Urgent: Neutra Cottages Threatened with Demolition
Stafford/Clayton/Johnson Houses. Richard Neutra with Otto Winkler Assoc. 180 & 184 Marvin Avenue, Los Altos, California, 1939.
Text and information submitted by Miltiades Mandros, Associate AIA.

From 1936 to 1939, Neutra designed a grouping of "three small houses in an orchard" for three friends in the flats of neighboring Los Altos. The houses were more the size of tiny cabins closely positioned on a single piece of property. All three were clad in horizontal redwood siding and opened to the surrounding orchard with traditional steel casement windows. The two larger L-shaped units had broad overhangs, Roman brick fireplaces, tiny kitchens, and attached carports. The third, even smaller outbuilding, in the far rear corner of the site, was the last to be erected. The street-side cabin was demolished some twenty years ago, but the other two buildings stand by themselves in the now separated rear half of the original lot. With the severely limited availability of buildable local property, it is uncertain how much longer these stalwart little warriors will survive. -

The current owner wants to sell the property but says he cannot find a historic-minded buyer who will protect the houses. The Los Altos Historical Commission is trying to find a buyer for either the houses themselves (in which case they would have to be moved) or someone who would be interested in both buying and protecting the houses and the property, or a benefactor to sponsor moving the structures. DOCOMOMO US/Northern California has donated their time to document the buildings as soon as permission is granted by the city.

Please contact Miltiades Mandros at miltiadesm@aol.com, or Laura Culberson, President, DOCOMOMO US/Northern California, at laura@argsf.com for more details.

See also Mr. Mandros' article "Northern California Neutra: Twenty Projects," a definitive guide to Neutra works in this area, published in _Line by AIA San Francisco.

Listed on the local historic register.

Photographs courtesy Randall Hull. View of cottage side. (larger building)	View of studio front. (smaller building)
View of cottage side.	View of studio back.

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