Item 14 2024-00597 Ordinance Listing 1950 Arden Way (Home Savings & Loan Building) as Landmark on Sacramento Register of Historic & Cultural Resources (M23-011)

City of Sacramento
City Council - 5PM Report
915 I Street Sacramento, CA 95814
www.cityofsacramento.org
File ID: 2024-00597 8/27/2024 Public Hearing Item 14.

Ordinance Listing 1950 Arden Way (Home Savings and Loan Building) as a Landmark on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources (M23-011) [Pass for Publication 08/13/2024; Published 08/16/2024; Noticed XX/XX/2024]
File ID: 2024-00597
Location: 1950 Arden Way (277-0271-007-0000), District 2, Represented by Mayor Steinberg Recommendation: Conduct a public hearing and upon conclusion: 1) pass a Motion determining the listing of 1950 Arden Way (Home Savings and Loan Building) as a landmark on the Sacramento Register of Historical and Cultural Resources is exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) pursuant to CEQA Guidelines section 15308, which exempts actions taken to assure the maintenance, restoration, enhancement, or protection of the environment and where the regulatory process involves procedures for the protection of the environment; and 2) adopt an Ordinance listing the Home Savings and Loan Building as a landmark on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources.

Contact: Sean de Courcy, Preservation Director, (916) 808-2796, [email protected], Community Development Department
Presenter: Ella Cross, Historic Preservation Intern, [email protected]; and Henry Feuss, Assistant Preservation Planner, (916) 808-5880, [email protected], Community Development Department
Attachments:
1- Description/Analysis
2- Background
3- Ordinance
4- Historic Evaluation
5- Public Comment Letters
Description/Analysis
Issue Detail: In August 2023, the owners of the Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way approached the City regarding a proposal to demolish the building and replace it with drive- through restaurants. At the request of the Preservation Director, the property owner retained the services of Dudek to evaluate the Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way (found in

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File ID: 2024-00597 8/27/2024 Public Hearing Item 14.

Attachment 5). The historical evaluation concluded the property lacked sufficient historic significance necessary for listing as a historical resource on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources (Sacramento Register), the California Register of Historical Resources (CRHR), or the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). This evaluation was circulated to neighborhood and interest groups, and to certain experts with knowledge of this period of architecture and the company that built the building at 1950 Arden Way. In response to the Dudek evaluation, staff received comments from Preservation Sacramento, Sacramento Modern, Vintage Arden Arcade, and Adam Arenson, Professor and Chair of History at Manhattan College and an art scholar and expert on Millard Sheets, the artist who designed the building.

These comment letters provided substantial new information not included in the Dudek evaluation, leading the Preservation Director to question the findings presented in the Dudek report and directed preservation staff to research the property further and if justified, prepare their own historic evaluation of the building and Statement of Nomination. After review of the background research, staff presented a Statement of Nomination to the Preservation Director, at a public hearing on January 4, 2024, which concluded that the property appears eligible for listing in the Sacramento register pursuant to the criteria provided in Sacramento City Code section 17.604.210.A.1.iii, iv and v, and the Preservation Director concurred with Staff’s recommendation of the building’s eligibility. The Preservation Director then directed staff to draft an Ordinance (Attachment 2) for review by the Preservation Commission, who reviewed the Ordinance on February 21 st, 2024, and made a
recommendation to the City Council to list 1950 Arden Way on the Sacramento Register under criteria iii. iv, and v.

Policy Considerations: The City has an interest in maintaining the relevance and integrity of the Sacramento register and ensuring that properties listed on the Register meet the criteria for listing specified in City Code sections 17.604.210 and 17.604.220. To this end, City Code directs the Preservation Director, to “make preliminary determinations relative to properties’ eligibility for listing on the Sacramento register” and to “initiate proceedings to nominate resources for listing on the Sacramento register” (Pursuant to City Code sections 17.604.100.C.2 and 17.604.220.).

The nomination of 1950 Arden Way for listing as a landmark on the Sacramento Register is consistent with Sacramento 2040 General Plan goal HCR-2.3, which provides for the identification and preservation of historical and cultural resources. General Plan policy HCR-2.3 states, “The City shall maintain and update the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources on a regular basis, including proactively identifying and listing additional unidentified landmarks and historic districts...”
Economic Impacts: Not applicable.

Environmental Considerations: The listing of 1950 Arden Way as a historic landmark on the Sacramento register is exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant

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File ID: 2024-00597 8/27/2024 Public Hearing Item 14.
to CEQA Guidelines section 15308. Section 15308 exempts from review acts that are undertaken to assure the maintenance, restoration, enhancement, or protection of the environment where the regulatory process involves procedures for protection of the environment. Listing the property as a historic landmark would ensure that future development on the site would undergo preservation review, as part of the city’s site plan and design review process, prior to the granting of any entitlements, thereby protecting the historic resource, which would be considered part of the environment.

Sustainability: Not applicable.

Commission/Committee Action: On January 4, 2024, the City of Sacramento’s Preservation Director, in conformance with Section 17.604.220 of the City Code, held a public hearing, reviewed the historic analysis prepared by staff (Attachment 4) and concurred with a draft statement of nomination and directed staff to prepare a draft Ordinance (Attachment 3) for review and consideration by the Preservation Commission. On February 21, 2024, the Preservation Commission held a public hearing and reviewed a draft ordinance and passed a motion recommending City Council list 1950 Arden Way on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources as a landmark.

Rationale for Recommendation: Listing of 1950 Arden Way (Figure 1) as a landmark on the Sacramento Register is consistent with the Historic Preservation Chapter (17.604) of the City Code and the goals of the 2040 General Plan. Listing the nominated resource on the Sacramento register will help ensure its preservation and encourage rehabilitation consistent with the U.S. Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties. Additional information can be found in the Background Section below.

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File ID: 2024-00597 8/27/2024 Public Hearing Item 14.

Figure 1: Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way Financial Considerations: Not applicable.

Local Business Enterprise (LBE): Not applicable.

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Background
Preservation Staff Conclusions and Recommendation
Staff is recommending that City Council list 1950 Arden Way on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources as a landmark because this building embodies an incredible amount of energy, as well as historical and artistic value that the City should recognize through its historic designation process. Adaptive reuse of historic bank buildings is common, as can be seen in projects like The Bank (7th & J Street) and 4701 Freeport Blvd. Therefore, staff rejects claims that reuse of the building are infeasible.

Staff’s historical research (Attachment 4), as well as comments provided by experts in the field of art history and historic preservation (Attachment 5) have clearly provided substantial evidence the building’s significance under Sacramento City Code section

17.604.210.A.1.iii, iv and v; as well as the requisite California Register Criteria. Each criterion and their justification are explained below:

A. Criterion iii - It embodies the distinctive characteristics of a style, type, period, or method of construction.

17.604.210.A.1.a.iii and California Register of Historical Resources Criteria 3.

B. Criterion iv - It represents a notable work of a master designer, builder, or architect whose individual genius influenced his or her age.

The Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way was designed by celebrated visual artist Millard Sheets, with Frank Homolka and Associates acting as the architect of record. Sheets, founder of Millard Sheets Studio, while not an architect, was sought by Howard F. Ahmanson, owner of Home Savings and Loan, to design their branches beginning in the 1950s. Sheets’ Home Savings branches became renowned in Southern California due to their distinctive designs and Sheets’ use of mosaics depicting local imagery. He continued to design Home Savings branches until the early 1980s. While Sheets was not always involved with the full design process for every Home Savings building, documentation supports that Sheets participated in and oversaw the entire design process for this branch, including the design of the mosaics over each entrance and the interior murals which were executed by Sheets and Millard Sheets Studio. This building is a rare intact example of Sheet’s work in Northern California, with only one other Sheets-designed bank building in the region. Dudeck argued that since Sheets was not an architect the building could not be considered the work of a master designer. The Preservation Commission considered this argument and dismissed it, noting that the criteria specifically allows for a “master designer” and not necessarily an architect. Therefore, 1950 Arden Way represents the work of an important creative individual or master designer making it eligible under City Code Section 17.604.210.A.1.a.iv and California Register of Historic and Cultural Resources Criteria 3.

C. Criterion v – Possesses high artistic value.

1950 Arden Way is a unique commercial building that includes Sacramento specific public art as an integral part of its architectural design. The two large exterior mosaics in traditional, hand-cut smalti tiles were designed by Millard Sheets and translated into full sized working drawings by Susan Hertel, Sheets’ main assistant and a master in her own right. With its extremely prominent diagonal lot at the intersection of four major streets and its monumental size and bookmatched travertine exterior, the building and its park-like grounds were intended to be a landmark, and to signal Home Savings and Loan’s commitment to becoming a respected member of the Sacramento community.

Public art was included in the buildings design to show respect for the city and its history. The Ahmanson family, who continued to helm Home Savings and Loan following the death Howard F. Ahmanson in 1968, and Millard Sheets, the multi- disciplinary artist and educator who created the Home Savings and Loan branches, agreed that community specific public art would set them apart from competitors and would make their bank branches beloved landmarks that would stand the test of time.

Proposed Project and Dudek Historical Evaluation

In August 2023, the owners of the Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way approached the City regarding a proposal to demolish the building and replace it with drive-through restaurants. Although the building is not yet 50 years old, the building was identified in the City’s Mid-Century Modern Context Statement and Survey (2017) as a notable example of New Formalist architecture. According to Public Resources Code (PRC) section 15064.5.a.2, identification of a building in a historical resources survey requires a public agency to “treat any resource as significant unless the preponderance of evidence demonstrates that it is not historically or culturally significant.”

In order to proceed with the development process, consistent with state law, the Preservation Director instructed the applicant to provide an updated historic resource evaluation prepared by a qualified preservation professional. The applicant provided a historic resource evaluation prepared by Dudek to the City on September 27, 2023, which found that the building did not meet any criteria for listing on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources, the California Register of Historical Resources, or National Register of Historic Places. The Dudek report was circulated to various applicable neighborhood and interest groups to provide comment on the proposal and historic analysis with a comment deadline of October 27, 2023. The Preservation Director received comments from Preservation Sacramento, Sacramento Modern, Kathy Stricklin, historian for Arden Arcade, and Adam Arenson, professor at Manhattan College and expert on Millard Sheets, all disputing the findings in the report and encouraging the building be listed as a landmark.

Also, in disagreement with the findings of the Dudek historic evaluation, the Preservation Director instructed Staff to draft a historic evaluation of the building, the findings of which supported nomination for listing on the Sacramento Register under Criteria iii, iv, and v. The staff-prepared evaluation contradicts many of the findings of the Dudek report that had initially determined the building was not historically significant due the building’s unknown architect, the insignificance of the mosaics and building design, and the age and integrity of the building. The Dudek evaluation has been attached to this report within Attachment 5 since this historic nomination relies on the substantial new information within the staff-prepared historic evaluation (Attachment 4).

The Preservation Commission considered both the Dudek evaluation as well as the Dudeck response submitted in advance of the hearing by the Preservation Commission and dismissed each argument made by Dudek as discussed above under each of the criteria unanimously recommending the City Council affirm the building’s landmark status by listing the building on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources.

Millard Sheets and the Home Savings and Loan Artistic Monumental Design

Sheets’ utilization of community-specific artwork into his building design is a character defining feature of this building. This building is a rare intact example of Sheet’s work in Northern California, with only one other Sheets-designed bank building in the region.

Other notable works include the Scottish Rite Temple (Los Angeles), Word of Life mosaic mural at Hesburgh Library (Notre Dame University), and the Lombard/Van Ness Home Savings Branch (San Francisco), among others.

Figure 1: Close-up Detail of Mosaics Prior to Installation

The two large exterior mosaics in traditional, hand-cut smalti tiles were designed by Millard Sheets and translated into full sized working drawings by Susan Hertel, Sheets’ main assistant. The full-sized drawings were then used to lay the carefully color selected and hand-cut tiles on. Traditional mosaics have been made in the same fashion since classical antiquity and require a high level of artistic skill to execute. The artists of the Millard Sheets Studio were highly skilled mosaicists and included artists educated at some of the world’s foremost art schools.

In light of the high level of artistry evidenced by the two exterior mosaics and interior murals at 1950 Arden Way, which are integral and character defining parts of the building’s architecture, the building clearly exhibits high artistic values.

Figure 2: Mosaic on Eastern Elevation at 1950 Arden Way

Historic Integrity of 1950 Arden Way

The Dudek evaluation goes on to suggest that the building does not retain sufficient integrity to qualify for listing. They note that while the building’s integrity of setting and location remain, they note that the integrity of design, feeling, and material are only generally intact. Specifically, the report mentions the possible removal of tiles in the frieze, which were a typical feature seen on many other Sheets-designed buildings.

Upon review of historic photographs of the building shortly after construction, the conjectural argument has proven to be unfounded as the building appears nearly identical to how it appeared shortly after completion. While there may have been some exterior alterations, such as the potential replacement of entrance doors, windows, and building signage, there have been no alterations to the building that alter the overall forms and distinguishing design elements. With limited interior access, the interior features appear to be mostly intact, with at least one of two murals still extant and the tiled (Gladding McBean) teller counter seemingly covered in wood paneling (likely a reversible alteration). Nevertheless, there appear to be ample extant historical elements present to conclude the interior retains sufficient historic integrity for listing. While the central fountain on the eastern side of the building has been converted to a planter, there is sufficient photographic evidence showing the former fountain, and supporting that all other landscape elements remain. There is no evidence to support Dudek’s claim that the planters located at the corners of the building formerly held fountains.

Evidence suggests these features exist in their original form.

Figure 3: Western Elevation of Home Savings and Loan Building Under Construction

Buildings Achieving Significance within the Past 50-Years

According to the California Register of Historical Resources (Title 14, Chapter 11.5) and City Code Criteria 17.604.210.2.e: in order to understand the historic importance of a resource, sufficient time must have passed to obtain a scholarly perspective on the events or individuals associated with the resource. A resource less than fifty (50) years old may be considered for listing in the California Register if it can be demonstrated that sufficient time has passed to understand its historical importance and the Sacramento Register if the resource is of exceptional importance.

Scholars of architecture, especially in Southern California which has a much greater concentration of former Home Savings and Loan buildings, have recognized the exceptional architectural significance of these buildings since the mid-2000s. The Getty Museum and The Huntington Library have sought to help preserve them through scholarly research, and the acquisition of archival collections. The Getty Museum, as a part of its Pacific Standard Time project (which seeks to bring scholarly attention to art and artists from California), brought thousands of interested visitors to tour Millard Sheets designed Home Savings and Loan buildings in Los Angeles and nearby communities, including examples from the late 1970’s. Sacramento is very lucky to have such a large, well-sited, and intact Millard Sheets Home Savings and Loan building. The rarity of Home Savings and Loans in Northern California should also be considered when assessing the exceptional significance of the building despite its being only 46 years old. Dudek has argued that other Home Savings and Loan buildings existed in the region, but only two attribute designs of the building and artwork to Millard Sheets.

A further factor contributing to the exceptional significance of 1950 Arden is the scholarly interest in the multi-disciplinary work of Millard Sheets and his atelier, the Millard Sheets Studio. It is highly unusual and quite unique in modern American architectural history that a respected artist, rather than an architect was hired as Design Director to oversee the process of building over 100 commercial bank buildings. Sheets’ work, as an architectural designer, a watercolorist, an oil painter, and a muralist, continues to receive scholarly attention and is regularly included in museum collections across the United States. Several monographs have been published on Sheets work and a documentary was released in 2015. The work of the Millard Sheets Studio artists has recently begun to receive its own fair share of scholarly interest with the acquisition of the Denis O’Connor archives by The Huntington Library.

The Home Savings and Loan Building has significant historic and architectural worth. To people who lived in California during the 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s, the local Home Savings and Loan buildings were distinctive and immediately recognizable. They helped foster an interest in local history and helped to create a sense of place in a rapidly changing world. They were important buildings in their time period and due to their high- quality materials, design, and artwork, were rightly seen as a gift to the community and urban landscape. 1950 Arden Way is an excellent late example of the work of Millard Sheets and the Millard Sheets Studio in the design of Home Savings and Loan buildings. As discussed in Dr. Arenson’s “Banking on Beauty”, Sheets evolved his architectural style over time, learning new design strategies from each commission and community. In 1976, when the first plans were created by Sheets for 1950 Arden Way, he was over 70 years old and had built over 100 individually designed buildings for Home Savings. Although the buildings were mostly in the New Formalist style, each was an original design solution to a specific lot. The lot in question, 1950 Arden Way, is one of the finest, largest, and most visible of the sites chosen for Home Savings and Loan in Northern California. Its three-story stature is unusual, as is its lavish use of figured, bookmatched Italian travertine. The large exterior mosaics featuring local Sacramento area history are treasures in and of themselves. In light of the unique design by Millard Sheets, Susan Hertel, and the Millard Sheets Studio, the unique building design in a refined, late New Formalist style, the importance of the building to its time period and its association with Millard Sheets, a Californian artist of major significance, it is reasonable and appropriate that 1950 Arden Way, the Point West branch of Home Savings and Loan be listed on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources under Criterion iii, iv and v.

ORDINANCE NO. ___

Adopted by the Sacramento City Council

[Date Adopted]

AN ORDINANCE LISTING THE HOME SAVINGS AND LOAN BUILDING AT 1950 ARDEN WAY AS A

LANDMARK ON THE SACRAMENTO REGISTER OF HISTORIC AND CULTURAL RESOURCES

BACKGROUND

A. The city council has found “that significant aspects of the city’s rich and diverse historic resources deserve recognition and preservation to foster an understanding of our heritage, and to promote the public health and safety and the economic and general welfare of the people of the city. The preservation and continued use of historic resources are effective tools to sustain and revitalize neighborhoods and business districts within the city, enhance the city’s economic, cultural and aesthetic standing, its identity and its livability, marketability and urban character.” (Sacramento City Code section 17.604.100.A.)

B. To this end, the city code provides a mechanism for listing landmarks, historic districts, and contributing resources on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources (“Sacramento register”).

C. On January 4, 2024, the Preservation Director reviewed a statement of nomination and determined that the Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way is eligible for listing on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources as a landmark. On February 21, 2024, the Preservation Commission concurred with the findings of the Preservation Director and recommended the City Council list the Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way as a landmark in the Sacramento register.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SACRAMENTO:

SECTION 1
A. 1950 Arden Way meets the criteria for listing on the Sacramento register provided within City Code section 17.604.210.A.1.a. iii, iv, v.
i. The Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction (Sacramento City Code Section 17.604.210.A.1.a.iii).

The building is a monumentally scaled three -story New Formalist style commercial building with mosaic tile detailing. The New Formalist style is characterized by its symmetry, smooth wall surfaces typically of travertine or marble, and a close attention to detail. The style was a reinterpretation of classical design made apparent by the use of prominent entablatures, grand scale and proportions, and symmetrical landscapes with fountains and sculpture. The Home Savings and Loan Building embodies these distin ctive elements of the New Formalist style with its grand symmetrical stature and prominent cornice, bookmatched travertine exterior, and the placement of the building diagonally on the site surrounded by concrete planters, wide exposed aggregate pathways, and a circular plaza facing east which formerly held a central fountain. Most notably, the building also has two large smalti (glass) mosaics, one over each entrance. These mosaics, along with the mural in the interior, are very distinctive works that depi ct impressionistic chronological stories of local significance, such as the California Gold Rush, riparian habitats, and Native Miwok and Nisenan people from pre-colonization through to the period of construction. For these reasons the Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction making it eligible for listing under City Code Section 17.604.210.A.1.a.iii.

ii. The Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way embodies represents an important creative individual or master (City Code Section 17.604.210.A.1.a.iv).

The Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way was designed by celebrated visual artist Millard Sheets, with Frank Homolka and Associates acting as the arc hitect of record. Sheets, founder of Millard Sheets Studio, while not an architect, was sought by Howard F. Ahmanson, owner of Home Savings and Loan, to design their branches beginning in the 1950s. Sheets’ Home Savings branches became renowned in Southern California due to their distinctive designs and Sheets’ use of mosaics depicting local imagery. He continued to design Home Savings branches until the early 1980s. While Sheets was not always involved with the full design process for every Home Savings bu ilding, documentation supports that Sheets participated in and oversaw the entire design process for this branch, including the design of the mosaics over each entrance and the interior murals which were executed by Sheets and Millard Sheets Studio. This b uilding is a rare intact example of Sheet’s work in Northern California, with only one other Sheets-designed bank building in the region. Other notable works include the Scottish Rite Temple (Los Angeles), Word of Life mosaic mural at Hesburgh Library (Not re Dame University), and the Lombard/Van Ness Home Savings Branch (San Francisco), among many others. For these reasons the Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way represents the work of an important creative individual or master making it eligible under City Code Section 17.604.210.A.1.a.iv

iii. The Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way possesses high artistic values (City Code Section 17.604.210.A.1.a.v).

1950 Arden Way is a unique commercial building that includes Sacramento specific public art as an integral part of its architectural design. With its extremely prominent diagonal lot at the intersection of four major streets, its monumental size and bookma tched travertine exterior, the building and its park-like grounds were intended to be a landmark, and to signal Home Savings and Loan’s commitment to becoming a respected member of the Sacramento community. Public art was included in the buildings design to show respect for the city and its history. The Ahmanson family, who continued to helm Home Savings and Loan following the death of their brother in 1968, and Millard Sheets, the multi -disciplinary artist and educator who created the Home Savings and Loan branches, agreed that community specific public art would set them apart from competitors and would make their bank branches beloved landmarks over time.

The two large exterior mosaics in traditional, hand -cut smalti tiles were designed by Millard Sheets and translated into full sized working drawings by Susan Hertel, Sheets’ main assistant and a master in her own right. The full - sized drawings were then used to lay the carefully color selected and hand-cut tiles on. Traditional mosaics have been made in the same fashion since classical antiquity and require a high level of artistic skill to execute. The artists of the Millard Sheets Studio were highly skilled mosaicists and included artists educated at some of the world’s foremost art schools.

In light of the high level of artistry evidenced by the two exterior mosaics at 1950 Arden Way, which are integral and character defining parts of the building’s architecture, it is reasonable to conclude that the building exhibits high artistic values. For these reasons it appears that the building at 1950 Arden is eligible under City Code Section 17.604.210.A.1.a.v as possessing high artistic values.

iv. The Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way has integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, and association.

The building retains strong historic integrity in all six elements. Therefore, the building overall retains sufficient historic integrity to qualify for listing on the Sacramento Register.

Location: Location is the place where the historic property was constructed or the place where the historic event occurred. The subject property retains its original location at the intersection of Arden Way and Exposition Boulevard, and therefore retains historic integrity of location.

Design: Design is the combination of elements that create the form, plan, space, structure, and style of a property. The building retains essential physical features related to the New Formalism commercial style. This modern interpretation of classical styling is present in the grand scale of the building, building proportions, large windows, prominent cornice, symmetrical plan and landscape, flat roof, and bookmatched travertine cladding. Beyond the replacement of the windows with a similar metal window and the rebranding of Home Savings and Loan sign, there has been little alteration to the design of the building outside the period of significance, therefor it retains historic integrity of design.

Setting: Setting is the physical environment of a historic property. The building was constructed within 10 years after the opening of the new Cal Expo in an area that was rapidly developing as an auto -centric commercial zone. When the building was completed in 1978, the region was a thriving commercial district of large stores, the Arden Fair mall, gas stations, and restaurants. The commercial makeup and design of the area remain largely unchanged. The parcel still retains its axial front plaza facing the intersection of Arden Way and Exposition Boulevard and as sociated rear parking lot. The majority of the parking lot is located on a separate parcel and is of secondary importance and is not included in this nomination but appears to retain its original symmetrical design. The setting of the Home Savings and Loan building has experienced minimal change and retains historic integrity.

Materials: Materials are the physical elements that were combined or deposited during a particular period of time and in a particular pattern or configuration to form a historic property. Millard Sheets designed the Home Savings and Loan Building to have a grand appearance, matching the vast auto- centric setting, and as a reflection of Home Savings and Loan as a stable institution. The New Formalist style was used, as with other buildings he designed, for its mixture of classical and modern design elements. The building retains its bookmatched travertine exterior, cornice, and smalti mosaic tile murals over each entrance. Many interior features appear to be present as well, such a s two Sheets -designed murals, teller stations with Gladding McBean tiles, and wood paneling and ceiling details. While the windows have been replaced, the new windows were installed in a manner that preserved the pattern of openings and matched the existin g windows. Other minor changes include the replacement of the original “Home Savings and Loan” sign with the badge of each subsequent tenant, most recently Chase Bank. There have not been any new materials added to the Home Savings and Loan building outside of its period of significance that are not consistent with the original materials, therefore it retains a strong level of historic integrity of materials, despite the replacement of the windows.

Workmanship: Workmanship is the physical evidence of th e crafts of a particular culture or people during any given period in history or prehistory.

Millard Sheets designed the building to have a unique exterior that conveyed a sense of grandeur in the large, auto -centric landscape of Arden. Sheets was involved in all elements of the design, construction, and ornamentation of the building. The work of Sheets and his associate, Susan Hertel, who installed the smalti mosaic s, is highly apparent in the existing building. The building has experienced very little irr eversible alteration since initial construction, and new elements installed outside of the period of significance, such as the replacement windows, are consistent with the original workmanship; therefore, it retains a high level of historic integrity of wo rkmanship, despite the replacement of windows and the alteration of some interior features.

Feeling: Feeling is a property’s expression of the aesthetic or historic sense of a particular period of time. Considering the Home Savings and Loan Building’s setting and original design, it is clear that it retains its historic integrity of feeling. The New Formalist style reflects a time in the United States’ history when the country was focused on depicting stability and power during an uncertain time of infl ation, political upheaval, and the transition of the US economy from manufacturing to a service-based economy. The Home Savings and Loan Building, with its dominant size, forms and classical influence, conveys this message of a stable banking institution i n a landscape dedicated to the purchasing of goods and leisure activity. The mosaics and murals are also reflective of the time in several ways. The depiction of Native Miwok and Nisenan People, both prior to colonialization and in the contemporary period, coincided with the Red Power movement of the 1960s and 70s which resulted in the increased awareness of Native People and tribe recognition. Other elements include the increased awareness of environmental protection, which is evoked in the interior mural of Sacramento’s riparian habitat, and the depiction of the Gold Rush Era, which harkens to the region’s initial settlement by non-native populations which coincided with the increased interest in US history spurred by the 1976 bicentennial. While many of t he buildings in the area have been altered or expanded, the area retains its auto -centric, commercial character. The Home Savings and Loan Building, due to its prominent size, location, and New Formalist style and details, is able to convey the feeling of what 1970s life looked like in Sacramento.

Association: Association is the direct link between an important historic event or person and a historic property. The Home Savings and Loan Building is associated with Millard Sheets and his vision for creating buildings that depicted a trusted community banking institution. Sheets utilization of community-specific artwork in his buildings is also an extant dominant feature of this building. As mentioned, this building has had very few alterations that have affected its integrity, therefore the association with Sheets is still very strong. For these reasons, the Home Savings and Loan Building retains a high degree of historic integrity of association.
v. The Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way has significant historic or architectural worth, and i ts designation as a landmark is reasonable, appropriate and necessary to promote, protect and further the goals and purposes of this chapter.

The lot in question, 1950 Arden Way, is one of the finest, largest, and most visible of the sites chosen for Home Savings and Loan in Northern California.

Its three -story stature is also unusual, as is its lavish use of figured, bookmatched Italian travertine. The large exterior mosaics featuring local Sacramento area history are treasures in and of themselves. In light of the unique design by Millard Sheets, Susan Hertel, and the Millard Sheets Studio, the unique building design in a refined, late New Formalist style, the importance of the building to its time period and its association with Millard Sheets, a Californian artist of major significance, it is reasonable and appropriate that 1950 Arden Way, the Point West branch of Home Savings and Loan be listed on the California Register of Historic Resources under Criteria 3 and additionally on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources under Criterion iii, iv and v.
vi. The Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way has achieved significance within the past 50 -years because it is of exceptional importance to the history of architecture, the work of an important individual and master Millard Sheets, and possesses high artistic values in the two mosaic murals designed by Sheets and exe cuted by Susan Hertel (City Code Section

17.604.210.A.2.e).

Pursuant to the California Register of Historical Resources (Public Resources Code Section 4852), in order to understand the historic importance of a resource, sufficient time must have passed to obtain a scholarly perspective on the events or individuals associated with the resource. A resource less than fifty (50) years old may be considered for listing in the California Register if it can be demonstrated that sufficient time has passed to under stand its historical importance. The Sacramento Register special considerations states that a building must be of exceptional importance if less than 50 -years old in order to be eligible for listing.

Rather than making cookie cutter buildings whi ch could be built quickly and cheaply in any city in America, Home Savings and Loan chose to entrust their entire branch branding strategy to a highly acclaimed California artist, Millard Sheets. Sheets and his Studio sought to create branch buildings that would contribute to the beauty of the city around them. 1950 Arden Way was meant to be seen as a landmark and was meant to show Home Savings and Loan’s commitment to Sacramento by its park-like site, its exceptionally high-quality construction and materia ls as well as by its inclusion of Sacramento specific public art. The site chosen for Sacramento’s first purpose -built Home Savings and Loan branch is a remarkably prominent one which required a monumentally scaled building. Beyond its monumentality, 1950 Arden Way reflects its Millard Sheets “jewel box” New Formalist design through its flat roof with broad, sheltering eaves, its bookmatched Italian travertine exterior, its park-like grounds and its large circular plaza with seating and a fountain. 1950 Arden Way was designed to be a pleasant place for both customers and employees. It shows respect for the community which surrounds it, offering beauty and community specific art for everyone’s enjoyment. The quality of design and attention to detail at 1950 A rden Way is nowadays rarely seen outside of Civic architecture.

Scholars of architecture, especially in Southern California which has a much greater concentration of former Home Savings and Loan buildings, have recognized the exceptional architectural sig nificance of these buildings since the mid-2000s. The Getty Museum and The Huntington Library have sought to help preserve them through scholarly research, and the acquisition of archival collections. The Getty Museum as a part of its Pacific Standard Time project (which seeks to bring scholarly attention to art and artists from California) brought thousands of interested visitors to tour Millard Sheets designed Home Savings and Loan buildings in Los Angeles and nearby communities, including examples from the late 1970’s. Sacramento is very lucky to have such a large, well-sited, and intact Millard Sheets Home Savings and Loan building. The rarity of Home Savings and Loans in Northern California should also be considered when assessing the exceptional significance of the building despite its being only 46 years old.

A further factor contributing to the exceptional significance of 1950 Arden is the scholarly interest in the multi -disciplinary work of Millard Sheets and his atelier, the Millard Sheets Studio. It is highly unusual and quite likely unique in modern American architectural history that a respected artist, rather than an architect was hired to design and oversee the entire process of building over 100 commercial bank buildings. Sheets’ work, as an a rchitectural designer, a watercolorist, an oil painter, and a muralist continues to receive scholarly attention and is regularly included in museum collections across the United States. Several monographs have been published on Sheets work and a documentary was released in 2015. The work of the Millard Sheets Studio artists has recently begun to receive its own fair share of scholarly interest with the acquisition of the Denis O’Connor archives by The Huntington Library.

Table of Contents:

Exhibit A: Significant Features and Characteristics

A. Primary and Alternate Elevations

Significant Features and Characteristics of the Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way include the smooth travertine bookmatched cladding, classically inspired shapes and proportion, monumentality, minimal ornament, deep overhanging eaves, strong central axis, recessed central entryways, bi-lateral symmetry, flat roof, central plaza and fountain, triangular landscape design surrounding the building, sheltered planters at the building corners, projecting window banks, interior murals, exterior smalti mosaics, double height lobby with exposed wooden beams and walls, central skylight-like lobby light fixture, teller counter with glossy brown Gladding McBean three-dimensional ‘compass point’ ceramic tiles.

Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way- Western Elevation

Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way- Eastern Elevation

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*P11. Report Citation: (Cite survey report and other sources, or enter “none.”) Paul, Daniel: 2023 Historical Evaluation, Dudeck Environmental *Attachments:  None  Location Map  Sketch Map  Continuation Sheet  Building, Structure, and Object Record  Archaeological Record  District Record  Linear Feature Record  Milling Station Record  Rock Art Record  Artifact Record  Photograph Record Other (list)

DPR 523A (1/95) *Required Information State of California – The Resources Agency Primary # _____________________________________ DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI # ________________________________________ PRIMARY RECORD Trinomial _____________________________________ NRHP Status Code
Other Listings _______________________________________________________________ Review Code __________ Reviewer ____________________________ Date ___________ P1. Other Identifier: _Point West Home Savings and Loan______________________________________________________

*P2. Location:  Not for Publication  Unrestricted
*a. County Sacramento and (P2b and P2c or P2d. Attach a Location Map as necessary.) *b. USGS 7.5’ Quad Date T___; R ___; ___ ¼ of Sec B.M. c. Address: 1950 Arden Way________ City: Sacramento______________ Zip: 95815____________________ e. Assessor Parcel Number: 277-0271-007 and 277-0271-017__________________________________________________

*P3a. Description: (Describe resource and its major elements. Include design, materials, condition, alterations, size, setting, and boundaries) 1950 Arden Way is a monumentally scaled three -story New Formalist style commercial building and associated parking lot at the intersection of four major streets: Arden Way, Exposition Boulevard, Alta Arden Expressway, and Ethan Way in Sacramento. Rectangular in plan, the 29,300 square foot building faces southeast and is positioned at an angle on its wedge shaped and park -like lot. (See Continuation Sheet page 3)
*P3b. Resource Attributes: 1-3 Story
Commercial Building, HP6.
*P4. Resources Present:  Building 
Structure  Object  Site  District 
Element of District
P5b. Description of Photo: Photo#1.

Northeast View 10/23/2023.
*P6. Date Constructed/Age and Sources:
 Historic  Prehistoric  Both
1978; City of Sacramento, Building
Inspections Division Record Card, April 8,
1977
*P7. Owner and Address: MSD DV
Arden Way LLC, Attn: Sam Colson. 105
Tallapoosa Street, Suite 307. Montgomery
Alabama, 36104.
*P8. Recorded by: Ella Cross,
Preservation Intern ; and Henry Feuss,
Preservation Planner, City of Sacramento
Department of Community Development
*P9. Date Recorded: October 23, 2023.
*P10. Survey Type: Intensive_________
P5a. Photograph or Drawing

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*Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan DPR 523B (1/95) *Required Information State of California – The Resources Agency Primary # _____________________________________ DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI # ________________________________________

BUILDING, STRUCTURE, AND OBJECT RECORD
B1. Historic Name: Home Savings and Loan_________________________________________________________________ B2. Common Name: Home Savings Bank: Home Savings_______________________________________________________ B3. Original Use: Commercial__________________________ B4. Present Use: Vacant_______________________ *B5. Architectural Style: New Formalism_______________________________________________________________

*B6. Construction History: (Construction date, alterations, and date of alterations) Building plans were created in 1976, the building was completed in 1978 with the construction firm Continental Heller of Sacramento listed on the building permit, and the final interior mural was installed in 1980 as shown by extensive correspondence between Millard Sheets identified as program design director of Home Savings and Loan corporation and Frank Homolka and Associates, the architect of record discussing the budget, interior design, artwork, and progress of the building. There have been minor alterations to the building over time, including the removal of corporate signage visible in the original photographs of the building provided by the Huntington Librar y (photo #2) . Additionally, two of the four planters at the base of the building have had metal fencing installed around them to deter trespassers. In the interior, the base of the teller’s window counter originally had three-dimensional geometric patterned ceramic tiles from Gladding McBean terracotta manufacturers in a glossy brown. While these tiles are still mounted to the base of the counter, during a later renovation of the lobby they were encased in blonde wooden frames and obscured. (See Continuation Sheet)

*B7. Moved?  No  Yes  Unknown Date: 1978______ Original Location: Yes___________________ *B8. Related Features: Fountain, garden, parking lot; Three integrated murals designed by Millard Sheets and executed by artist Susan Hertel.

B9. Architect: Building designed by artist, Millard Sheets._____ b. Builder: Continental Heller, Sacramento._________ *B10. Significance: Theme Distinctive characteristics of type and the work of a master. High artistic value.____________ Area Local and Regional Significance_________________________________________________ Period of Significance 1976-1980________ Property Type Commercial Building________________________________ Applicable Criteria California Register Criteria 3, Sacramento Register Criterion iii, iv, and v._________________________

The building at 1950 Arden appears to meet the criteria for listing under the California Register of Historical Resources (CR HR) under Criteria 3 and the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources under Criterion iii , iv and v, as it embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, represents the work of an important creative individual or master and possesses high artistic values. The building was a collaborative design by artist and Home Savings and Loan design director Millard Sheets (1907- 1989) and Frank Homolka and Associates, the architect of record i n the New Formalist style for Home Savings and Loan in 1976 and opened for business in 1978. Susan Hertel and Denis O’Connor of the Sheets Studio collaborated with Millard Sheets on the design of the building’s artwork. The final interior painted mural was hung in 1980. (See Continuation Sheet)

B11. Additional Resource Attributes: (List attributes and codes) HP 26. Mural

B13. Remarks: See continuation sheet.

*B14. Evaluator : Ella Cross, Preservation Intern; and Henry Feuss, Preservation Planner, City of Sacramento Department of Community Development

*Date of Evaluation: October 23, 2023
(This space reserved for official comments.)

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*Recorded by Ella Cross *Date 10/23/2023  Continuation  Update

DPR 523L (1/95) *Required Information State of California – The Resources Agency Primary # _____________________________________ DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI # ________________________________________ CONTINUATION SHEET Trinomial ____________________________________________

P3a. Description (continued):

One of the two original interior murals is not visible, and it is unknown at this time if it is simply covered by a layer of vinyl wallpaper or if it has been removed. Although the final cost of constructing the building is not known, there is significant correspondence at the Smithsonian Museum Archive between the Home Savings and Loan corporate office, Millard Sheets, and Frank Homolka and Associates discussing all aspects of the building design, including asking Sheets and Homolka to try to keep the cost s down since the three -story building with huge windows, large exterior mosaics and a fully landscaped park -like lot were expensive even by the luxurious standards of Home Savings and Loan branches.

