Harwell Hamilton Harris
(b. 1903-1990)

Having worked with Richard Neutra and Rudolf Schindler, Harris worked for decades balancing naturalism, or organic architecture, while embracing a modernist ideology. Harris' early years in San Diego, Los Angeles and the Imperial Valley emboldened his respect for Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright and Greene & Greene rather than turning to the house as machine constructed by central European modernism. Seeing the house as setting a tone, or an atmosphere, Harris sought to build houses that were of the land, and of the people that resided inside of them (rather than those that only witnessed the exterior).

List of San Diego Projects

Mr. & Mrs. John Comstock Residence (1940)
1373 Crest Road, Del Mar

Dr. & Mrs. Lodewijk Lek House (1942)
1600 Mecca Drive La Jolla - destroyed
Like Harris’ Birtcher House (Los Angeles, 1942), the Lek residence design began as the US entered WWII. Harris’ Solar House for Libbey-Owens-Ford (1942), with some modification became the Lek House. Within the structure’s L-shaped plan, Harris devised ways to control the sun by reflecting it, filtering it, intercepting it, harnessing it, and absorbing it – including a continuous band of clerestories as well as a hinged fin rotating with the sun to extend the afternoon’s duration of shade. Published in Pencil Points 24, May 1943

Mr. & Mrs. Langford Brown Residence for Ladies Home Journal (1942)
Vista Way, Chula Vista – unbuilt project
Along with schemes drawn for Woman’s Home Companion, and Mademoiselle in 1942 (and later in 1945 for Good Housekeeping), the Brown House illustrated an expandable house that could start with a few hundred square feet.

Alvin Ray Residence (1950)
167 Burma Road, Fallbrook
While designing the Ray House in 1950, the Harrises fell in love with the inland desert climate and decided to build a house for themselves. The vertical-grained redwood Ray house is built around a 100-foot wide boulder, which was incorporated into the terrace (and along with the high, gabled lattice arbor). Published in "What's New With Harwell Hamilton Harris?" in House & Home, January 1962.

Mr. & Mrs. Harwell Hamilton Harris Residence (1952)
2736 Mission Road, Fallbrook
Planning in 1951 for a combined home/office, Harris’s own home was organized around four trellised courts. Construction depended on heat-absorbing concrete block walls -- one of them a freestanding visual separation between the living room court and the drafting room court. Before the house was finished Harris took a position as Director of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas. Although completed the following summer, the Harrises only lived in the home for five days.