Little Boxes
Rob Keil
Worlds Away
Edited by Andrew Blauvelt
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,1
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
If you’ve watched the Showtime series Weeds, you're familiar with Melvina Reynolds’ song “Little Boxes” that accompanies the opening view of Agrestic, the fictional California suburb where the show takes place. Reynolds’ song plays while an overhead shot of the land shows it being populated with look-alike houses that resemble a rapidly replicating virus.
What you might not know though is that the actual inspiration for the song is located roughly 300 miles north of Los Angeles in Westlake, a neighborhood located in Daly City that was built in the 1950s. Rob Keil’s book, Little Boxes is a love letter to these homes that were built by Henry Doelger. He originally started building them in San Francisco in the 1920's eventually extended down the coast to Pacifica by the mid 1960’s where we purchased our own little box in 2010.
When I first saw these homes, they seemed a bit strange and evil -- especially the houses that featured one giant window on the front side that made them look like a Cyclops amid the fog. And then, an odd thing happened. I started to like them.
Running through the cool mornings with no other person in sight, the uncharacteristically large homes felt like large gargoyles watching out for me. One of the homes I ran past seemed to have a perpetual “open house” sign up. Whenever I ran over to check it out though(because I’m such a hardcore runner that I will pause for an open house) it wasn’t open. But I could see the backyard and the flat decent-sized (for our budget and area) backyard and it seemed a possibility. Eventually, that possibility became our house.
And with the house came the fog. Pacifica is known for its fog – its annual civic celebration is called Fog Fest (which somewhat ironically usually turns out to be one of the less foggy days of the year). Living in Pacifica almost caused me to fail my drivers test. When asked what you should do when you encounter significant fog while driving, I didn’t pick the correct answer “pull over”, because well, doing that would have meant that I would have sat at home for the last year and surely that couldn't be the right answer. Turns out it was. I imagine it must have taken Keil a decade to produce all the beautiful, sunny photographs that are in the book.
The weather though, seemed to take a backseat to criticism of the actual homes, that according to Keil’s book, were considered by many architects to be the devil incarnate. World’s Away is an interesting collection of essays about suburban landscapes and ideas of aesthetics. John Archer, In one of the book's essays, presents the argument that standardized themes and clichéd expressions actually allowed the epic works of Homer to survive, because it allowed the work to survive due to the (relative) ease of memorization. And that suburbia has always been the fulcrum of the conflict between public and private interests.
Private interests wanted affordable housing that wasn’t stylistically bankrupt. Public interest wanted homes that were aesthetically pleasing and contributed to a sense of place. Doelger did his best to walk that fine line.
Although our house is older (1964) it is solidly built, with the home built almost entirely out of redwood. Doelger was able to use the more expensive wood by cutting costs in other areas. He acquired surplus vehicles at auction, including troop transport, ambulances and trucks and set up his own fueling station and maintenance yard as he didn’t want to risk reliance on outside vendors that could cause expensive delays. He made his subontractors compete against one another by employing them both at the same time. When one fell behind, the other one got his work. His policy of quickly paying the subcontractors allowed him to obtain lower labor rates.
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He paired his cost cutting measures with design aesthetics that were intended to create both consistency and deliberate architectural variations for each house. For example, Doelger's use of varied rooflines helped keep his developments from falling into the visual monotony that plagues some suburbs. Ultimatley, Keil’s book is a fun and visually beautiful, if somewhat light look (no deep delving into Doelger's life) into Doelger's creations.