The building is of steel frame construction clad in bookmatched golden toned Italian travertine slabs. It has a flat roof, pl ain cornice, and broad overhanging boxed eaves. At the ground floor level, the building is notched at all four corners, creating four sheltered planter beds, edged in concrete with bench seating. These four seating areas are shaded by the slightly projecting upper floors and by the deep overhanging eaves. The rectangular building’s shorter sides face southeast and northwest and contai n the main entry and rear entry respectively. Both facades are identical, and feature deeply recessed central entryways with two sets of double doors flanked by similarly sized fixed pane glass windows, all set in bronze toned aluminum frames. Above each entry is a large mosaic drawn by Millard Sheets and executed in hand cut smalti (mosaic glass) by Millard Sheets Studio artists including Susan Hertel and Denis O’Connor.

The mosaic above the main (southeast facing) entry depicts an impressionistic chronology of Sacramento history from the Nativ e Californian Miwok and Nisenan era to the present day. The mosaic above the rear entry depicts scenes from the Gold Rush. Originally, in the central area above the mosaics, large, gilded letters spelled out “HOME SAVINGS” as visible in historic photographs (see photo # 2).

The side elevations facing Exposition Boulevard and Arden Way are the longer sides of the rectangular building. The fenestration at the ground floor level is located at the center of each of these longer facades and consists of floor to ceiling fixed pane glass windows set in bronze-colored aluminum frames, as used throughout the building. The second and third floor of each of the longer facades are punctuated by 32 floor to ceiling fixed pane glass windows set in bronze-colored frames. These windows are grouped in two sets of four on either side of a broad travertine expanse at the center of the elevation which formerly contained the glazed ceramic Home Savings and Loa n shield logo, designed by Millard Sheets (see photo #3).

The building sits in a large triangular garden with concrete planters and wide exposed aggregate walkways. The main entry fronts a circular fountain area surrounded by a raised circular plaza and concrete benches which define the outer edge of the circle. Walkways lit by lampposts surround the building and lead to the fountain, parking lot and the sidewalks along Exposition Boulevard and Arden Way. The original landscaping is still mostly present, with two mature pink crepe myrtles at the rear entrance, while bradford pear, pines, crepe myrtle and clipped hedges set in lawn surround the building on three sides. The associated parking lot contains its original planters, smaller lawn areas, mature trees and walled trash enclosure as well. From the aerial view of the property shown above, it is apparent that the carefully considered layout of the parking spaces and the walkways running into the center of the building and out the other side terminating in the circular fountain create an eye-catching and bi-laterally symmetrical design with a strong vertical axis.

Visible from the main entrance to the building, t he southeast facing m osaic depicts a chronology of Sacramento history that strongly emphasizes the importance of the Sacramento and American rivers. From left to right, the mural begins with the Native Miwok and Nisenan era, followed by the Mexican period , the American settlement period and finally , people enjoying the rivers in the present day (see Continuation Sheet Photos 4 and 5).

Visible from the parking lot side of the building, the northwest facing mosaic depicts early Sacramento history, focusing on the Gold Rush and early settlement era , again the Sacramento and American rivers are emphasized . Miners working sluice boxes, gold panning, and celebrating, along with images of the overland emigrant trail combine to give an image of the history of the area ( see Continuation Sheet Photos # 6, 7, 8, 9 ).

The interior originally featured two large murals, in oil paint on canvas, also designed by Sheets Studio, one of which is visible today and depicts two children in a local riparian environment filled with water, trees , deer, and migratory geese. The mural is partially visible in Photograph 11. The status and subject matter of the second mural, which faces the main entrance, is unknown. It is possible that the mural is beneath a later wall covering which is currently in the location. The extant mural was painted and signed by Millard Sheets Studio artist Susan Hertel.

Over the years, there have been minor alterations to the exterior of the building , mostly necessitated by changes in corporate ownership .

These include the removal of Home Savings and Loan , Washington Mutual, and Chase Bank signage from all four sides of the building and its glass doors . The exterior thresholds originally were concrete with the words “Home Savings ” inlaid into them, as seen in

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Continuation Sheet Photo # 2. They are no longer extant. Additionally, the original fountain has been filled in and planted with shrubs. It is unclear if the fountain’s plumbing is still present. Finally, the two ground floor planter boxes on the main facade have had metal fencing installed around them.

In 1978 when the building was completed, its setting was defined by Cal-Expo, the home of the California State Fair on the southern side and on the other three sides it was surrounded by a thriving commercial district of large stores, a shopping mall, gas stations and restaurants.

The same is true today although the names of the stores and gas stations have changed.

Overall, the historic integrity of the exterior is extremely high, and the alterations are either reversible, as in the case of the metal fencing and the soil filled fountain, or do not alter the original design, as in the case of the removed signage. On the ground floor there are several cracked and broken windows.

B10. Significance (continued):

Home Savings and Loan and Howard Ahmanson

Home Savings and Loan was a Southern California institution, originally founded in the nineteenth century but gradually expanded under owner and philanthropist Howard Ahmanson and after his death in 196 8, by his family, into an organization with branches throughout California. The name Ahmanson is well known in Los Angeles, as Howard Ahmanson’s generous funding helped to create the central performing arts complex of the city, The Music Center, which contains the Ahmanson Theatre. He was also a major supporter of Otis Art Institute, University of Southern California, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Ahmanson made his fortune in banking, acquiring Home Building and Loan, which later became Home Savings, in 1947. Ahmanson acquired 18 additional institutions which organize d under the Home Savings and Loan name and grew to become the largest savings and loan in the United States, and it remained so until its merger with Washington Mutual in 1998. By the 1980’s Home Savings and Loan began to expand outside of California with branches in Florida, Missouri, Texas and Ohio. Home Savings and Loan was unaffected by the savings and loans crises of the 1980’s and 1990’s which resulted in the bankruptcy of 32% of the nation’s savings and loans corporations. In 2008, following the failure of Washington Mutual in the Great Recession, the company’s assets, including 1950 Arden Way, were sold to JP Morgan Chase, who operated in the location for several years. Although perhaps not the case today, savings and loan institutions were seen as community-based organizations since they specialized in local home loans. 1950 Arden Way was the first purpose-built branch of Home Savings and Loan in Sacramento. By 1980, Sacramento had two branches, a situation very unusual in Northern California. Only San Francisco and Sacramento had two branc hes.

According to author Dr. Adam Arenson, three story buildings, such as 1950 Arden Way, were created as regional headquarters.

The Home Savings and Loan buildings designed under direction from Millard Sheets were renowned for their New Formalist “jewel box” designs, high quality architectural finishes, mosaic work, and for their inclusion of community specific public art in most b ranches. They were conceived as total works of design, where ever ything, from the view inside the building from the parking lot to the comfort of the chairs inside, was carefully considered with the goal of making the Home Savings and Loan brand a trusted community financial institution.

Inside the larger “Marquee” branches, such as 1950 Arden Way, there were double height lobbies, custom designed furniture, and murals designed by Sheets. In some locations there were also tapestries, stained glass windows and sculpture by Sheets, Millard Sheets Studio, or commissioned artists. Sheets and the Ahmanson family agreed that including public art illustrating themes of community, leisu re, and family, was a good way to build client relationships and loyalty. The mon umental and very permanent look of each branch was meant to emphasize stability and dependability. The unique building design of 1950 Arden exhibits character defining features associated with New Formalist architecture including strong bi -lateral symmetry, classically influenced proportions, monumentality, smooth stone cladding, rectilinear form, and a “jewel box” or “box and lid” style massing set on a large parcel which isolates it and intensifies it s effect. 1950 Arden Way represents a unique building s tyle, a refined version of the New Formalist “jewel box” style by Millard Sheets, an artist, not an architect. The Home Savings and Loan buildings by Sheets, such as 1950 Arden Way, are unique in that they represent one of the only times in modern American architectural history where an artist rather than a trained architect was commissioned to design and decorate over 100 commercial buildings.

Millard Sheets Studio and Susan Hertel

Millard Owen Sheets was born in Pomona, California in 1907 and had become a locally prominent painter by the age of 15. Sheets began his art career by winning first prize at the Los Angeles County Fair, held in his hometown of Pomona. The director of the fair’s art division, Theodore Modra, became a lifelong mentor to Sheets. Graduating from Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles in 1929, Sheets be gan selling his architectural drawings in New York. Following Modra’s death in 1930, Sheets took over as the director of the fine arts program at the Los Angeles County Fair, a position he held for 25 years. A gifted and hard-working man, Sheets’ resume is multi-disciplinary and

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reflects his skill at managing large projects. His work includes teaching positions at Claremont’s Scripps College and Chouin ard, administering a WPA Public Works of Art committee that employed hundreds of out of work artists during the depression, Art ju rist for the San Francisco World’s Fair, Designer of 17 war time airfields for the Army Air Force, a War artist stationed in India and Burma with the US Army, builder of racially integrated affordable housing for Scripps College, designer of restaurants, co rporate buildings and residences, Director of Otis Art Institute, designer of the Los Angeles County seal, and throughout all of this, he continued to exhibit and sell his art. His paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Chicago Art Institute, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, among others.

Millard Sheets was hired by Howard Ahmanson who gave him carte blanche to design each branch and who famously told Sheets “I want buildings that will be exciting seventy -five years from now.” Between 1955 and his retirement in 198 0/81, Millard Sheets oversaw over 100 Home Savings and Loan offices, inside and out, despite having no formal training in architecture. He and his Studio also oversaw their construction, managing the projects from start to finish.

Giving his oral history in 1977, Millard Sheets described the design of Home Savings and Loan branch buildings this way:

I do all of the designing, every bit of it. I detail everything, but I have marvelous people working with me who put it all down in final working drawings. In the old days we did everything. At one time I had four architects working for me and about ten draftsmen and engineers. We did the whole thing right in our office. But as time has gone on, I have been working with Home Savings in a new dimension. I'm now the director of their design program. I still design the buildings, and I have my own staff. I have two architects, who are excellent collaborators with me, and they finish up the preliminary phases of the design, which I present to the client. When those are approved, then I associate with an outside architect, generally in the vicinity where we do the building. If it's in the north, we try to work with architects in the north, for obvious reasons: it's good for them, they know the problems, and they can take the plans in and push them through the building department. They can do the supervision in the early part of the work, when you're excavating and putting in all your rough framing and steel and all that. Then I do all the supervision for the final stages, when we put in all the final finishes and the landscaping. (Goodwin Interview, 1977)

Millard Sheets employed a full studio of artists who he trained to execute handmade mosaics, stained glass, tapestries, murals, furniture, and sculpture based on his designs. Sheets contracted with architects, builders, structural engineering firms to build his bank designs. On the design of 1950 Arden Way, Home Savings and Loan contracted with Frank Homolka and Associates of Long Beach to act as the architect of record, but Sheets maintained design oversight and control over the final branch design. The administrative staff of the Millard Sheets Studio also helped to keep these large projects on track. Sheets was intimately involved in the design of all aspects of 1950 Arden as evidenced by the extensive correspondence , held at the Smithsonian, between Sheets, Homolka, his studio, vendors , and the Home Savings and Loan corporate offices. This highly unusual design process allowed Sheets to retain creative control over the Home Savings and Loan commissions and to accomplish much more than one man working alone could have done.

Among the artists of the Millard Sheets Studio, Susan Hertel and Denis O’Connor specialized in mosaics and their work is represented at 1950 Arden Way. Hertel was a former graduate student of art taught by Sheets at Claremont’s Scripps College and O’Connor was from Great Brittan and had attended the Royal Academy of Art in London. The Millard Sheets Studio’s design process was unique as it represents the work of a collaborative team of artists working together to execute the vision of the studio’s master artist, Millard Sheets.

Susan Hertel was Sheets’ main assistant. At the Studio, Hertel learned how to create traditional mosaics and also worked in stained glass.

A mother, artist, avid gardener, and horsewoman, Hertel and Sheets shared an exceptional capacity for hard work and project management.

Hertel was a longtime employee of the Studio and as Millard Sheets slowly moved into retirement, she took on more and more responsibility. After Sheets’ retirement in 1980 -1981, the Millard Sheets Studio, headed by President Susan Herte l, continued to design and build branches for Home Savings and Loan around the United States.

1950 Arden Way

At 1950 Arden Way, the southeast and northwest facades feature two large mosaics in hand cut Venetian smalti tiles, drawn by Millard Sheets and executed by Millard Sheets Studio artists including Susan Hertel and Denis O’Connor. As discussed by Dr. Adam Aren son in his monograph on Home Savings and Loan buildings, Millard Sheets and the Sheets Studio researched the history of each location in preparation for the design of its artwork and worked from historic images, illustrations, and text-based sources. Millard Sheets, in an

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interview contained in “Banking on Beauty” explained that in doing the historical research for each branch “sometimes we went way back, sometimes we took contemporary activities and used them, but we tried to make it as understandable as possible.”

While some locations were rather short on historic events, Sacramento, as one of the oldest cities in California, was not. Wh ile perhaps seeming to be non-specific depictions of California history to Dr. Arenson, the mosaics at 1950 Arden depict local Sacramento area scenes easily identifiable by the community. The mosaic work is highly accomplished, with subtle shading. Venetian glass smalti manufactured with real silver and gold foil are effectively used as accents (see Continuation Sheet Photos 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). The photographs provided by The Huntington Library are from the Millard Sheets Studio artist Denis O’Connor’s archive. He was a specialist in the depiction of hands and faces in mosaic, which are considered the most difficult details to execute. The photographs show the mosaics in Sacramento, before installation, which is why the images appear reversed. Traditional mosaic is created face down and only upon installation is the image flipped to its correct orientation.

Visible from the main entrance to the building, the southeast facing mosaic depicts a chronology of Sacramento history, begin ning with the Native Miwok and Nisenan people and the rich ecological bounty of pre-colonization. The next vignette is of a buckskin wearing hunter of the Mexican period (see Continuation Sheet Photos # 4 and 5). The central vignette represents the mid nineteenth century American period with images of a woman and child arriving at the famous wharf in Old Sacramento, flanked by a ship’s captain and a man unloading supplies. In the background, ships of various eras sail up and down the Sacramento River including the locally beloved steam powered paddle wheelers. The final vignette represents the present, showing a Native Californian man with a modern fishing rod during the annual salmon run up the American River. Next to him is a Native Californian woman in a bikini at the river’s edge . The inclusion of Native Californians in the present day emphasizes their continued connection with the cycles of the salmon, the river s, and the land. In the background behind them is a canoe and two American outdoorsmen.

Visible from the parking lot side of the building, the northwest facing mosaic depicts early Sacramento history, focusing on the Gold Rush and early settlement era, some images apparently drawn from frequently reproduced local daguerreotypes of the 1860s. In the foreground, the American River is flecked with gold nuggets as miners work sluice boxes and pan for gold. On the left side of the mosaic, covered wagons filled with pioneers arrive in early Sacramento from their long journey on the overland Emigrant Trail. In the center background, men on horseback gallop past an early commercial building. On the right side, miners and women dance enthusiastically as a man plays fiddle. On the far right, a miner, in front of a bank counter protected by a substantial grille , holds a bag of gold (see Continuation Sheet Photos 6, 7, 8, 9).

Both mosaics at 1950 Arden Way carry Susan Hertel’s signature, although this does not indicate that she was solely responsible for their original design or execution. It does indicate her role as leader of the mosaic work, as we know the mosaics of the Millard Sheets Studio were created in a uniquely collaborative environment which included an initial design by Millard Sheets. Talented artists including Denis O’Connor and others worked alongside Hertel to create the very large mosaics at 1950 Arden Way.

Again, speaking in 1977 in his oral history interview, Sheets testified of the mural design process, saying:

I have designed most of the mosaics myself completely, and Sue, in these latter years, has done a few mosaics herself.

She's marvelous. She does the most beautiful work. But I've designed most all of them, which means that I make a small sketch, a color sk etch in scale, an inch to a foot. I then blow it up full size. Sue has always helped me tremendously on the cartoons. We work together so closely that we don't know where one works and the other leaves off, really, we've worked so long together. Then with my color sketch she goes into the mosaic studio every day and checks on the color that the cutters are using, so that they can't get it out of value or out of color. That's been our routine for twenty-some years because we've been making our own mosaics for over twenty years. We started out by having them made in Italy. I used to go over to Italy and give them the cartoons and the color sketches. (Goodwin, 1977)

The interior originally featured two large murals, in oil paint on canvas, also designed by Sheets, one of which is visible today and depicts a local riparian environment filled with water, trees and migratory geese which arrive in Sacramento each fall due to its position as an overwintering spot on the Pacific Flyway. Two children are shown at play, a young girl holds a fawn, and a young boy plays in the water.

Again, the importance of Sacramento’s rivers is central to the design of the artwork. The mural is partially visible in Photograph 11. The status and subject matter of the second mural, which faces the main entrance, is unknown.

New Formalist Architecture

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New Formalism differs substantially from Neoclassicism since it seeks to reimagine classical forms and proportions and not to reproduce classical details. Although it is modernist, it differs from earlier forms of Modernism which totally rejected classically influenced shapes, in favor of purely cubic structures. New Formalist architecture’s timeless quality and solid presence proved to be popular for commercial buildings from the 1950’s until the late 1970s. The bank’s customers responded to the art, design, and high quality of Millard Sheets’ unique New Formalist Home Savings and Loan buildings. Famously, when Home Savings sent out a questionnaire to its customers asking, “Why did you choose Home Savings?” customers responded, “We like to be associated with something beautiful.”

Character Defining Features of New Formalist architecture 1950’s – 1970s. • Smooth, stone cladding.
• Classically inspired shapes and proportions.
• Monumentality.
• A minimum of ornament.
• deep overhanging eaves.
• Strong vertical axis.
• Centrally located and recessed entryways.
• Strong bi-lateral symmetry.
• Re-interpretation of Classical ornament, not reproduction. • Flat roof.
• Buildings set on a podium or rise.
• Formal landscaping, central plazas, and fountains.

Character Defining Features of 1950 Arden Way, Point West branch of Home Savings and Loan. • Extremely prominent lot which commands a view of four major streets and is slightly higher than its surroundings. • Diagonal placement of the building, facing the tip of its triangular lot. • Bookmatched Italian travertine slab exterior.
• Monumentality and classical proportions.
• “Jewel Box” massing with deep overhanging eaves and flat roof. • Deeply recessed central entryways.
• Exterior mosaics of local interest by Millard Sheets and Millard Sheets Studio artists, manufactured in hand cut smalti (a mixture of glass and minerals used since classical antiquity).
• Central circular fountain in a circular plaza with seating at the main entrance. • Sheltered planters at the base of the building with seating. • Large triangular garden surrounding the building on three sides. • Strong bi-lateral symmetry.
• Secondary axis running from Arden Way through the center of the building and out the other side to Exposition Boulevard creates a ‘compass point’ design.
• Central ground floor fenestration on all four sides gives a view inside the building at human scale. • Interior mural of local interest by Millard Sheets and Susan Hertel. (Two created, only one is currently visible) • Double height lobby with exposed wooden beams and walls. • Central skylight-like lobby light fixture.
• Teller counter with original glossy brown Gladding McBean three -dimensional ‘compass point’ patterned ceramic tiles (photo 11).

Evaluation

The National Park Service defines the seven aspects of integrity as: Location, Design, Setting, Materials, Workmanship, Feeli ng, and Association.

These aspects of integrity have been evaluated with regard to the Millard Sheets designed 1950 Arden Way, Point West branch of Home Savings and Loan.

