STRUCTURES : Hollywood Loves Old-Fashioned Qualities of Santa Paula : Historic community lures filmmakers with its small-town look that has vanished throughout most of Southern California.

It’s not at all surprising that Hollywood has often been known to head to Santa Paula, the town that agricultural and oil interests made and that time has, relatively speaking, preserved. Any location smacking of authenticity within easy access of the film industry is prone to be seized upon by Tinseltown folk.

Santa Paula is about the closest thing to archetypal Small Town, USA as anything in Southern California. Other parts of the region have succumbed to rampant--or rabid--growth with a transient, turnover population and shifting architectural standards.

But Santa Paula, bless its heart, pokes along toward the fin de siecle at a snail’s pace. While franchises and other signs of Anytown homogeneity have crept in, mostly along California 126, much of the downtown and residential areas remain refreshingly vintage.

Recently, a film crew from Disney decamped in the Union Oil Museum on Main Street to do some shooting for a “shaggy dog” film. The timing couldn’t have been more apropos, or ironic. It was also the opening weekend for an ambitious exhibition called “Building History: A Century of Architecture in Santa Paula,” at the museum. It’s a valiant attempt to summarize the unique architectural character of this town--the ongoing saga in which Hollywood plays an undeniable role.

Guest curator John Nichols is an apt candidate for the job, with a direct, hands-on interest in the subject. A longtime resident and supporter of Santa Paula, as well as a columnist, photographer and art gallery owner, Nichols currently runs his business out of the neoclassical structure that was originally the Farmers and Merchants bank (circa 1921).

Nichols lives in what, in the ‘20s, enjoyed distinction as the first all-electric house in Santa Paula.

In his research, Nichols got considerable help from historian Judy Triem, whose county-funded survey of regional architecture has expanded local awareness of the buildings around us. Key to the success of the visual documentation were Santa Paula Chronicle archives and sharp, new images by local photographer Michael Moore.

In the summer of 1992, Moore was commissioned by the Santa Paula Historical Society to create a photographic chronicle of many of the important structures here.

He achieves this goal notably and poetically with his image of the Garden Market (circa 1929), awash in moody light, which accents the stark, elegant geometry of the Spanish Colonial building.

Another fine example of the art of sensitive architectural photography is Moore’s image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in a enigmatically lit scene at once solid and evanescent. In that combination of qualities lies the essence of good architecture’s alter ego as still life.

Any list of local architectural heroes is invariably headed by the late Roy C. Wilson Sr., a Midwesterner who was attracted to the “Oaks” area of Santa Paula and settled here in 1914. He went on to design numerous residences in Santa Paula, including the regal McTeague House, a hilltop mini-mansion with Tudor touches. Wilson’s handiwork also included commercial and industrial structures, including the Limoneira headquarters.

Other resident architects cited include John Stroh, a Hollywood set designer who came to town in 1948 and worked under Wilson. Among his work is the Santa Paula Police Department building, a modernist edifice full of right angles and utilitarian resonance.

Robert Raymond designed the formidable, and forbidding, Masonic Temple, the Santa Paula City Hall and the First Baptist Church, as well as giving the Citizen’s Bank on Main a face lift in the ‘20s.

History in the making is everywhere you look here, starting in the very building hosting the show. What has been the Union Oil Museum for the past four years began its life as the birthplace and cradle of the oil company. Although the corporate headquarters moved to Los Angeles in 1901, the building was used by the company steadily until the late 1980s, when it was put out to pasture as a museum.

With its prominent bay windows on the second story and immaculate--almost too pristine--restoration, the building stands apart from its Main Street neighbors. If anything, in its current state, it looks like a spangled edifice cut from the Disney mold, but its significance, architecturally and civically, is secure. The fastidiously restored upstairs offices are well worth looking at.

Architecturally, Santa Paula has an atypically well-preserved legacy, which includes the impressive 100-year-old Universalist Unitarian Church, vintage bank buildings along Main Street, the central Odd Fellows Hall and Clock Tower, and numerous Victorian and Craftsman residences scattered throughout town. The elegant Ebell Clubhouse, the Tudoresque Glen Tavern and the prefab ultra-crimson charm of the train depot are also local treasures.

But the perspective of this exhibition is more than just nostalgic. Lining the walls of the official entrance to the show are plans drawn up by Cal Poly students, suggesting ideas for the currently in-progress Downtown Improvement Plan. The plan may alter the face of downtown Santa Paula while, no doubt, respecting its past.

Perhaps an acid test of the effectiveness of an exhibition such as this has to do with its ability to drive the viewer out of the museum and into the “field.” After taking in the loving overview of the town’s architecture, we’re inspired to head out in search of the real, concrete items.

Many of the buildings are in walking distance from the museum. But, of course: Santa Paula, despite its sometimes generous reputation and mythology, is still a small town, a walking town.

Details

“Building History: A Century of Architecture in Santa Paula,” through Sept. 25 in the Santa Paula Union Oil Museum, 1001 Main St. in Santa Paula; 933-0076.