Architect Corner - Ladd and Kelsey
In no particular order, this post is a survey of works by architects Ladd and Kelsey mostly in LA County - churches, museum, commercial and residential.
Most of the building descriptive text was found on the website for the 2019 Palos Verdes Art Center exhibit Ladd & Kelsey: Noble Places.
A’maree’s (former Stuft Shirt Restaurant), 1960 Renovation: Paul Davis Architects, 2011
As it’s now a luxury retail space, this was a fun one which I visited with my daughter.
From the exhibit website:
“Stuft Shirt (Newport Beach) really helped put Ladd & Kelsey on the map early on.”
Wayne Thom, Architectural Photographer
The Stuft Shirt in Newport Beach was a result of the project site – at and into the waterfront – that drove its conditions and aesthetic. The exuberant waterfront structure reflects the casualness and joy of the California coastal lifestyle. It also elegantly links the land to the sea with its structure, an integrated, natural partner to the marina.
After construction, the boisterous interior design of the Stuft Shirt with crystal chandeliers, red velvet drapes and Austrian balloon sheers, as well as fleur-de-lis wallpaper was in stark contrast to the quiet elegance of the Ladd & Kelsey structure. After a later 13-year vacancy, in recent years the landmark building underwent an award-winning adaptive reuse into a high-end boutique, A’maree’s, by Paul Davis Architects. It is the winner of the 2011 Preservation Design Award for Historic Preservation by the California Preservation Foundation and has been widely featured in periodicals from Architectural Digest to Metropolis.
Prospect Center Building (now the Muse Luxury Condos), La Jolla, 1965
On a 2023 birthday weekend stay in La Jolla, I had time to jog by this project of Ladd and Kelsey. It was fun to find one of their projects outside of the LA area.
From an article by Ashley Losco (Preservation Planner / Historian): At the intersection of Girard Avenue and Prospect Street in downtown La Jolla is a building that does not quite fit with its surrounding environment. The four-story reinforced concrete structure and stark white appearance contrasted to the blue sky and one-story brick restaurants and stores draw your gaze to the Prospect Center Building, now known as the Muse Luxury Condos.
Chase Bank (formally Prudential Savings & Loan), 1964
This was an example of fine, formal bank architecture in Glendale complete with dramatic waffled overhang providing shade. There’s also a nice touch of wood to go with the glass and concrete.
Margaret Brown Herrick Memorial Chapel, Occidental College, 1968
From the exhibit website: Margaret Brown Herrick Memorial Chapel at Occidental College in Los Angeles is significant not only for its composition, which includes Ladd & Kelsey’s hallmark curvilinear exterior and interior walls but also as Southern California’s first slip-form concrete construction building.
Norton Simon Museum, 1969
The Norton Simon Museum was the first project of Ladd and Kelsey that I visited way back in the 80s. Now that I live in Pasadena and am a museum member, I visit often, usually on a Monday.
From the exhibit website:
“It was late in the afternoon and the coppery plum colored shadows on the mountains were repeated in the tile of the museum. It was so exciting.”
Edith Heath
The undulating exterior — influenced by Pasadena’s Arts & Crafts tradition, Beaux-Arts City Hall, and streamline and modern design –changes with the light of day. Ladd & Kelsey’s signature white concrete base and white-finished roof crisply contrasted with the blue Southern California sky and green landscape. The curvilinear tiled exterior, a Ladd & Kelsey hallmark, is comprised of 115,000 Edith Heath-designed custom brick red and onyx glazed 5 x 15-inch tiles. They embrace the palette of the San Gabriel Mountains above the structure and their mood still changes with the day’s light. For Edith Heath, the project earned her the prestigious AIA Industrial Arts Medal award from the American Institute of Architects in 1971. This was the first time the award was granted to a non-architect.
John Kelsey House, 1160 Chateau Road, Architect: John Kelsey, 1962
This project is one that I can jog to a couple miles from home. Above, glimpses of the John Kelsey House, from afar and the driveway.
Kelsey House, named a Pasadena Historic Landmark in 2005, is a classic nine-square Italian villa plan that was designed to accommodate the architect’s family of five.
Lyon House, 280 California Terrace, Architect: Thornton Ladd, 1948
The Lyon House in the South Arroyo neighborhood of Pasadena by Thornton Ladd was added to Pasadena Historic Register in 2019. It’s great that Pasadena recognizes the significance of its mid-century modern architecture. At the time of its addition to the register, it was the 16th mid-century modern home to join Pasadena’s collection of historic landmarks.
First Methodist Church Chapel, 1961
La Verne, CA
Many recognize this church from the wedding scene in “The Graduate,” where Dustin Hoffman, playing Benjamin Braddock, pounds on the church balcony window and the newly married Katharine Ross, as Elaine Robinson, abandons her husband at the altar to run off with him. The movie, which was released more than 50 years ago in 1967, catapulted the relatively unknown Hoffman to stardom.
From the exhibit website:
The first marriage performed at this church was the marriage of technology and art…”
Ladd & Kelsey, Architects
The chapel’s sculptural form were created by separately casting a wall and a roof section on the ground before craning them into their positions. This process was repeated five times using the same forms. In this marriage of technology and art, technology served the creative process and created construction savings. And, the construction method influenced and governed the structure’s overall aesthetic.