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• Location – The building remains in its original location and has not been moved, therefore it retains integrity of location. • Design - The building has undergone only minor exterior changes since its completion in 1978 which in no way compromise the original design by Millard Sheets and Millard Sheets Studio. The building retains it s character defining features and therefore retains integrity of design.
• Setting – The building was originally surrounded by one of Sacramento’s largest commercial areas which included Cal-Expo, the home of the California State Fair. The setting has not changed and the area remains a bustling commercial zone and the home of Cal-Expo therefore the building retains integrity of setting. • Materials – The building has experienced minor exterior changes which include the installation of metal fencing surrounding two of the building’s four sheltered ground floor planters. This is an additive change and as such is easily reversible. Additio nal changes include the removal of corporate signage from all four sides of the building, the windows, doors, and thresholds as ownership changed. These changes do not affect the integrity of the building and therefore the building retains integrity of materials.
• Workmanship – 1950 Arden Way retains its original character defining features and materials which reflect the work of Millard Sheets and the Millard Sheets Studio, master craftsmen and artists including Susan Hertel, Alba Cisneros, and Denis O’Connor.

Therefore, the building retains integrity of workmanship. • Feeling – Because the property has retained integrity of location, design, setting, materials, and workmanship, it continues to convey its original character and the intent of its original design. Therefore, the property retains integrity of feeling. • Association – Integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, and feeling combine to convey integrity of association. Because the property at 1950 Arden Way retains all of these aspects of integrity, it continues to convey its New Formalist design by artist and architectural designer Millard Sheets and the talented craftspeople of the Millard Sheets Stud io, including Susan Hertel, who led the studio in realizing his designs and therefore, the building retains integrity of association.

Statement of Significance

The property at 1950 Arden Way meets the following California Register of Historical Resources (CRHR) and Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources Criterion:

• Criterion 3 and iii - It embodies the distinctive characteristics of a style, type, period, or method of construction.

The building is a monumentally scaled three-story New Formalist style commercial building with mosaic tile detailing. The New Formalist style is characterized by its symmetry, smooth wall surfaces typically of travertine or marble, and a close attention to detail. The style was a reinterpretation of classical design made apparent by the use of prominent entablatures, grand scale and proportions, and s ymmetrical landscapes with fountains and sculpture. The Home Savings and Loan Building embodies these distinctive elements of the New Formalist style with its grand symmetrical stature and prominent cornice, bookmatched travertine exterior, and the placement of the bui lding diagonally on the site surrounded by concrete planters, wide exposed aggregate pathways, and a circular plaza facing east which formerly held a central fountain. Most notably, the building also has two large smalti (glass) mosaics, one over each entrance. These mosaics, along with the mural in the interior, are very distinctive works that depict impressionistic chronological stories of local significance, such as the California Gold Rush, riparian habitats, and Native Miwok and Nisenan people from pre-colonization through to the period of construction.

For these reasons the Home Savings and Loa n Building at 1950 Arden Way embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction making it eligible for listing under City Code Section 17.604.210.A.1.a.iii and California Register of Historical Resources Criteria 3.

• Criterion 3 and iv - It represents a notable work of a master designer, builder, or architect whose individual genius influenced his or her age.

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notable works include the Scottish Rite Temple (Los Angeles), Word of Life mosaic mural at Hesburgh Library (Notre Dame University), and the Lombard/Van Ness Home Savings Branch (San Francisco), among many others. For these reasons the Home Savings and Loa n Building at 1950 Arden Way represents the work of an important creative individual or master making it eligible under City Code Section

17.604.210.A.1.a.iv and California Register of Historic and Cultural Resources Criteria 3.

• Criterion v – Possesses high artistic value.

1950 Arden Way is a unique commercial building that includes Sacramento specific public art as an integral part of its architectural design.

With its extremely prominent diagonal lot at the intersection of four major streets, its monumental size and bookmatched travertine exterior, the building and its park-like grounds were intended to be a landmark, and to signal Home Savings and Loan’s commitment to becoming a respected member of the Sacramento community. Public art was included in the buildings design to show respect for the city and its history. The Ahmanson family, who continued to helm Home Savings and Loan following the death of their brother in 1968, and Millard Sheets, the multi-disciplinary artist and educator who created the Home Savings and Loan branches, agreed that community specific public art would set them apart from competitors and would make their bank branches beloved landmarks over time.

The two large exterior mosaics in traditional, hand-cut smalti tiles were designed by Millard Sheets and translated into full sized working drawings by Susan Hertel, Sheets’ main assistant and a master in her own right. The full-sized drawings were then used to lay the carefully color selected and hand-cut tiles on. Traditional mosaics have been made in the same fashion since classical antiquity and require a high level of artistic skill to execute. The artists of the Millard Sheets Studio were highly skilled mosaicists and included artists educated at some of the world’s foremost art schools.

In light of the high level of artist ry evidenced by the two exterior mosaics at 1950 Arden Way, which are integral and character defining parts of the building’s architecture, it is reasonable to conclude that the building exhibits high artistic values. For these reasons it appears that the building at 1950 Arden is eligible under City Code Section 17.604.210.A.1.a.v as possessing high artistic values.

Criteria for Buildings Less than 50-years Old

As per the California Register of Historical Resources (Title 14, Chapter 11.5) and City Code Criteria 17.604.210.2.e: in order to understand the historic importance of a resource, sufficient time must have passed to obtain a scholarly perspective on the events or in dividuals associated with the resource. A resource less than fifty (50) years old may be considered for listing in the California Register if it can be demonstrated that sufficient time has passed to understand its historical importance and the Sacramento Register if the resource is of exceptional importance.

In the case of 1950 Arden Way, the property has achieved significance within the past fifty years as a result of several factors. The foremost of these is that scholars now understand that commercial architecture has changed drastically since the late 1970s and early 1980s. Earlier California commercial development, such as 1950 Arden Way, reflects that some businesses once sought to become long term partners in the community by creating high quality, artistic and long-lasting buildings that would become landmarks. Rather than making cookie cutter buildings which could be built quickly and cheaply in any city in America, Home Savings and Loan chose to entrust their entir e branch branding strategy to a highly acclaimed California artist, Millard Sheets. Sheets and his Studio sought to create branch buildings that would contribute to the beauty of the city around them. 1950 Arden Way was meant to be seen as a landmark and gateway to the emerging Fair Oaks community and was meant to show Home Savings and Loan’s commitment to Sacramento by its park-like site, its exceptionally high-quality construction and materials as well as by its inclusion of Sacramento specific public art. The site chosen for Sacramento’s first purpose-built Home Savings and Loan branch is a remarkably prominent one which required a monumentally scaled building. Beyond its monumentality, 1950 Arden Way reflects its Millard Sheets “jewel box” New Formalist design through its flat roof with broad, sheltering eaves, its bookmatched Italian travertine exterior, its park-like grounds and its large circular plaza with seating and a fountain. 1950 Arden Way was designed to be a pleasant place for both customers and employees. It shows respect for the community which surrounds it, offering beauty and community specific art for everyone’s enjoyment. The quality of design and attention to detail at 1950 Arden Way is nowadays rarely seen outside of Civic architecture.

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including examples from the late 1970’s . Sacramento is very fortunate to have such a large, well -sited, and intact Millard Sheets Home Savings and Loan building. The rarity of Home Savings and Loans in Northern California should also be considered when assessi ng the exceptional significance of the building despite its being only 46 years old.

A further factor contributing to the exceptional significance of 1950 Arden is the scholarly interest in the multi-disciplinary work of Millard Sheets and his atelier, the Millard Sheets Studio. It is highly unusual and quite likely unique in modern American architectural history that a respected artist, rather than an architect oversaw the design and construction of over 100 commercial bank branches. Sheets’ work, as an architectural designer, a watercolorist, an oil painter, and a muralist continues to re ceive scholarly attention and is regularly included in museum collections across the United States. Several monographs have been published on Sheets’ work and a documentary was released in 2015. The work of the Millard Sheets Studio artists has recently begun to receive its own fair share of scholarly interest with the acquisition of the Denis O’Connor archives by The Huntington Library.

Conclusion

To people who lived in California during the 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s, the local Home Savings and Loan buildings were distinctive and immediately recognizable. They helped foster an interest in local history and helped to create a sense of place in a rapidly changing world.

They were important buildings in their time period and their high -quality materials, design, and artwork were rightly seen as a gift to the community and to the urban landscape. 1950 Arden Way is an excellent late example of the work of Millard Sheets and the Millard Sheets Studio in the design of Home Savings and Loan buildings. As discussed in Dr. Arenson’s “Banking on Beauty”, Sheets evolved his version of the New Formalist architectural style over time, learning from what worked and didn’t work in each commission and each community.

In 1976 when the first plans were created by Sheets, he was over 70 years old and had built over 100 individually designed bu ildings for Home Savings. Although the buildings were mostly in Sheets’ version of the New Formalist style, each was an original design solution to a specific lot. The lot in question, 1950 Arden Way, is one of the finest, largest, and most visible of the sites chosen for Home Savings and Loan in Northern California. Its three-story stature is also unusual, as is its lavish use of figured, bookmatched Italian travertine. The large exterior mosaics featuring local Sacramento area his tory are treasures in an d of themselves. In light of the unique artwork by Millard Sheets, Susan Hertel, and the Millard Sheets Studio, and Frank Homolka and Associates, the unique building design in a refined, late New Formalist style, the importance of t he building to its time period and its association with Millard Sheets, a Californian artist of major significance, it is reasonable and appropriate that 1950 Arden Way, the Point West branch of Home Savings and Loan be listed on the California Register of Historic Resources under Criteria 3 and additionally on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources under Criterion iii, iv and v.

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B12. References (continued):

Ahmanson, Katie. – personal correspondence with the author regarding 1950 Arden Way.

Arenson, A. (2018). Banking on Beauty: Millard Sheets and Midcentury Commercial Architecture in California. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Arenson, A. – personal correspondence with the author regarding 1950 Arden Way.

Beverly Hills Heritage. “Ahmanson Bank and Trust Company Local Landmark Designation #26”.

Gelernter, M. (1999). A History of American Architecture: Buildings in their Cultural and Technological Context. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.

Hollywood Heritage. Historic and Cultural Monument application for 1500 Vine Street, Hollywood Branch of Home Savings and Loan.

The Huntington Library, Denis O’Connor Collection (archDOC). San Marino, CA.

McAlester, Virginia Savage (2019). A Field Guide to American Houses. New York, NY: Alfred A., Knopf.

Millard Sheets Center for the Arts at Fairplex (2007). A Tapestry of Life, The World of Millard Sheets.

Pomona, CA.

Rodriguez, Concepcion and Wendy Sherman (2012). Millard Sheets Studio: The Art of Home Savings and Loan. Grand Central Art Center exhibition,
April-May 2012, grandcentralartcenter.wordpress.com/2012/04.

Smithsonian Archives of American Art. Millard Sheets papers, circa 1907-2000. aaa.si.edu/collections/millard-sheets-papers-10956 The Learning Centers at Fairplex. (n.d.). Millard Sheets.

Retrieved from https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/tenement-flats-22262

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Photographs (continued):

Photograph 2: Exterior view, northwest, 1978. Millard Sheets Studio’s mosaic transportation truck is visible at the right of the image. Denis O’Connor Collection (archDOC) courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Denis O’Connor Collection (archDOC) courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

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Photograph 3: Home Savings and Loan shield logo design by Millard Sheets, courtesy of Hollywood Heritage, Hollywood, California.

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Photograph 4 and 5: Detail of hunter and horse from the main, southeast, façade. This image was taken by Denis O’Connor and shows the mosaic prior to installation, which is why the image is reversed compared to the installed mosaic. Mosaics are created fac e down. 1978. Denis O’Connor Collection (archDOC) courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Denis O’Connor Collection (archDOC) courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

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Photograph 6, 7, 8 and 9: Pre -installation details of the Gold Rush mosaic from the parking lot, northwest, façade, 1978. Denis O’Connor Collection (archDOC) courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Denis O’Connor Collection (archDOC) courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

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Denis O’Connor Collection (archDOC) courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

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Denis O’Connor Collection (archDOC) courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

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Denis O’Connor Collection (archDOC) courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

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Photograph 10: Close up view of the northwest façade Gold Rush mosaic and entryway, showing the original “Home Savings” gold leafed , clear glass entry windows and inlaid concrete thresholds, which are no longer extant. 1978. Denis O’Connor Collection (archDOC) courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Denis O’Connor Collection (archDOC) courtesy of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

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Photograph 11. Interior view showing original glossy brown ‘compass point’ patterned ceramic tiles along teller counter at right, which have been covered during a later renovation. Partially visible is the original Millard Sheets designed mural showing migrating geese in a riparian zone. No access to the building was possible and this photo was shot through the parking lot facade entrance toward the main entrance, facing southeast.

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Photograph 12, 1978 Sacramento Bee Advertisement.

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Photograph 13, Southwest side of building facing Cal Expo at right and rear entrance from parking lot at left.

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Photograph 14, Main building entrance facing Northeast with circular plaza and former fountain.

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Photograph 15, Northwest façade of building facing Arden Way at left and rear entrance facing parking lot at right.

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Photograph 16, Southeast façade facing Exposition Blvd and Cal Expo.

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Photograph 17, Rear entrance from parking lot showing Gold Rush mosaic. 10/23/23.

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Photograph 18, Main façade of building showing Sacramento History mosaic. 10/23/23.

PO Box 162140, Sacramento CA 95816 – [email protected] - PreservationSacramento.org - (916)604-8320

Preservation Sacramento – Founded in 1972 as Sacramento Old City Association Sean deCourcy, Preservation Director
City of Sacramento, Community Development Department
300 Richards Blvd. Sacramento CA 95811

October 27, 2023
RE: Home Savings Bank, 1950 Arden Way
Dear Director DeCourcy,
The Board of Directors of Preservation Sacramento wishes to express our support for the eligibility of Home Savings Bank, at 1950 Arden Way, as an eligible historic resource. Despite its relatively recent construction (45 years ago), the design of the building is a locally significant example of Late Modernism, and its decorative murals, by Millard Sheets studio artist Sue Hertel, are a rare and masterfully executed artistic embellishment. The building was also mentioned in the City of Sacramento’s Mid-century Modern study. We encourage the Preservation Director to find the property eligible and forward it to the Preservation Commission and City Council.

Sincerely,

William Burg
President, Preservation Sacramento Board of Directors

HISTORY
4513 Manhattan College Parkway • Riverdale, NY 10471 • P:718.862.7354/7436 • F: 718.862.8044 • www.manhattan.edu March 11, 2024

Sean de Courcy, Preservation Director
Mayor Darrell Steinberg
City of Sacramento
[email protected]
[email protected]

Dear Director de Courcy and Mayor Steinberg:

I write to you as the preeminent expert on the public art and architecture of the Millard Sheets Studio and author of the award-winning Banking on Beauty: Millard Sheets and Midcentury Commercial Architecture in California (University of Texas Press, 2018). I urge you to protect the building at 1950 Arden Way as a landmark, under the Sacramento Register of Historic & Cultural Resources (Sacramento Register) and the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and Public Resources Code section 21001, which requires agencies to “take all action necessary to provide the people of this state” with “enjoyment of aesthetic … scenic, and historic environmental qualities.”

Millard Sheets Studio artworks have been recognized formally as landmarks in Beverly Hills, and preservation projects in Montebello and Pasadena have been lauded by city residents and architectural historians alike. I urge you to build on this recognition and confirm the landmark status of this building. Integrating architecture, mosaic, stained glass, and interior design elements into an indivisible whole, it represents the genius of Sheets Studio commissions for Home Savings.

To research my book, I conducted more than 75 interviews with architects and artists who worked on these buildings, Home Savings employees, and preservationists. I was the first person to comprehensively study the Millard Sheets Papers in the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian, Denis O’Connor Papers at the Huntington Library, and Ahmanson Foundation images related to these commissions. I received fellowships from the Ahmanson Foundation, the Haynes Foundation, Howard and Roberta Ahmanson, the Huntington Library, the Jonathan Heritage Foundation, and the Autry National Center, and I have written about my research for Huntington Library Frontiers, the KCET website, and my own research blog, http://adamarenson.com/blog, which has received more than 50,000 visitors.

I have led tours of Home Savings branches and other Sheets Studio commissions in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Claremont, and Pomona, and I have held lectures throughout the state and around the country. I have been interviewed about this research by the New York Times, KCRW, the Daily News Los Angeles, the Dallas Morning News, Beverly Hills Television, and in a documentary by Paul Bockhorst on the Millard Sheets Studio’s architecture. My book was named Best Book on Architecture or Urban Planning at the 2019 PROSE Awards and it

HISTORY
4513 Manhattan College Parkway • Riverdale, NY 10471 • P:718.862.7354/7436 • F: 718.862.8044 • www.manhattan.edu received a Citation of Merit in the DOCOMOMO-US 2018 Modernism in America Awards.

The DOCOMOMO-US judges noted that “Arenson’s research has uncovered an extensive legacy of ‘every man modernism’ that was largely unknown and under-appreciated, and brings attention to main street architecture with real design value and the impact of individual grassroots efforts.”

It was also named one of the best 2018 books on California by the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Magazine. Gustavo Arellano wrote in the Times that “Banking on Beauty invites readers to remember a time when our captains of industry cared about public spaces as much as they did the bottom line — and it also challenges us to preserve those remaining buildings that possess Sheets originals.” Chris Nichols wrote in Los Angeles Magazine that “Once upon a time, a visit to a department store or a branch bank was a chance to be inspired by fine art.

Architects incorporated custom paintings, sculpture, and stained glass into these common buildings in an era of popular luxury....Local history was a favorite subject for enormous mosaic installations on prominent corners throughout the state....This richly illustrated book finally tells their story.”

Through that expertise, I am uniquely positioned to speak to the historical significance of this building—the craftmanship of its mosaics, sculpture, and painted mural—as a vital aesthetic resource within the city of Sacramento. Its loss would be a significant adverse impact that would violate CEQA.

As I have written extensively in my book and on my blog, the art and architecture created by the Millard Sheets Studio—Sheets himself, along with other noted artists in his employ, including mosaicist Denis O’Connor; painter and mosaicist Susan Hertel; sculptor John Edward Svenson; architect Frank Homolka; mosaicists Brian Worley, Alba Cisneros, and Jude Freeman; and mosaicist and tapestry artist Martha Menke Underwood—constitute a “California Modernism” with landmark architecture on a human scale.

The Sheets Studio also did extensive research to create artwork specific to Sacramento, to help Home Savings demonstrate its commitment to the community. The Arden Way building includes mosaics known in the studio as “The River” and “The Gold Rush,” showing key figures in the history of Sacramento, most prominently placer miners. The works reflect Millard Sheets’s signature themes—horses, trees, and the California landscape. They are distinctively in Sheets’ style — flat forms cut by sloping and dipping lines, to give depth, as I say in my book on p. 62 and 134.

As I wrote to Ella Cross in October 2023, I found the Dudek DPR evaluation full of errors, beginning with the fact that Howard Ahmanson died in 1968 and was not an architect; Millard Sheets was actively involved in all Home Savings commissions done by his Studio until 1980. I have a record from 1976 from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art stating that "Sacramento Arden Way – Millard Sheets met with them, ready to proceed,” showing his

HISTORY
4513 Manhattan College Parkway • Riverdale, NY 10471 • P:718.862.7354/7436 • F: 718.862.8044 • www.manhattan.edu active involvement. These records are held on microfilm at the Huntington Library and at the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian file for the Point West/ Arden Way location is extensive — many many folders, which is unusual for these projects, showing the deep engagement of Millard Sheets personally and his team more generally.

