eaves and exposed rafter tails. Indoor spaces will be married to porches, patios and views through the sensitive placement of windows and French doors.

Minter asked each architect to give his home a signature design feature on the second floor, and Roesling responded with a pair of wide, curved dormer windows--windows placed vertically on a sloping roof and with a roof of their own.

Platt said his house is more of a blend of Prairie and Mission influences. It has exaggerated eaves like those used by Prairie movement founder Frank Lloyd Wright and smooth, stucco walls with carefully placed, deep-set window openings which echo the forms of California’s missions.

Front porches were mandatory, but Platt’s is minimal, serving as a dramatic entry. Roesling’s is the largest, in the tradition of San Diego’s great Craftsman bungalows.

With this project, Minter has made a progressive step by bringing fresh talent to a spec-built project.

Though Minter’s project is a breakthrough, it is also a disappointment in the limitations imposed on the architects. What could happen if the limits of creativity were stretched even further?

Jensen, the editor, said, “There’s a side of me that wants to see things pushed a little, to accept a window that’s way too small, but it looks real good. Or a roof that kind of reminds you of 50 years ago, but it’s very different. That’s what art in architecture is all about, to show us something we haven’t seen before, or to re-interpret it. I’ll be interested to see if that happens here.”

“I’m fascinated by David’s (Minter) approach,” Platt said. “I could see more of this in the future as people want more character in new communities. But marketing is not conducive to creative work. It tends to repeat past designs which have sold well.

“I’ve thought for years that there’s an unfulfilled demand for merchant-built housing that’s not so traditional and directed. But that won’t come out of the retroactive thinking which is a response to past projects.”

Roesling agreed.

“I sort of wish we hadn’t been working in such a traditional mode. I wish we had had more flexibility in the home’s outward appearance.

“What would happen if a developer said, ‘I want you guys to do real nice prototype tract homes,’ and left it at that? What if he just let us work with the execution of the forms and materials? Why couldn’t there be a modern house amongst traditional ones?”

Minter’s homes are still only in the paper stage. He’s been pairing designs with lots and deciding which homes should be built next to each other.

Landscape architect David Reed was hired to design an entry gate and a small park at the end of this cul de sac. This should serve as the neighborhood’s focal point, a place for casual social gatherings.

The architects were hired to do preliminary designs. Minter and his staff will translate these to working drawings and supervise the construction. Some of the architects fear that the fine materials they have specified--ceramic tile, wood windows, heavy wood beams, interesting wooden doors--will be axed when hard budgets are set, or that design details will be altered.

Besides the actual quality of the individual homes, the final form of the entire 40-lot development remains to be seen. Minter’s initial eight homes will seed the project, and he has an option on eight more lots. He’d like to design several more houses himself.

It would be a positive step if the other five architects could also do additional homes, and if the 24 lots not controlled by Minter don’t receive the kind of poorly designed speculative homes that have characterized places such as Fairbanks Ranch in North County.

Detailed design guidelines being developed by EastLake and Minter will assure a certain level of quality, but good designs come from good architects, not speculative builders who might arrive on the scene hoping to turn a quick profit.

The community of EastLake will eventually have about 9,000 homes. EastLake Greens--the third phase, which includes Augusta Place-- will be formally announced today. It will include 2,700 to 3,000 homes by about a dozen builders.