Harbor Hills Housing Project, 26607 Western Avenue, Lomita, Los Angeles County, CA

Significance: The Harbor Hill Housing Project is significant as an important representative example of the role the federal and local government played in providing low income rental housing during the Great Depression. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) was created by the National Housing Act of 1934 to encourage the revitalization of a national housing industry battered by the effects of the Depression. Harbor Hills is also significant for its architectural design and planning. The Chief Architect for the project was Reginald D. Johnson, with assistance provided by AC Zimmerman, Eugene Weston, Jr., Lewis E. Wilson and Donald B. Parkinson. The landscape plan was designed by Katherine Bashford and Fred Barlow, with Clarence Steiin credited as a consulting architect. Johnson is widely noted as one of Southern California's premier designers in the period revival styles of the 1920s, and also frequently cited in connection with his partnership with Gordon Kaufmann and Roland Coate. He later established a reputation as an innovator in modern site planning, both for his collaboration in this project and the Baldwin Hills Village project (1940). The Baldwin Hills project is listed on the NRHP. According to Alson Clark, in his essay "Reginald D. Johnson: Regionalism and Recognition," "...his most significant government housing, of which he was chief architect (with the offices of A.C. Zimmerman, Eugene Weston, Jr., Lewis E. Wilson, and Donald B. Parkinson collaborating) was the three-hundred unit Harbor Hills project at San Pedro, completed in 1941. Johnson even managed to get Katherine Bashford, with whom he had worked on many mansions, such as the Bauer House in Pasadena, appointed landscape architect at Harbor Hills. California Arts and Architecture called the project 'one of the most attractive in the country.' " (Newland, 1992:25) Donald Parkinson is also notable as a principal in the important regional architectural firm of Parkinson and Parkinson, founded by his father, John L. Parkinson. Clarence Stein's involvement with this project is particularly notable. Stein figures as one of the nation's most influential city planners during this era. Along with Henry Wright, Stein pioneered the "superblock" concept of development, which broke from the earlier model of urban development by segregating automobile and residential traffic and orienting residential units onto common landscaped areas. Most frequently cited as path-breaking efforts in this regard are Stein and Wright's plans for Sunnyside on Long Island, and Radburn, New Jersey. Stein's superblock concepts can be seen as much in evidence at the Harbor Hills development, though it is difficult at this time to accurately assign the site planning credit entirely to either Stein, Johnson, or any of the other collaborating architects.
Survey number: HABS CA-2695