Sheets was never a licensed architect, but did conceive of the entire art and architecture with his studio, creating the first sketches and making decisions down to the color of the bathroom tiles. Beginning in the 1970s, Sheets no longer had architects in-house, and worked instead with the architects Homolka and Associates of Long Beach. (The transition is described in my book on p. 183.)

The commission should not let the two initials SH dissuade them from seeing this as the product of the Sheets Studio, and Hertel’s decades of work there, alongside Millard, on commissions they did together since the 1950s.

I look forward to hearing from you about your decision, and please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. I am happy to help preserve this beloved art and architecture.

Sincerely,

Adam Arenson
Professor and Chair of History
Manhattan College
Miguel Hall 414
4513 Manhattan College Parkway
Riverdale (Bronx), NY 10471
718-862-7317
[email protected]

From: Adam Arenson, Professor of History <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, October 3, 2023 1:02 PM
To: Ella Cross <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Home Savings Bank - 1950 Arden Way, Sacramento- Preservation Question Dear Ms. Cross,
Thanks for reaching out, and for sharing that error-filled request for demolition. Here is my long response; be sure to get below the images and charts to the end.

Howard Ahmanson died in 1968 and was not an architect; Millard Sheets was actively involved in all Home Savings commissions done by his Studio until 1980. I have a record from 1976 from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art stating that "Sacramento Arden Way – Millard Sheets met with them, ready to proceed,” showing his active involvement. These records are held on microfilm at the Huntington Library and at the Smithsonian, and I may have a photograph in my records somewhere.

Sheets was never a licensed architect, but did conceive of the entire art and architecture with his studio, creating the first sketches and making decisions down to the color of the bathroom tiles. Beginning in the 1970s, Sheets no longer had architects in- house, and worked instead with the architects Homolka and Associates of Long Beach. (The transition is described in my book on p. 183.)

The artwork over each door is specific to the history of Sacramento, reflecting the Spanish friars, the Mexican period, and the coming of the gold rush, with nearby placer mining. They are distinctively in Sheets’ style — flat forms cut by sloping and dipping lines, to give depth, as I say in my book on p. 62 and 134 — and they represent important local history, and surely would find a good home in a local institution. Also, Brian Worley (cc’ed) has expertise in removing them if necessary — in this era, they are on panels that are hollow behind, so they can be cut off the building and moved to a new location. When this has happened — Santa Monica, Lakewood, Pasadena — it has led to celebrations and events for the new owners of the art, and opprobrium for
short-sighted property holders who wanted to destroy this valuable art. When the sites have been redeveloped with the artwork in place — Redlands, Montebello — the new owners have been praised.

Even this blurry image, clipped from Google Maps, shows the distinctively local history being celebrated, and the design elements typical of the Sheets Studio are evident. The commission should not let the two initials SH dissuade them from seeing this as the product of the Sheets Studio, and Hertel’s decades of work there, alongside Millard, on commissions they did together since the 1950s.

On my database of all Sheets Studio public projects online, https://adamarenson.com/books/banking-on-beauty-millard-sheets-and-midcentury-commercial-architecture-in-california/definitive-list-for-home-savings-and-loan-artwork-savings-of-america- artwork-and-the-millard-sheets-studio-public-projects-2-3/ I list Arden Way this way:
mosaic: figures
fading in and out
of water from
fishing to sailing
to parasol, The
River and Gold
Rush; painted
mural child near
pond with swans;
tapestry trees
abstracted;
tables; stained
glass - 11 small
bronze birds as in
Tujunga
Millard Sheets, Denis O'Connor, Susan
Lautmann Hertel, Alba Cisneros, Brian
Worley, Frank Homolka, Jess Gilkerson; Dan
Clapp; Jude Freeman, Martha Menke
Underwood signed tapestries
While we have seen other successful challenges of landmarking of these nearly-50-year-old buildings, in many cases they have been required to save the mosaics, sculptures, and other artworks, which were specifically designed for the local community. Sue Hertel was Sheets’s right-hand person for decades, and so her signature is not proof that she was any more involved (or he less involved) than in the commissions going back into the 1950s. I discuss the appearance of these signatures in my book on p. 181 — they were Sheets, then they were unsigned, then they had other artist signatures interspersed.

The Smithsonian file for the Point West/ Arden Way location is extensive — many many folders, which is unusual for these projects, showing the deep engagement of Millard Sheets personally and his team more generally. These are my notes; if it says “photoed” that means I have photographs, somewhere in my drive, which I can find. I can decode these if you need; MOS is Millard Sheets, SLH is Susan Hertel, and DOC Denis O’Connor, the main three in the Studio. It lists Brian Worley for installation; he is cc’ed and often has installation images (or the Huntington Library has them). We could also connect you to Alba Cisneros, who worked on these as well.

13 5694 Sacramento, //Arden// Point West building, Correspondence, 1972-1979 Homolka on the zoning issues to Mrs Jean Ramist –photoed Permits approved –photoed; sketch of location on Arden –photoed – for the temporary branch –photoed Earth testing soil engineer, sidewalks, asphalt notph
Point West area guidelines cover, Homolka to Bob Nilson URBN PRCS –photoed Need to build permanent building starting no later than March 27 1976; setback, parking reqs –photoed Q of a property at Arden and Exposition not in city of Sacremento /?/ –photoed More from lawyer, city on need to start by 1976, specs notph URBN parcel map and show Mervyns nearby –photoed
That chosen plants cannot work together says the city POL URBN PRCS –photoed ELQ

MOS PRCS that need to be 41 feet 6 inches tall, and zoning wants 35 feet, hence lawyer; says about the HSL needs –photoed ELQ URBN POL of dictate driveways; and want to reject the height variance ** –photoed KEY Lawyer William Holliman Jr to H Michael Wyant of POL URBN as the planning commission changinh; suggest get MOS to meet with them * //as star, like Pomona, other cases// CF KEY EVNT PRCS –photoed Notph bids requests from various contractors
MOS and Holliman note on meeting –photoed Drafts for the public meeting April 1976 –photoed May 1976 conditional approval –photoed with heigh changes Lawyer and permit info has URBN surroundings listed ELQ POL PRCS and schematic with Mervyn’s, shopping center, Toys R Us, gas station, movie theater, at city-county line; elevations, plans, etc //CF is this one Wofsy has?// and tranverse sections ELQ and rare to see in file –photoed
Gilkerson on how bid for construction, not HSL interior construction //was PRCS before?// -photoed Cover for parapet and soffit revision –photoed PRCS

MOS AHM on the contract with the landscaper -photoed
Homolka design, but MOS studio architect edit in red – ELQ PRCS –photoed George Underwood
HSL to MOS 1977 on kiosk design for their pamphlets in the branch to replace carousels. Of Arden full color rendering and normally done before PRCS KEY ELQ <to inform our customers of the fact that they will have a new branch and generally what it will look like.> PUBLC RECP URBN–photoed Mosaic purchase, HSL tiles Byzantine and gold from Italy, Latco Venetian, travertine PRCS HSL ECON –photoed and closing out such an account at 1977 //of materials bought ahead for them// MOS ELQ Retainers etc for Bob AHM on the mosaic –photoed
Letter from DOC to Stan Young about installing mosaics, settling, and close to ground; check as retainer –photoed and problem at install with acid onto the sidewalks; complain up to Arlin Eddington –photoed
DOC working with Stan Young again 1978; discussing truck –photoed SLH and architects on the CF Tujunga in relation to stained glass, mosaic //placement?// -photoed and ELQ to AHM on cutting costs to the bone, <no other possibilities for cutting the cost.> -photoed SLH to AHM on the Homolka idea of the same windows as Tujunga, small, 11, <a flight of bright birds> and Wallis bronze glass order PRCS KEY -photoed SLH to Mary Ruona - CF Tiburon and Madison polaroids but color issues -photoed DONE
13 5694 Sacramento, //Arden// Point West building, Job costs and billing statements, 1976-1980 PRCS cost and work by Brian around installation and photographing, Alba, Bruce Litz building crates; Dan Clapp(installing painted mural?) ; invoice for tapestry hangings too -photoed List of MOS DOC SLH Jude etc for Madison site //or are they mislabeled?? Says CF Tujunga on size – seems so, given later Madison start of 1979 work // ; Brian at install –photoed Nilsen trip to orient for permits notph; more talk of Kaiser Aetna as landholder before notph CF Walnut Creek and Oakland in travel Invoices with rear Goldrush, front The River –photoed show installation May 1978 –photoed CF show Madison mosaic ready March 1979, installed March 1980 –photoed DONE
13 5694 Sacramento, //Arden// Point West building, Notes, drawings, and miscellaneous background material, 1972-1976, undated data on drainage notph
accounting rough notes, on mosaic, mural costs/timing notph tiles for toilets –photoed
notes on meetings, Wyant, MOS, others /Gilkerson handwriting?/ -photoed parcel map, city-county line, notph
planned shape //cut like CF Tujunga // -photoed
planning environmental survey –photoed PRCS URBN most no, but ? on “impact of the character of the immediate area” ELQ

regulations, rules notph
sketch //of this branch? /-photoed
DONE
I was contacted in 2019-2020 about the building by Kathleen Stricken, and we exchanged emails with William Burg and Thomas Vogt, so they may also have more information.

I also attach two clippings from the celebrity-filled branch opening.

Hopefully you have made it down to the bottom of this long email; please be in touch if I can help in any more ways.

Best,
Adam
Adam Arenson (he/him)
Professor and Chair of History
4513 Manhattan College Parkway
Riverdale (Bronx), NY 10471
Miguel
Hall 414, 718-862-7317
[email protected]
For my award-winning books — Banking on Beauty: Millard Sheets and Midcentury Commercial Architecture in California (Texas, 2018), The Great Heart of the Republic: St. Louis and the Cultural Civil War (Harvard, 2011/paperback Missouri, 2015) — and my co-edited volumes Civil War Wests: Testing the Limits of the United States (California, 2015) and Frontier Cities: Encounters at the Crossroads of Empire (Penn, 2013), as well as current projects, see: http://adamarenson.com and http://manhattan.edu/faculty/adamarenson Note: My working hours may not match yours. Please feel no pressure to respond until your working hours.

December 26, 2023

Sean DeCourcy, Preservation Director
City of Sacramento Community Development Department
300 Richards Boulevard
Sacramento, CA 95811
Submitted via e-mail
Re: M23-011 - Point West Home Savings & Loan at 1950 Arden Way Sacramento Modern (SacMod) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 2010; we are dedicated to preserving modern art, architecture, and design in the Sacramento region. We are writing in support of City of Sacramento Preservation staff’s evaluation and recommendation to add the building at 1950 Arden Way to the California Register of Historical Resources and the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources.

Dudek’s evaluation of 1950 Arden Way is insufficient and incomplete.

Dudek’s evaluation, though well-written, fails to make use of key research resources.

The most glaring omission is the lack of citation from the Millard Sheets papers at the Smithsonian. Also, there is no indication that the author attempted any communication with Adam Arenson, renowned Sheets/Home Savings & Loan bank buildings expert— even though his book is cited as a source. The importance of mosaic artists Susan Hertel and Denis O’Connor in their own right is understated, and consequently useful research clues to actual images and additional information regarding the Point West Home Savings & Loan building from the Huntington Library were apparently missed.

It also contains several immaterial distractions, such as: splitting hairs over the style differences between New Formalism vs. Abstract Monumentality; using the lack of architectural press when the building was built as an argument against its eligibility; and highlighting that it only received brief mention as an example of New Formalism in the 2017 Mid-Century Modern in the City of Sacramento Context Statement and Survey Results (which covered the time period between post-WWII to 1970, ten years before 1950 Arden Way was built).

A 501(c)(3) non-proﬁt organization dedicated to promoting, preserving and protecting modern art, architecture and design in the Sacramento region.

Gretchen Steinberg 4910 South Land Park Drive, Sacramento, CA 95822 [email protected]
SacMod.org
City of Sacramento Preservation staff’s evaluation of 1950 Arden Way is thorough and comprehensive.

This evaluation is well-written and researched with intensive attention to critical details.

Assertions are supported by facts and evidence; critical materials from archives and collections are accessed; and relevant communications are conducted. It contains insightful and meaningful observations regarding the building and artwork. It is presented in a well-organized, thoughtful, and logical manner—supporting each eligibility criteria using clear and concise rationale. It provides additional information regarding how the building and artwork were designed, and highlights the importance of how the bank was built with emphasis on the surrounding community, a context which is often overlooked.

SacMod fully endorses this evaluation and staff’s recommendations. Kudos to Preservation Intern Ella Cross and Preservation Planner Henry Feuss for their outstanding work.

Former Home Savings & Loan in Redlands demonstrates that adaptive reuse of intact banks can be successful.

The artwork, craftsmanship, and quality building materials at 1950 Arden Way are exemplary, and the amount of embodied energy it represents is impressive.

Demolishing and replacing it with disposable stucco drive-thru restaurants is wasteful— and demonstrates a lack of vision for the intersection, neighborhood, and the community. A recent example of an adaptively reused former Home Savings & Loan can be seen in Redlands: https://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/2023/09/11/finneys- crafthouse-plans-sept-25-opening-in-downtown-redlands/

Respectfully submitted,

Gretchen Steinberg, President, SacMod
2023.12.26 SacMod re: M23-011 - Point West Home Savings & Loan Page 2 From: gretchen steinberg
To: Sean deCourcy
Subject: Re: 1950 Arden Way Historic Resource Evaluation - SacMod Initial Comments Date: Friday, October 27, 2023 3:39:35 PM
Attachments: 2013.10.21_Former Home Savings Mosaics in Sacto.pdf Hi Sean,
Thank you for forwarding the historic evaluation from DUDEK to SacMod. Please note that the best email to send similar communications is my SacMod address above.

While my ability to fully review the report has been limited due to time and energy constraints, a few comments are in order. Forgive my last-minute reply—typing is quite difficult these days with my disability, so I will be brief:
(1) SacMod encourages and supports a separate historic evaluation of 1950 Arden Way be conducted.

We offer our research files to contribute to any such effort. Since SacMod’s founding, we have been monitoring this and hundreds of MCM places in our region, including other former Home Savings and Loan structures within Sacramento’s city limits as well as within Sacramento County. (See attached PDF “2013.10.21_Former Home Savings Mosaics in Sacto.pdf”) At this time, SacMod's ability to initiate and oversee a separate historic evaluation not possible—but nonetheless we see a dire need for it. (2) Rebuttal to DUDEK’s weak arguments (Dudek Eval, page 10) relating to the Mid-
Century Modern in the City of Sacramento Historic Context Statement and Survey Results (page 3-14), reiterated by Downey Brand, LLP.

First, the MCM Context/Survey effort covered the time period between the 1940s to 1970. The structure and exterior/interior murals at 5150 Arden Way had not yet been built, but nevertheless serves as an example to illustrate New Formalism in our region.

Second, this attempt to weaponize the MCM Context/Survey is a fallacy argument meant as a distraction. We feel it is important to call it out as such.

Similarly, the argument that a resource is not eligible because it is lightly covered (or maybe not even covered at all) in the MCM Context/Survey should always be scrutinized. The MCM Survey/Context is meant as a starting point rather than a definitive and complete reference for eligible mid-20th century historic resources.

Likewise, the argument that a resource “is not the best example of….” and/or “it was one of many….” are irrelevant but tiresome red herrings.

Best to you as always,
Gretchen
SacMod.org
SacMod (Sacramento Modern)'s albums
Former Home Savings and
Loan Bank Mosaics in
Sacramento
The beautiful Mosaic Murals created for
Home Savings and Loan bank branches by
Millard Sheets and his studio from the 1960's
- 1980's illustrated the cultural and physical
identity of the place where the bank branch
was located. Home Savings and Loan
commissioned over 50 of these murals for
their branches; we are lucky to have at least 2
here in Sacramento created by Sheets Studio
artist Sue Hertel. Please stop your car, walk
up to these beautiful public / private artworks
and enjoy! [JW]
October 21, 2013 ·
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For more background
information on the Home
Savings and Loan art and
architecture project, this is a
great summary :
http://m.la.curbed.com/.../how_la
_banks_got_their...

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5 From: Kathleen Stricklin
To: Henry Feuss
Subject: Re: 1950 Arden Way Landmark Nomination Hearings Date: Friday, December 15, 2023 3:13:53 PM
Attachments: image001.png
Thank you for keeping me abreast of the fate of 1950 Arden Way. I am historian in Arden Arcade, between Ethan Way and Mission Avenue, and between Auburn Blvd. and the American River. Our entire community was completely built out during the 20 years between 1945-1965, and is home to many Googie, Mid Century and Moderne buildings. Every housing development is uniquely MCM as well, many designed and built by award winning architects and builders. The preservation of 1950 Arden Way is very important to MCM Arcade Arcade as we lie within the County of Sacramento, which has no preservation ordinances, for either buildings or art, and the preservation or disposal of nearby city MCM properties and art threatens the future of our incredible, one of a kind structures, and our community character as well. I ask that the City of Sacramento preserve 1950 Arden Way, while at the same time saving the interior painting art and 2 outside tile murals by noted California artist and historian Millard Sheets. Please add this email into the nomination hearing as my 3 minutes of testimony.

If there's anything further that I can do please let me know.

Thank you, Kathy Stricklin, founder and historian Vintage Arden Arcade, director Fulton El Camino Recreation and Park District.

From: Kathleen Stricklin
To: Garrett Norman; Sean deCourcy
Subject: 1950 Arden Way.

Date: Saturday, October 28, 2023 7:48:38 AM
Good morning. I am the historian in Arden Arcade and am excited to see the Home Savings building being considered for preservation. Would you kindly add my email to the list of interested parties so that I can follow the effort? The Millard Sheets art on and within the building are positively stunning pieces.

Plus there are so many other structures in my community, all mid century, that need preserved that know the process would be really helpful. Creating a County Preservation group and ordinance is high on my list of things to do. Thank you, Kathy Stricklin Vintage Arden Arcade.

From: Michael Seaman <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2024 5:38 PM
To: Sean deCourcy <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]; Kathleen Stricklin <[email protected]> Subject: Item 2, Preservation Commission meeting of 02/20/24 Due to a schedule conflict, I am unable to attend the Preservation Commission meeting tomorrow evening, February 20th. With this email, though, I give strong support the staff recommendation to designate the former Home Savings and Loan Building at 1950 Arden Way as an historic property.

The staff report substantially details and supports the validity of such designation.

As an Emeritus Member of the American Institute of Architects, I care deeply about the importance of American architecture. The notion that buildings once intended as community monuments should be torn down for fast food joints appals me. I am grateful for the impressive intelligence and sensitivity displayed by your staff in the analysis of the historic value of the building at 1950 Arden Way. Furthermore, as a long-time elected member of a local recreation and park district across the street from the building, I know that good design and public art matter to our community. Thus I support the preservation of the 1950 Arden Way building as a prime example of Mid-Century Modern design and the New Formalist style, along with its extraordinary public artwork - the Millard Sheets Studio murals. I would be happy to see the building undergo adaptive reuse, the clear potential for which was pointed out in the staff report.

