Jack in the Bungalow

The oversize poster of the Sourdough Jack hamburger with the melting cheese and ripe tomato hanging in the window should have been the first indication that this was, indeed, not the Gamble House. But with its river-rock foundation, wood outriggers that project from the eaves and clinker bricks topping stone pillars, the Jack in the Box that opened on Figueroa Street and Avenue 43 in Highland Park last year is easy to mistake for the real thing. The Highland Park Heritage Assn. requested that the restaurant blend with the area. “We pulled out literature on the original Craftsman style and architecture by Greene and Greene, until we were convinced this is as close as you can get to this type of architecture--considering it’s fast food,” says Larry Webb, exterior designer for Jack in the Box restaurants. Though the restaurant’s interior designer, Joan Schmid, admits that she couldn’t “do a totally historically correct California bungalow,” she did find a manufacturer to equip traditional Craftsman copper lamps with fluorescents and custom-made burgundy, mustard, persimmon and grape-colored tiles for the wainscoting. “I love Stickley, I love Arts and Crafts,” Schmid says. “When Larry told me they wanted to do this, it was sort of like, ‘Yes!’ ”