Having lived in unincorporated Arden Arcade for 46 years, I have observed with dismay the vast array of poor land use decisions at the interface between the City of Sacramento and the County of Sacramento that have degraded the local area. The Preservation Commission's staff report acknowledged the importance of respecting community in our immediate vicinity and preserving the historic attributes of the area. I urge the Preservation Commission to join in due regard by approving and forwarding to the City Council the recommended actions that would preserve the building at 1950 Arden Way as a landmark on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources.

Respectfully,
Michael Seaman
--
Michael Seaman
Arden Arcade CA 95825
Local control was a good idea in 1776 and it still is
Energy efficiency 1st in the loading order.

Take a ski or snowboard lesson from a Pro.

From: Susan Jones <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2024 8:51 PM
To: Sean deCourcy <[email protected]>
Subject: 1950 Arden Way - Millard Sheets building needs to be preserved! What a beautiful example of his work - art work and architecture. It would be a shame to lose this piece of Sacramento heritage! Please do not let this building be torn down or lost. This previous investment in art and architecture are what brand a city as interesting and beautiful and worth living in and visiting.

Thank you,
Susan Jones
1573 49th St, Sacramento, CA 95819
916-549-3758
From: Lita Munich
To: Sean deCourcy
Subject: Historic Building 1950 Arden Way
Date: Wednesday, February 21, 2024 8:44:09 AM
Sean de Courcy
If you have any sensibility around preservation (your job description indicates you might) I urge you to protect this building. I am in Arden Arcade 8 years now after leaving East Sacramento.

It would be a crime to remove this building and its priceless mural to replace it with a tacky structure of the Fast Food genre. Sacramento should be hiding its head as its record for preservation is spotty at best.

And yes I remember the Alhambra Theater debacle a failure to see our communal soul preserved.

Please do your job and do not cave to these vultures, the owners of 1950 Arden Way.

Ms Munich
From: Lynne Sperry <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2024 10:34 PM
To: Sean deCourcy <[email protected]>
Subject: Demolition of 1950 Arden Way
Dear Mr. de Courcy,
What sense would it make to demolish a unique building, 1950 Arden Way, to replace it with another drive through fast food? In Europe they repurpose old buildings to preserve the unique character of their cities. Americans pay high prices to fly to Europe to appreciate the old buildings.

Who would intentionally go to Arden Arcade to view the interesting architecture? This older office building can be updated in the interior with offices for less expense than demolishing it. I grew up in the 50's & 60's on Gwen Drive, along the creek near Fulton & El Camino, with huge oak trees that grew there long before the housing development.. The area was a pleasant family area and safe. It has deteriorated considerably so I moved to Folsom. Knocking down a unique building where people could be employed in good paying office jobs & help redevelop the Arden Arcade neighborhood in preference for another plastic, fast food drive-thru with minimum wages is not a contribution to Community Preservation nor is it a contribution to Community Development.

Please consider my viewpoint. Your decision is important to many people.

Thank you,
Lynne Sperry
Folsom, CA
From: Debra V
To: Sean deCourcy
Subject: 1950 Arden Way
Date: Sunday, February 25, 2024 8:31:37 AM
Hello Sean, I hope this email finds you well. I am sending you my words of encouragement to save the 1950 Arden Way Building from a sad fate. It’s a lovely building and the murals are treasure.

Thank you for your hard work.

Debra van Hulsteyn
From: Suzanne Herrera
To: Sean deCourcy
Subject: Attn: Sean de Courcy, Preservation Director
Date: Tuesday, February 27, 2024 12:58:01 PM
I object to the demolition of the building at 1950 Arden Way, Sacramento, CA.

This building displays three murals on the building designed by Millard Sheets and installed by Sue Hertel in 1978.

Millard Sheets was California’s premier designer/artist of early California history. They are beautiful, historic, irreplaceable and literally priceless. Their destruction in exchange for anything, let alone ubiquitous run of the mill drive through fast food chains, would leave our magnificent mid century community diminished. Destruction of works by Millard Sheets, whose murals, known and loved all over the west, is short sighted and speaks negatively about Sacramento.

SacMod, a wonderful organization that has over the years saved historic buildings from demolition, has prepared the case for saving the building and its art.

Please support Sacramento by supporting it‘s history, and aesthetics.

Thank you!
Sincerely,
Suzanne Herrera
Sent from Out of the Blue…
From: Kristen Stauss
To: Sean deCourcy
Subject: Preservation Director, Community Development Department Date: Thursday, February 22, 2024 5:40:14 PM
Dear Sean de Courcy,
The loss of 1950 Arden Way would further the “anything goes” attitude of builders (think Town and Country Village) toward our history, and since it is on the boundary line into Arden Arcade, it’s destruction would leave our magnificent mid century community’s GOOGIES and MCM structures at risk. I support the preservation of 1950 Arden Way
As a 6th generation Sacramentan, the loss of 1950 Arden way for MORE fast food chains would be a tragic loss of community art and continue to lower the overall health of the area.

I would love to see more marketplace eateries in the area similar to “The Bank” in downtown Sacramento or another kids entertainment center like roller skating.

Please consider the historical importance. And also the lack of value to the greater community health of more fast food and drive throughs.

Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts and consideration for better things for our community.

Thank you,
Kristen Stauss

Page 1 of 19 ends

P1. Other Identifier: Home Savings Bank; Home Savings branch no. 51; Washington Mutual Bank; Chase Bank.

*P3a. Description: (Describe resource and its major elements. Include design, materials, condition, alterations, size, setting, and boundaries)
Home Savings and Loan- Arden branch, (“Home Savings building”; “Arden branch”) is a three story, rectangular plan New Formalist bank building. The Home Savings building has a flat roof with a prominent, cornice-like, box fascia of block-molded frieze clad in smooth stucco. The building’s primary cladding is travertine marble paneling of veining and gradations vertically aligned. All four sides of the Home Savings building are boldly symmetrical in character with identically handled window bays, each containing a ribbon of four full-height vertical windows of fixed pane bronze reflecting glass set in bronze-tinted aluminum mullions. (Please see continuation sheet page 3)

*P3b. Resource Attributes: (List
attributes and codes) HP6.
1-3 Story Commercial Building
*P4. Resources Present: x Building
Structure x Object Site District
Element of District Other
(Isolates, etc.)
P5b. Description of Photo: (view,
date, accession #) Front elevation, view:

NW. August 29, 2023. Fallin Steffen
*P6. Date Constructed/Age and
Source: x Historic Prehistoric
Both
1978; City of Sacramento, Building
Inspections Division Record Card,
April 8, 1977.
*P7. Owner and Address:

Market Street Development LLC
5930 Granite Lake Drive, Ste. 110
Granite Bay, CA 95746
*P8. Recorded by:

Daniel Paul
Dudek Environmental Consulting
1810 13th St #110
Sacramento, CA 95811
*P9. Date Recorded: 09/13/23
*P10. Survey Type: (Describe)
Intensive
*P11. Report Citation: (Cite survey report and other sources, or enter "none.") none *Attachments: NONE Location Map x Continuation Sheet x Building, Structure, and Object Record Archaeological Record District Record Linear Feature Record Milling Station Record Rock Art Record Artifact Record Photograph Record Other (List):

P5a. Photograph or Drawing

*Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan- Arden branch *NRHP Status Code 6Z

Page 2 of 19 ends

DPR 523B (9/2013) *Required information
State of California  The Resources Agency Primary #
DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI#

Temporary Home Savings branch completed onsite in 1974. Temporary branch demolished for subject property, constructed between April 1977 and September 1978 when subject building opened. Acquired by Washington Mutual Bank in March, 1998, and remodeled c. 1998 as Washington Mutual bank branch; reopened as Chase Bank branch March, 2009.

*B7. Moved? X No Yes Unknown Date: Original Location: *B8.

Related Features: Three integrated murals: two mosaic upon the exterior, and one painted lobby mural, by artist Susan Hertel.

B9a. Architect: unknown b. Builder: unknown *B10. Significance: Theme N/A Area N/A

Period of Significance N/A Property Type Commercial Applicable Criteria N/A (Discuss importance in terms of historical or architectural context as defined by theme, period, and geographic scope.

Also address integrity.)

Completed in 1978, the Home Savings and Loan - Arden branch building does not appear to have National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), California Register of Historical Resources (CRHR), or Sacramento Register eligibility under any Criteria. Although the Home Savings building includes distinctive murals by noted artist Susan Bright Lautmann Hertel, as objects, the murals do not appear of such significance whereby the subject property, or the murals as a grouping within it, elevate the larger property to any level of historic significance. All elements of the subject property are less than 50 years old, and no aspect of the subject property, including its building and/or its artwork, appear to possess exceptional significance under any NRHP or Sacramento Register Criteria, nor do these elements possess the “historical importance” necessary for CRHR eligibility for properties less than 50 years old. (please see continuation sheet page 5, and continuation sheet 13 for sketch map)

B11. Additional Resource Attributes: (List attributes and codes) HP

26. Mural

*B12. References: Please see continuation sheet page 12.

B13. Remarks:
*B14. Evaluator: Daniel Paul
*Date of Evaluation: September 13, 2023
Page of 19 *Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan – Arden branch *Recorded by: Daniel Paul *Date September 13, 2023 x Continuation Update
DPR 523L (9/2013
State of California - The Resources Agency Primary#
DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI #
Trinomial

CONTINUATION SHEET
Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Description (continued)
The building’s ground level reads as a recessed plinth for the building’s projecting upper massing. Each outer corner at the building’s ground level is cutaway, containing recessed, square-form planters. It is presently unknown if these planters may have once contained the fountains and/or sculpture commonly seen at other Home Savings branches. Concrete slab caps the planters, and the two at the building’s eastward, front-facing corners have iron bar fencing. A ceiling above each planter is gold-orange colored stucco with recessed, square-form lights within it.

The Home Savings and Loan Arden branch building is centered within a parklike triangular-form parcel pointed east toward the intersection of Arden Way and Exposition Boulevard. The building’s siting upon its parcel is symmetrical, grand, and highly visible from multiple public rights-of-way. The building’s primary public façade faces the intersection dead-on, commensurate to its triangular parcel. Off this primary point, the building is recessed behind a prominent lawn, and a low, circular landscape element of approximately 60 feet in diameter. The circular element appears to have been a fountain, presently a planter, and a pedestrian roundabout encircles it. Its walkway connects to the building’s centralized entranceway behind it.

Although the building’s east-facing program is its prominent face, the building’s true main entrance is from the rear, off a large, chevron-plan parking lot due west. The building’s highly similar front and rear three- bay elevations each have four ribbons of the prior-mentioned window bays, one ribbon set above another, divided by a marble spandrel, flanking either side of a blank central bay. The stacked windows at either end, off the outer ends of the upper two levels, are boxed in a projecting travertine surround that reads an oversized bezel. The front and rear elevations each feature a centered, recessed entry program of four bronzed aluminum and glass entry doors flanked by full-height square-form, fixed window sidelights of bronze tinted aluminum. A sidelight at the front-facing east elevation is presently boarded. Each entry also includes side door: solid and of bronze tinted metal at the front elevation, single light glass with metal frame at the rear elevation. Inset planters with manicured shrubs and tree specimens flank the rear entryway off the walkway to it. Above each entry program is a mosaic mural designed by the artist Susan Bright Lautmann Hertel (“Susan Hertel”). Dioramic in character, both murals appear to be made of ceramic and glass tesserae and reference local history. Of a maritime theme- presumably related to the close-by American River, the east-facing mural depicts Native Americans and white settlers fishing, its composition centered upon an aged, gray-bearded maritime figure, perhaps a trader or fisherman himself, standing upon a wood dock. Watercraft, birds, and animals are also presented, its palette is warm and bold, consisting of orange, red and gold hues. Presumably informed by the nearby landing and fort both named after James Sutter, the mural over the rear elevation depicts an intertwined wild west scenescape of covered wagons, horses, saloon dancing, and the gold mining that is its focal point. Its palette is warm but subdued, and features plum, orange, brown, gold and white hues. The building’s north and south elevations read as its lengthwise side elevations. Each side elevation has eight window bays, stacked four-over four at either side of an elevation’s prominent and blank central bay. The central bay of the south-facing Exposition Avenue side has the ghost markings of the former Home Savings Bank shield- shaped sign.
3 Page of 19 *Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan – Arden branch *Recorded by: Daniel Paul *Date September 13, 2023 x Continuation Update
DPR 523L (9/2013
State of California - The Resources Agency Primary#
DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI #
Trinomial

CONTINUATION SHEET
Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Each side elevation has a centered, ground-level ribbon of ten full-height tinted lites set in bronze-tinted aluminum mullions. Each is set within box-form, marble clad surrounds of an oversized bezel form, like the previously mentioned enframed window bays are at front and rear elevations. At either side, some of these units are boarded, and it is presently unknown if each contained secondary entries. Symmetrically set, ogee-curved planters extending to either end of the building flank either side elevation walkway. The planters contain a dense multitude of manicured shrubs in addition to shade tree specimens. All four walkways leading to the Home Savings Buildings are prominent and axis-like, and have stained pebbledash against a broad, scored concrete grid. Similarly treated walkways run along all four elevations.

The Home Savings building interior space is rectangular and double height, with open mezzanine spaces off either side. The ground level has flooring of recent stone veneer and a substantial, boxed ceiling light of wood with a crate-like wood member grid overlay. Wood paneling and wood beam railing are part of the design, as are bays of travertine-clad wall at either end. A long bank of multiple teller windows runs the south side of the interior space. The base of the teller window bank is clad in multiple bays of affixed, later-added molded wood panels. One bay off to a side, with its later panel missing, has original cladding of beveled, heavily textured ceramic tile containing a four-pointed star pattern that was present upon other Home Savings branches, indicating similar tile may still be present behind multiple bays. The teller windows are set behind full-height bulletproof security glass. This glass appears to be later addition, as are multiple, blue-colored drop lights present over a carpeted space running the ground floor’s north side, that presumably once included various desks. That space is set behind a centered, stucco-clad baffle wall and wood-clad posts. The blue light fixtures hang from an acoustic drop ceiling with fluorescent lighting.

The east wall over the central public area contains a sizeable, Rousseau-like painted mural of an orange and avocado green naturescape with a young girl holding a doe near trees, flowers, an over-head owl above her, and a lake with geese, with a buck and deer in the background. The integrated, substantially scaled wall mural has wood plank box frame. Upper levels appear to have various individual office units set behind a carpeted circulation areas running the length of the building. Offices off the south-side mezzanine are present behind a sizeable, open, carpet-clad floor space.

Due west, behind the Home Savings building, is a large, blacktopped parking lot of a symmetrical, angled chevron form. The parking lot is axially bisected by a walkway of the same pebbledash treatment as the those seen at the building itself. Additional walkway segments perpendicularly bisect the main axis between various parking rows. The axial walk terminates at a centered segment of low curved wall at the parking lot’s outer, western edge. The parking lot’s outer edges are themselves landscaped with berms containing lawn, manicured shrubs, and tree specimens. Small islands of similarly landscaped elements periodically bookend parking rows within the lot, which also contains an enclosed stucco-clad trash receptacle topped with a chain link fence. Light fixtures within the parking lot are black metal post with dual LED units and appear to be a recent addition.
4 Page of 19 *Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan – Arden branch *Recorded by: Daniel Paul *Date September 13, 2023 x Continuation Update
DPR 523L (9/2013
State of California - The Resources Agency Primary#
DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI #
Trinomial

CONTINUATION SHEET
Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Significance (continued)
Context
The Home Savings and Loan Association is primarily associated two significant individuals: H.F.

Ahmanson, who acquired the company in 1947 and greatly expanded it, plus the artist and building designer Millard Sheets. Additionally, noted muralist Susan Hertel undertook all extant artwork upon the subject property.

Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson (1906-1968) was born in Omaha, Nebraska to parents who pushed him to excel in a variety of subjects. This included business, which Ahmanson’s father, who saw his then five year old son as a genius, educated him in from childhood. Ahmanson’s father ran an insurance company he had slated Howard to someday take over. Instead, just after Ahmanson graduated high school, his father suddenly passed away, and company board members took control of the company away from the family. After three years studying business at the University of Nebraska, Ahmanson moved out west where he studied economics at the University of Southern California, graduating in 1927. Ahmanson worked as a California agent for his father’s old company, the National American Fire Insurance Company, successfully grew it, and ultimately acquired it back. To adorn and architecturally design its first California office, Ahmanson, from out of the blue, wrote a letter to Southern California artist and educator Millard Sheets. (Arenson, 2018: 17-18, 26; New York Times, 1968) Originally from the Southern California community of Pomona, Millard Owen Sheets (1907-1989) at an early age was recognized for his artistic talents and restless ambition. Of a Regionalist nature that would make its way into later Home Savings art, Sheets’ work was the subject of multiple gallery exhibits just after he graduated Chouinard Art Institute in 1929, and the subject of museum exhibits later in life. His work is in the permanent collection of
the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Chicago Art Institute, the National Gallery in Washington D.C., the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among other museums. Sheets was not only a prominent Southern California artist, but as an arts educator for decades, oversaw the art programs at Scripps College and Claremont Graduate School, and in 1953 was hired by the County of Los Angeles to transform the Los Angeles County School of Art.

Sheets did so over a ten-year stint, renaming the school Otis College of Art and Design, which still exists to this day. Additionally, Sheets was the art director of the Los Angles County Fair for 25 years, from 1931 to 1956. Sheets was already a known Southern California figure when Ahmanson first wrote him. Pleased with Sheet’s design for National American Fire Insurance Company Los Angeles office, Ahmanson promptly hired Sheets to design and artistically adorn a multitude of forthcoming Home Savings and Loan branches. (Arenson, 2018: 6-7; Artcloud, 2023)
As Millard Sheets undertook his own arts and education activities, he opened a Claremont-based design studio with muralists, stained glass artisans, painters, and later architects, whose primary commissions were for Ahmanson’s Home Savings and Loan commissions. Originally a thrift dating back to 1889, Ahmanson acquired the Home Savings and Loan in 1947. Ahmanson and Sheets opened their first collaborative Home Savings bank branch in 1956, located in Beverly Hills, upon Wilshire Boulevard: a 5 Page of 19 *Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan – Arden branch *Recorded by: Daniel Paul *Date September 13, 2023 x Continuation Update
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ primary east-west thoroughfare for Los Angeles. Shortly thereafter, the Home Savings and Loan Association grew rapidly across Southern California, through a creative and novel business and branding approach Ahmanson envisioned and firmly controlled until his 1968 passing. The concept of a bank “branch” was fairly new one in the mid-1950s. Before bank branches, customers would travel to a centralized, often downtown location to undertake person-to-person banking, a model ill-suited for Southern California’s new, postwar suburban development patterns with its decentered topography.

Ahmanson often personally selected potential branch locations, located upon prominent, highly visible intersections. To get a community interested, Ahmanson was aggressive about rapidly constructing even temporary branches until the actual branch was finished, and even the temporary branches included the artwork and other design features commonly associated with Home Savings. The company continued this approach through its existence; one of these temporary branches, 54’ x 99’ and of one story, was constructed in 1973 and present at the site of the subject Arden Way location, before the 1978 of the three-story building now present. (Arenson, 2018: 67, 69, 169; City of Sacramento, 1973; Home Savings Bank and Loan Association, 1974.)
Not just through their ubiquity and visibility, Home Savings became increasingly popular through their art program. Ahmanson himself was a substantial Southern California arts patron. His art collection seeded what became the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and according to former UCLA Chancellor Franklin Murphy, “The Ahmanson Foundation had played a greater role in the cultural life of Southern California than any other single force.” Through his use and employ of Millard Sheets studio, during his lifetime Ahmanson integrated a substantial amount of artwork into all Home Savings and Loan Branches, that he also gave Sheets the liberty to architecturally design. This generous use of artwork onto consistently handled building designs- commonly low-slung, largely windowless, monumental and travertine clad buildings that became a form of Home Savings branding. Intended metaphors of the designs were timelessness, security, and tradition, all undertaken upon architecture neither strictly Modernist nor Neoclassical, though often monumental, fortified or temple-like in their presence. (Abrahamson, 2013:
264; Arenson, 2018: 64)
The buildings frequently featured prominent murals, often dominating a front elevation and visible from the car, focused upon local history themes that Sheets’ in-house historian Nancy Colbath researched at local history rooms and libraries. The artwork made the branches not only beautiful and familiar, but the local theming connected each to its respective place. According to Ahmanson, “Using as much art as we did, that was different than anything else that had been done at that time. They went crazy for it […] they stood in line on Wilshire Boulevard (The first HS&L location) a block and a half long waiting to put money in, in the savings and loan […] It paid for itself in the first ten days. It paid for the land, it paid for the building, it paid for the furnishings, landscaping. Everything. […] They sent out questionnaires to confirm what was happening, asking, “why did you choose Home Savings?” Customers answered, ‘We like to be associated with something beautiful.’” According to Home Savings historian Adam Arenson, “The Home Savings artwork was effective because it functioned in many registers at once: as a nominal history lesson but also as a beautiful aesthetic object, as a depiction of local distinctiveness but also as art framed by the confines of the Home Savings style.” (Arenson, 2018: 7, 180) 6 Page of 19 *Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan – Arden branch *Recorded by: Daniel Paul *Date September 13, 2023 x Continuation Update
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Though Home Savings grew, and remained, as before, the largest savings and loan in the U.S., the entity saw foundational changes over the course of the 1970s. Howard Ahmanson died in 1968, the same year that the California State Board of Architectural Examiners investigated Millard Sheets for his referring to himself as an architect, when he was, in fact, not. Sheets claimed that he never formally identified himself as one, though the design ideas, undertaken with licensed but uncredited architects, were his. After Ahmanson’s passing, Home Savings and other Ahmanson companies became publicly traded, quickly expanding across the state, and after 1978, beyond it as well. (Arenson, 2018: 170) Millard Sheets relocated to Gualala- a seaside town in Northern California in 1968, and over the course of the 1970s, gradually delegated more and more of his studio’s activities and responsibilities to others. By the end of 1977, as the subject building, which opened the following year, was being constructed, Millard Sheets fully retired. As he did, Sheets appointed artist Susan Lautmann (last name “Hertel” after her 1958 marriage) his primary assistant for over 25 years, as President of Millard Sheets and Associates Design Incorporated (formerly Millard Sheets Designs, Inc.). Hertel designed the two murals and large lobby painting associated with the subject Arden branch. (Arenson, 2018: 208-209) Susan Bright Lautmann Hertel (1930-1993) was born in Evanston Illinois, raised in Highland Park Illinois, and moved to California to attend art school at Scripps College in Claremont, CA., and studied art at the Kaan Art Institute in Los Angeles. At Scripps, she had Millard Sheets as an art teacher and graduated in 1952, as Sheets was on the precipice of a work windfall with Ahmanson for the Home Savings company.

Shortly thereafter Sheets hired her as his assistant, and she supervised the design of any variety Home Savings artworks, including murals, for the Sheets design studio. Hertel and Millard Sheets both had a love of horses, and Hertel, who opened two animal shelters later in life, had a love of animals in general- a commonly seen theme in any variety of her Home Savings artworks, historical vignette or otherwise.

According to her ex-husband, the art teacher Carl Hertel, she saw a “profound joy in the experience of living and a deep connection with the universe of living things.” The Arden branch artworks have a variety of plants and animals, including upon the exterior murals that each incorporating a historical theme referencing the American River and Fort Sutter, both nearby. Susan Hertel continued as President of Millard Sheets and Associates Design Incorporated until the studio’s 1982 closing. (Arenson, 2018: 181; MCLA 2023, Square I Gallery, 2013; )
New Formalism:

New Formalism is a Modernist variant strongly informed by Classicism, while avoiding its most obvious decorative design tropes. The design system is associated with a specific mid-1950s to mid-1960s period:
an imperial-like era of American economic abundance, expressions of power, cultural superiority, timelessness, and security. Ahmanson’s vision for Home Savings not only occurred at time, but as the largest savings and loan in the US, also expressed that American moment.

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ modeled columns.” New Formalist buildings are commonly a Modern take on temple-like, Classical design in terms of its sense of harmony, balance, proportion, ratio, and symmetry, but without the Classical ornament. Thusly, according to Whiffen, New Formalism is a design “showing a Catholicity of taste that forbids one to classify the movement as a second Neo-Classical revival.” It’s primary examples completed by 1965, include the temple-like Classicism of Philip Johnson (Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth TX, 1961) , the decorative Modernist and ornamental tendencies of Minoru Yamasaki (Northwestern National Life Insurance Company, Minneapolis MN, 1962), and even the exoticism of Edward Durrell Stone, with his of decorative breezeblock screens in varying patterns (U.S. Embassy, Delhi, India, 1959). In Los Angeles, Stone himself designed travertine-clad New Formalist twin towers flanking a Bernini-inspired courtyard and arcade as the company’s new Wilshire Boulevard headquarters in 1970, two years after Ahmanson’s passing, and named in his honor. In keeping with the brand, this design appears to have been intentionally conservative. By the late 1960s, a variety cultural, geopolitical, and economic changes, including the advent of the US within post-Fordist globalism, rendered New Formalism anachronistic. (Whiffen, 1992: 257, 260-266; Arenson, 2018: 162) Carole Rifkind, in A Field Guide to Contemporary Architecture, refers to New Formalism as “Modernist Classic,” mentioning its use of travertine or marble sheathing and raised podiums. But perhaps Modernist Classic’s most important feature to Rifkind is the design system’s use of the column as a compositional device, stating “the inherent structural logic of the colonnade links [New Formalism] to both Classic and Modernist styles.” Within the Sacramento Mid-Century Modern Historic Context Statement, it is the Yamasaki-esque former Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Building, designed by architect Sooky Lee, 1963, that is the purer New Formalist expression. A vague, after-the-fact New Formalist building, the Arden Place Home Savings building possesses no columns whatsoever. However, its late-1970s design references another tendency of the decade, what Rifkind calls “Abstract Monumentality,” of precedents with Louis Kahn, where “sheer bulk” coupled to formal abstraction, is used to achieve monumental effects and presence. Likely intentional, as portrayed upon the subject building, any traces of New Formalism and abstract monumentality are handled in staid, safe symmetry, especially compared to the sculptural Brutalism, monopitch and sharply cut Shed Style, or the prismatic mirror glass Late-Modernism then in- vogue, all of which were box-breaking. (GEI Consultants, Inc., 2017, 3-13 – 3-14; Rifkind, 2001: 115-116; 124)
Evaluation
Relative to NRHP/ CRHR Criterion A/1, a Home Savings Bank and Loan branch could have historic significance for associations to Home Savings and Loan Association as the largest savings and loan company in the US over decades. The company continued as be the largest of its kind through the 1970s, through the mid-80s savings and loan crisis which did not affect the company, and until its 1998 sale to Washington Mutual Bank. However, under Criterion A/1 a property’s period of significance would appear to run from the 1956 completion of the first bank branch involving Ahmanson and Sheets, up until 1972, after Ahmanson passed and Sheets began to delegate the daily work; a year when the company went public and began a new expansion beyond Southern California. Southern California was Home Saving’s primary sphere of influence and in-turn the region’s specific context of car-oriented post-war suburbia informed all aspects of Ahmanson’s bank branch model. As one of 80 branches completed after 8 Page of 19 *Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan – Arden branch *Recorded by: Daniel Paul *Date September 13, 2023 x Continuation Update
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Ahmanson’s passing- Arden is branch #51- the subject property’s association to the Home Savings and Loan Company exists but does not appear to be a historically significant expression of the Home Savings and Loan Association as the largest of its kind in the country.

The Home Savings and Loan - Arden branch does not appear to have NRHP or CRHR eligibility under Criterion B/2. Howard Ahmanson, the primary figure of significance that earlier-era branches might have historic significance to, had passed away ten years before the subject property was finished. The company at the time was overseen by his nephews: Bill and Bob Ahmanson, who do not appear to be historically significant persons in a manner warranting the eligibility of the subject property under NRHP/ CRHR Criterion B/2.

The subject property does not appear to have eligibility under NRHP/ CRHR Criterion C/3. Likely intended as an update to an older Home Savings style, its architectural design reads as a diluted New Formalism, well after that design system’s historically significant examples, that once expressed an American moment over by the end of the 1960s. The subject building’s architectural tendencies toward abstract monumentality render it a 70s-era design, but not a historically significant example of that tendency. The designs for which Home Savings is historically associated were done with the direct input of Ahmanson and Sheets, or by the Sheets Studio for a few years after Ahmanson’s passing when they began to see some variations in their massing and a change in the artwork, which in some manners became more creative. Although the subject building hews to the solid, secure, and conservative character of the earlier branches, the earlier “two story jewel box branches,” have a low-slung, encasing character, diminutive but solid, with even fewer windows than the Arden branch possesses, and even more artwork. The earlier branches have clear precedent with turn-of-the-century works such as Sullivan’s “jewel box” bank branches and Joseph Maria Olbrich’s Vienna Secession Building, 1897. The subject building, within its park-like landscape, larger scale, and tinted window banks, reads as a 70s-era regional office building more than a typical Home Savings bank branch. (Arenson, 2018: 18, 33, 38, 64).

Though presently unknown, the Arden branch may have once featured additional sculptures and fountains, or the hanging interior fabric art pieces the company, increasingly concerned with cost-cutting through the 1970s, preferred over the stained glass in earlier-seen branches.

Perhaps the most significant character defining features associated with the building are the three Susan Hertel murals themselves. But even apart from the building, if such an analysis was possible, the three murals as “objects” for the purposes of the present analysis are not of such significance to elevate the subject property to be an exceptionally significant one under relative to NRHP Criterion C with Criterion Consideration G applied. Although enough time has passed to view the subject murals as part of a past historical chapter, the murals are devoid of the “historical importance” necessary to elevate the larger property- the subject of this evaluation- as a CRHR eligible one under Criterion 3 that is less than 50 years old. Hertel, with the production assistance of Sheets Studio employee Denis O’Connor, appears to have completed hundreds of similar murals, historically themed or otherwise, across California and beyond, for over 100 separate Home Savings branches.

Present research yielded no potential for information important to history or pre-history in a manner warranting the eligibility of the subject property under NRHP/ CRHR Criteria D/4. 9 Page of 19 *Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan – Arden branch *Recorded by: Daniel Paul *Date September 13, 2023 x Continuation Update
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ All aspects of the subject property, completed in 1978, are presently less than 50 years old. In order for a less than 50 years old property to be NRHP eligible, it must possess exceptional historic significance in a manner warranting its eligibility under a given Criteria relative to Criterion Consideration G. Similarly, per California PRC 4852(d)(2), a property less than 50 years old can qualify for the California Register of Historical Resources listing if “it can be demonstrated that sufficient time has passed to understand its historical importance.” There appears to be no exceptionally significant aspect of the subject property warranting NRHP eligibility relative to Criterion Consideration G under any of the NRHP Criteria. Relative to the California Register of Historical Resources, although sufficient time has passed whereby Home Savings is now of a past historic chapter, the subject property appears to be devoid of the level of significance warranting its CRHR listing under any Criteria as a historically important property less than 50 years old.

In-part on account of its fairly young age, Home Savings and Loan- Arden branch does not appear to meet any City of Sacramento Register Criteria. Akin to the analysis provided above for NRHP/ CRHR Criterion A/1, the subject property- one of a multitude of later era Home Savings bank branches, is not associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of Sacramento history, nor the history of the region, state or nation, warranting the property’s eligibility under City Criterion i. Research of the Home Savings Arden branch yielded no known associations to the lives of persons historically significant to Sacramento’s past warranting the property’s eligibility under City Criterion ii. Although the subject property includes notable murals purpose-designed and integrated into the architecture as character defining features of it, the murals themselves are not exceptionally distinctive examples of their type, but are instead intact, excellently executed examples of the kind of Home Savings mural seen upon dozens of branches, across Southern California and beyond. The architecture itself, as previously analyzed under Criterion NRHR/ CRHR C/3, is unremarkable for Sacramento. Although the subject building is present in the City’s Mid-Century Modern Historic Context Statement as an example of New Formalist architecture, it is nothing more than that: an example, as opposed to a historically significant one. Another New Formalist example in the Sacramento Mid-Century Modern context statement: the former Metropolitan Life Insurance Building by architect Snooky Lee, of 1963, is more much in keeping to New Formalism’s primary era and commonly ascribed character defining features, including its use of columns, which the Home Savings Building is devoid of. Though referencing it in character, the subject 1978 building is not an exceptionally significant example of the Home Savings style itself, whose signature examples largely pre-date 1972, and until 1968, were each undertaken with the direct involvement of H.F. Ahmanson and Millard Sheets, when Ahmanson suddenly passed, and Sheets hired a steed of in-house architects. Therefore, neither the subject property as a whole nor elements thereof meet City of Sacramento Register criterion iii. Regarding City of Sacramento Register Criterion iv, the subject building received no architectural press whatsoever with its completion, and its architect is presently unknown. Although Millard Sheets may be considered an important creative master, his involvement with the subject building was likely minimal, if it occurred at all, as this building was produced years after he began delegating Sheets studio authority to others, hiring additional in- house architects, and was completed the moment Sheets retired. Relative to City Register Criterion iv., the artist Susan Bright Lautmann Hertel qualifies as an “important creative individual,” and the murals upon the subject building clearly possess artistic merit. Nonetheless, it is questionable that each of the murals is truly a standalone object to be separately analyzed, versus affixed, integrated character defining 10 Page of 19 *Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan – Arden branch *Recorded by: Daniel Paul *Date September 13, 2023 x Continuation Update
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ features of the architecture and spaces for which they were purposely, intentionally designed. In this regard, the Hertel works are important character defining features to an otherwise generic and later-era Home Savings architectural design. As part of the subject building, the subject murals are not of such significance, let alone exceptional significance under City Factor e for properties less than 50 years old, to elevate the total property to Sacramento Register eligibility under City Criterion iv, for associations to an important creative individual, or for high artistic values under Criterion v. Even if the three murals could conceivably be analyzed as a grouping of objects separate from the building, the subject murals are examples of a type that Hertel and O’Connor undertook upon dozens of former Home Savings branches across California and beyond. Though beautiful, masterfully executed, and in two instances locally themed, the level of their significance does not appear to elevate them as exceptionally significant objects less than 50 years old per Factor e, relative to City Register Criteria iv and v.

Research yielded no known likelihood for the subject property to yield information important to history of the prehistory of the City the region, the state or the nation in a manner warranting the property’s Sacramento Register eligibility under Criterion vi.

Integrity
The Home Savings Bank and Loan - Arden branch appears to possess integrity that is fair only. Its integrity of location remains, as the subject property has not been moved. The property’s setting, set back but upon a park-like lawn and acclimated to a prominent intersection from which it is highly visible, all remain intact. The property’s workmanship appears to remain intact, particularly evident upon three masterfully executed murals designed by Susan Hertel. The property’s integrity of design: a 1970s era building with New Formalist design elements intended to reference earlier Home Savings architecture, is generally intact, as is the design of three primary artworks, intended as integral parts of the building itself.

However, what appears to have once been a prominent fountain is now a planter, and the building’s interior spaces appear to have seen modernization activities that likely occurred when the branch was sold to Washington Mutual Bank in 1998. This includes the covering up of bays of textured ceramic block in the shape of a four-pointed star that appear to have run along the base of the teller window program.

Similar tile, gold painted, is seen running the frieze of other Home Savings branches, and such tile may have once adorned the subject building’s frieze, which today reads as a stucco clad box fascia. Although presently unverified, the property likely contained even more artwork than it presently does, if not additional water features at outer, ground-level corners. Even with its present murals, the building, devoid of these elements intended for it and generically modernized, reads as a compromised shell lacking the integrity of feeling it may have once possessed as a fully, art-adorned Home Savings branch. Home Savings designs were total designs down to the smallest details, many of which appear to have been lost, covered, modernized or removed upon the subject property. Related to this likely loss, the buildings integrity of materials remains only in the general sense that its travertine cladding is there, as is the tesserae of its murals. Though compromised, the buildings integrity of association to the Home Savings and Loan Association generally remains, insofar as the building, with its travertine cladding and the security inducing intentions of its solid character, not to mention the continued presence of its three murals, all still remain.
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Works Cited
Abrahamson, Eric John. Building Home: Howard F. Ahmanson and the Politics of the American Dream.

Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013.

Arenson, Adam. Banking on Beauty: Millard Sheets and Midcentury Commercial Architecture in California. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2018. “Bio (Millard Owen Sheets).” Artcloud. Accessed September 12, 2023:
https://mkt.artcloud.com/artist/millard-owen-sheets
City of Sacramento Building Inspections Division. Record Card for 1950 Arden Way. File No. R558F110- 111. May 25,1973.

GEI Consultants Inc. “Mid-Century Modern in the City of Sacramento Historic Context Statement and Survey Results.” Technical report prepared for the City of Sacramento Community Development Department. September 30, 2017.

Home Savings Bank and Loan Association. “America’s Largest” [advertisement]. Sacramento Bee, October 2, 1974: A14.
“Howard F. Ahmanson, 61, Dies; One of Nation's Wealthiest Men; Led Home Savings & Loan in Los Angeles -- Fortune Estimated at $300-Million” New York Times, June 18, 1968: 47.

Rifkind, Carole. A Field Guide to Contemporary American Architecture. New York: Penguin, 2001.

Square I Gallery, “Biography” Susan Bright Lautmann Hertel. Accessed September 12, 2013. https://susanhertel.com/index.php/biography/
“Susan Hertel.” Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles (MCLA). Accessed September 13, 2023. https://www.themcla.org/artist/susan-hertel
Whiffen, Marcus. American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Figure 1. Property sketch map
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Photographs Fallin Steffen, Dudek Environmental Consulting. August 29, 2023.

Photo 1. Front elevation. View: W, SW.

Photo 2. Front elevation with landscape. View: W
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Photo 3. Former fountain with roundabout. View E, SE.

Photo 4. South-side elevation. View: NE.
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Photo 5. Rear elevation. View: E
Photo 6. Recessed corner detail. View: SE.
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Photo 7. Interior lobby from mezzanine. View: NW.

Photo 8. Interior lobby and former work area in background. View NW. 17 Page of 19 *Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan – Arden branch *Recorded by: Daniel Paul *Date September 13, 2023 x Continuation Update
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Photo 9. Susan Hertel lobby mural. View: SE.

Photo 10. Susan Hertel entryway mural, front elevation. View: W 18 Page of 19 *Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan – Arden branch *Recorded by: Daniel Paul *Date September 13, 2023 x Continuation Update
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Photo 11. Susan Hertel entryway mural, rear elevation. View: E. 19 Amy R. Higuera
[email protected]
415.848.4836 Direct
415.848.4801 Fax
Downey Brand LLP
621 Capi tol Mall, 18 th Floor
Sacramento, CA 95814
916.444.1000 Main
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February 20, 2024

VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL ONLY

Sean de Courcy, Preservation Director
City of Sacramento
300 Richards Boulevard, Third Floor
Sacramento, California 95811

E-Mail: [email protected]

Re: Preservation Commission Hearing on Ordinance Listing 1950 Arden Way as Sacramento Landmark (M23- 011)—Historic Resource Evaluation

Dear Mr. de Courcy:

I am writing on behalf of our client, MSD-DV Arden Way, LLC, regarding the Preservation Commission’s upcoming consideration of an Ordinance listing the former Home Savings & Loan Building (Chase Bank or Subject Property) at 1950 Arden Way in the City of Sacramento (City) as a Landmark on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources. Please find enclosed a revised Department of Parks and Recreation evaluation (Updated DPR) prepared by Dudek, which has been updated in response to comments received by the Preservation Director, as well as statements made during the Preservation Director hearing. Also attached hereto, please find a letter from Dudek responding to the City’s Statement of Nomination staff report dated December 21, 2023 and the City’s DPR evaluation (Dudek Letter).

Dudek’s original DPR evaluation, submitted to the City in September, 2023, acknowledges that the Chase Bank is an example of New Formalism architecture in the City, but that the property is not a particularly distinctive example of the style within the context of the State, region, or the City, calling it a “vague, after-the-fact New Formalist building.” (Dudek DPR Evaluation, p. 9.) Accordingly, Dudek’s evaluation determined that the building did not meet the necessary criteria for listing in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), the California Register of Historical Resources (CRHR), or the Sacramento Register of Historic & Cultural Resources (Sacramento Register or Register).

In response to these findings, the City received a number of comments criticizing Dudek’s determination. Despite the fact that Dudek is on the City’s list of pre-approved environmental consultants and its original evaluation was prepared by a senior architectural historian, City staff subsequently issued its own DPR evaluation disagreeing with Dudek’s historical determination.

Sean de Courcy
February 20, 2024

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As further detailed in Dudek’s Updated DPR and Letter, Dudek has taken all information provided by commenters into account and stands by its initial determination that the Subject Property does not represent an exceptional example of the Home Savings and Loan style.

In particular, Dudek’s updated evaluation addresses commenters’ assertions that the murals alone raise the building’s status to the level of historical significance required for listing on the NRHP, CRHR, or the Sacramento Register. All elements of the property are less than 50 years old, and no aspect, including the murals, appear to possess the exceptional significance necessary for listing a property less than 50 years old.

The Dudek Letter also highlights a number of notable omissions, false inferences, and mischaracterizations found in the City’s DPR—all of which serve to undermine its findings.

Based on the attached, we do not believe that the Chase Bank building meets the eligibility requirements for listing on the Sacramento Register, nor the CRHR as the building is neither exceptional nor unique. Because the City’s criteria for listing on the Register have not been met, we respectfully request that the Preservation Commission recommend that the City Council not adopt the proposed Ordinance listing the Chase Bank building as a landmark on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources.

Sincerely,

DOWNEY BRAND LLP

Amy R. Higuera

ARH

Attachments (4):
02a_DPR Home Savings evaluation revised
02b_DPR Home Savings evaluation revised
03a_Dudek Home Savings Response to City DPR
04_Huntington Library research

cc via email: Henry Feuss, Preservation Planner - [email protected]

4027289.2

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Other Ide
ntifier: Home Savings B ank; Home Savings branch no. 51; Washington Mutual Bank; Chase Bank.

DPR 523A (9/2013) *Required information
State of California  The Resources Agency Primary #
DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI #
PRIMARY RECORD Trinomial
NRHP S tatus Code 6Z
Other Listings
Review C ode Reviewer Date
*P2. Location: Not for Publication Unrestricted *a. County Sacramento and (P2c, P2e, and P2b or P2d. Attach a Location Map as necessary.) *b. USGS 7 .5' Quad Date T ; R ; of of Sec ; B.M. c. Address 1950 Arden Way City Sacramento Zip 95815 d. UTM: (Give more than one for large and/or linear resources) Zone , mE/ mN e. Other Locational Data: (e.g., parcel #, directions to resource, elevation, decimal degrees, etc., as appropriate) *P3a. Description: (Describe resource and its major elements. Include design, materials, condition, alterations, size, setting, and boundaries)
Home Savings and Loan- Arden branch, (“Home Savings building”; “Arden branch”) is a three story, rectangular plan New Formalist bank building. The Home Savings building has a flat roof with a prominent, cornice- like, box fascia of block-molded frieze clad in smooth stucco. The building’s primary cladding is travertine marble paneling of veining and gradations vertically aligned. All four sides of the Home Savings building are boldly symmetrical in character with identically handled window bays, each containing a ribbon of four full-height vertical windows of fixed pane bronze reflecting glass set in bronze-tinted aluminum mullions. (Please see continuation sheet page 3) *P3b. Resource Attributes: (List
attributes and codes) HP6.
1-3 Story Commercial Building
*P4. Resources Present: x Building
Structure x Object Site District
Element of District Other
(Isolates, etc.)
P5b. Description of Photo: (view,
date, accession #) Front elevation, view:

Market Street Development LLC
5930 Granite Lake Drive, Ste. 110
Granite Bay, CA 95746
*P8. Recorded by:

Daniel Paul
Dudek Environmental Consulting
1810 13th St #110
Sacramento, CA 95811
*P9. Date Recorded: 01/17/2024
*P10. Survey Type: (Describe)
Intensive
*P11. Report Citation: (Cite survey report and other sources, or enter "none.") none *Attachments: NONE Location Map x Continuation Sheet x Building, Structure, and Object Record Archaeological Record District Record Linear Feature Record Milling Station Record Rock Art Record Artifact Record Photograph Record Other (List):

P5a. Photograph or Drawing

*N
RHP Status Code 6Z*Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan- Arden branch Page
2 of 21
DPR 523B (9/2013) *Required information
State of California  The Resources Agency Primary #
DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI#

BUILDING, STRUCTURE, AND OBJECT RECORD
(This space reserved for official comments.)
(Sketch Map with north arrow required.)
B1. Historic Name: Home Savings and Loan
B2. Common Name: Home Savings Bank; Home Savings
B3. Original Use: Commercial B4. Present Use: Vacant *B5. Architectural Style: New Formalism
*B6. Construction History: (Construction date, alterations, and date of alterations) Tempora
ry Home Savings branch completed onsite in 1974. Temporary branch demolished for subject property, constructed between April 1977 and September 1978 when subject building opened. Acquired by Washington Mutual Bank in March, 1998, and remodeled c. 1998 as Washington Mutual bank branch; reopened as Chase Bank branch March, 2009. *B7. Move
d? X No Yes Unknown Date: Original Location: *B8.

Related Features: Three integrated murals: two mosaic upon the exterior, and one painted lobby mural, by artist Susan Hertel, chevron plan parking lot
B9a. Ar
chitect: unknown b. Builder: unknown
*B10. Significance: Theme N/A Area N/A
Period of
Significance N/A Property Type N/A Applicable Criteria N/A (Discuss importance in terms of historical or architectural context as defined by theme, period, and geographic scope.

Also address integrity.)
Compl
eted in 1978, the Home Savings and Loan - Arden branch building does not appear to have National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), California Register of Historical Resources (CRHR), or Sacramento Register eligibility under any Criteria. Although the Home Savings building includes distinctive murals by noted artist Susan Bright Lautmann Hertel, as character-defining features of the subject building, the murals alone are insufficient to render the subject building and the property as a whole eligible for listing in any registration program. All elements of the subject property are less than 50 years old, and no aspect of the subject property, including the Arden branch building and its character-defining features, appear to possess exceptional significance under any NRHP or Sacramento Register Criteria, nor do these elements possess the “historical importance” necessary for CRHR eligibility for properties less than 50 years old. (please see continuation sheet page 5, and continuation sheet 13 for sketch map) B11. Addit
ional Resource Attributes: (List attributes and codes)
HP 26. Mural
*B12. Ref
erences: Please see continuation sheet page 12.

B13. Rem
arks:
*B14. Evaluator: Daniel Paul
*Date of Evaluation: January 16, 2024

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Description (continued)
The building’s ground level reads as a recessed plinth for the building’s projecting upper massing. Each outer corner at the building’s ground level is cutaway, containing recessed, square -form planters. It is presently unknown if these planters may have once contained the fountains and/or sculpture commonly seen at other Home Savings branches. Concrete slab caps the planters, and the two at the building’s eastward, front-facing corners have iron bar fencing. A ceiling above each planter is gold- orange colored stucco with recessed, square-form lights within it.

The Home Savings and Loan Arden branch building is centered within a parklike triangular-form parcel pointed east toward the intersection of Arden Way and Exposition Boulevard. The building’s sit ing upon its parcel is symmetrical, grand, and highly visible from multiple public rights -of-way. The building’s primary public façade faces the intersection dead-on, commensurate to its triangular parcel. Off this primary point, the building is recessed behind a prominent lawn, and a low, circular landscape element of approximately 60 feet in diameter. The circular element appears to have been a fountain, presently a planter, and a pedestrian roundabout encircles it. Its walkway connects to the building’s centralized entranceway behind it.

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The Home Savings building interior space is rectangular and double height, with open mezzanine spaces off either side. The ground level has flooring of recent stone veneer and a substantial, boxed ceiling light of wood with a crate-like wood member grid overlay. Wood paneling and wood beam railing are part of the design, as are bays of travertine-clad wall at either end. A long bank of multiple teller windows runs the south side of the interior space. The base of the teller window bank is clad in multiple bays of affixed, later-added molded wood panels. One bay off to a side, with its later panel missing, has original cladding of beveled, heavily textured ceramic tile containing a four-pointed star pattern that was present upon other Home Savings branches, indicating similar tile may still be present behind multiple bays. The teller windows are set behind full-height bulletproof security glass. This glass appears to be later addition, as are multiple, blue-colored drop lights present over a carpeted space running the ground floor’s north side, that presumably once included various desks. That space is set behind a centered, stucco- clad baffle wall and wood-clad posts. The blue light fixtures hang from an acoustic drop ceiling with fluorescent lighting.

The east wall over the central public area contains a sizeable, Rousseau-like painted mural of an orange and avocado green naturescape with a young girl holding a doe near trees, flowers, an over -head owl above her, and a lake with geese, with a buck and deer in the background. The integrated, substantially scaled wall mural has wood plank box frame. Upper levels appear to have various individual office units set behind a carpeted circulation areas running the length of the building. Offices off the south- side mezzanine are present behind a sizeable, open, carpet-clad floor space.

Due west, behind the Home Savings building, is a large, blacktopped parking lot of a symmetrical, angled chevron form. The parking lot is axially bisected by a walkway of the same pebbledash treatment as the those seen at the building itself. Additional walkway segments perpendicularly bisect the main axis between various parking rows. The axial walk terminates at a centered segment of low curved wall at the parking lot’s outer, western edge. The parking lot’s outer edges are themselves landscaped with ber ms containing lawn, manicured shrubs, and tree specimens. Small islands of similarly landscaped elements periodically bookend parking rows within the lot, which also contains an enclosed stucco- clad trash receptacle topped with a chain link fence. Light fixtures within the parking lot are black metal post with dual LED units and appear to be a recent addition.

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After three years studying business at the University of Nebraska, Ahmanson moved out west where he studied economics at the University of Southern California, graduating in 1927. Ahmanson worked as a California agent for his father’s old company, the National American Fire Insurance Company, successfully grew it, and ultimately acquired it back. To adorn and architecturally design its first California office, Ahmanson, from out of the blue, wrote a letter to Southern California artist and educator Millard Sheets. (Arenson, 2018: 17-18, 26; New York Times, 1968) Originally from the Southern California community of Pomona, Millard Owen Sheets (1907- 1989) at an early age was recognized for his artistic talents and restless ambition. Of a Regionalist nature that would make its way into later Home Savings art, Sheets’ work was the subject of multiple gallery exhibits just after he graduated Chouinard Art Institute in 1929, and the subject of museum exhibits later in life. His work is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Chicago Art Institute, the National Gallery in Washington D.C., the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among other museums. Sheets was not only a prominent Southern California artist, but as an arts educator for decades, oversaw the art programs at Scripps College and Claremont Graduate School, and in 1953 was hired by the County of Los Angeles to transform the Los Angeles County School of Art. Sheets did so over a ten-year stint, renaming the school Otis College of Art and Design, which still exists to this day. Additionally, Sheets was the art director of the Los Ange les County Fair for 25 years, from 1931 to 1956. Sheets was already a known Southern California figure when Ahmanson first wrote to him. Pleased with Sheet’s design for the National American Fire Insurance Company Los Angeles office, Ahmanson promptly hired Sheets to design and artistically adorn a multitude of forthcoming Home Savings and Loan branches. (Arenson, 2018: 6-7; Artcloud, 2023) As Millard Sheets undertook his own arts and education activities, he opened a Claremont -based design studio with muralists, stained glass artisans, painters, and later architects, whose primary commissions were for Ahmanson’s Home Savings and Loan commissions. Originally a thrift dating back to 1889, Ahmanson acquired the Home Savings and Loan in 1947. Ahmanson and Sheets opened their first collaborative Home Savings bank branch in 1956, located in Beverly Hills, upon Wilshire Boulevard: a primary east-west thoroughfare for Los Angeles. Shortly thereafter, the Home Savings and Loan Association grew rapidly across Southern California, through a creative and novel business and branding

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ approach Ahmanson envisioned and firmly controlled until his 1968 passing. The concept of a bank “branch” was fairly new one in the mid-1950s. Before bank branches, customers would travel to a centralized, often downtown location to undertake person-to-person banking, a model ill-suited for Southern California’s new, postwar suburban development patterns with its decentered topography.

Ahmanson often personally selected potential branch locations, located upon prominent, highly visible intersections. To get a community interested, Ahmanson was aggressive about rapidly constructing even temporary branches until the actual branch was finished, and even the temporary branches included the artwork and other design features commonly associated with Home Savings. The company continued this approach through its existence; one of these temporary branches, 54’ x 99’ and of one story, was constructed in 1973 and present at the site of the subject Arden Way location, before the 1978 of the three-story building now present. (Arenson, 2018: 67, 69, 169; City of Sacramento, 1973; Home Savings Bank and Loan Association, 1974.)
Not just through their ubiquity and visibility, Home Savings became increasingly popular through their art program. Ahmanson himself was a substantial Southern California arts patron. His art collection seeded what became the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and according to former UCLA Chancellor Franklin Murphy, “The Ahmanson Foundation had played a greater role in the cultural life of Southern California than any other single force.” Through his use and employ of Millard Sheets studio, during his lifetime Ahmanson integrated a substantial amount of artwork into all Home Savings and Loan Branches, that he also gave Sheets the liberty to architecturally design. This generous use of artwork onto consistently handled building designs- commonly low-slung, largely windowless, monumental and travertine clad buildings that became a form of Home Savings branding. Intended metaphors of the designs were timelessness, security, and tradition, all undertaken upon architecture that was neither strictly Modernist nor Neoclassical, though often monumental, fortified or temple-like in their presence. (Abrahamson, 2013:
264; Arenson, 2018: 64)
The buildings frequently featured prominent murals, often dominating a front elevation and visible from the car, focused upon local history themes that Sheets’ in-house historian Nancy Colbath researched at local history rooms and libraries. The artwork made the branches not only beautiful and familiar, but the local theming connected each to its respective place. According to Ahmanson, “Using as much art as we did, that was different than anything else that had been done at that time. They went crazy for it […] they stood in line on Wilshire Boulevard (The first HS&L location) a block and a half long waiting to put money in, in the savings and loan […] It paid for itself in the first ten days. It paid for the land, it paid for the building, it paid for the furnishings, landscaping. Everything. […] They sent out questionnaires to confirm what was happening, asking, “why did you choose Home Savings?” Customers answered, ‘We like to be associated with something beautiful.’” According to Home Savings historian Adam Arenson, “The Home Savings artwork was effective because it functioned in many registers at once: as a nominal history lesson but also as a beautiful aesthetic object, as a depiction of local distinctiveness but also as art framed by the confines of the Home Savings style.” (Arenson, 2018: 7, 180) Though Home Savings grew, and remained, as before, the largest savings and loan in the U.S., the entity saw foundational changes over the course of the 1970s. Howard Ahmanson died in 1968, the same year that the California State Board of Architectural Examiners investigated Millard Sheets for his referring to

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ himself as an architect, when he was, in fact, not. Sheets claimed that he never formally identified himself as one, though the design ideas, undertaken with licensed but uncredited architects, were his. After Ahmanson’s passing, Home Savings and other Ahmanson companies became publicly traded, quickly expanding across the state, and after 1978, beyond it as well. (Arenson, 2018: 170) Over the course of the 1970s, Millard Sheets gradually delegated more and more of his studio’s activities and responsibilities to others. There is conflicting information in the public record regarding the year that Millard Sheets retired and gave up control of his studio to others. In Banking on Beauty, Dr. Arenson writes that Sheets “completely retired” by the end of 1977, and by 1978 he was often in front of his easel in Gualala, CA. Elsewhere Arenson states that “Millard Sheets was actively involved in all Home Savings commissions done by his studio until 1980.” Banking on Beauty mentions that Sheets had a hard time giving up complete control, while also implying that “full control of design and fabrication [was] handed over” to other Sheets Studio artists around this time, who experienced “their own burst of creativity.” (Arenson, 2018, 209-211; Arenson, October 3, 2023).

By the end of 1977, as the subject building, which opened the following year, was being constructed, Sheets appointed artist Susan Lautmann Hertel (last name “Hertel” after her 1958 marriage) his primary assistant. She also served as President of Millard Sheets and Associates Design Incorporated (formerly Millard Sheets Designs, Inc.) for over 25 years. Hertel designed the two murals and large lobby painting associated with the subject Arden branch. (Arenson, 2018: 208-209) Susan Bright Lautmann Hertel (1930-1993) was born in Evanston Illinois, raised in Highland Park Illinois, and moved to California to attend art school at Scripps College in Claremont, CA., and studied art at the Kaan Art Institute in Los Angeles. At Scripps, she had Millard Sheets as an art teacher and graduated in 1952, as Sheets was on the precipice of a work windfall with Ahmanson for the Home Savings company.

Shortly thereafter Sheets hired her as his assistant, and she supervised the design of any variety Home Savings artworks, including murals, for the Sheets design studio. Hertel and Millard Sheets both had a love of horses, and Hertel, who opened two animal shelters later in life, had a love of animals in general - a commonly seen theme in any variety of her Home Savings artworks, historical vignette or otherwise.

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ New Formalism was commonly seen upon institutional architecture of different kinds, including banking institutions, public and governmental buildings and college campuses. In its Classicism, New Formalism was Modernism of a conservative bent. According to architectural historian Marcus Whiffen, New Formalism was a sensory architecture that included “self-contained free-standing blocks with strictly symmetrical elevations, heavy projecting roof slabs, smooth- if not glossy- wall surfaces, and thicker more modeled columns.” New Formalist buildings are commonly a Modern take on temple- like, Classical design in terms of its sense of harmony, balance, proportion, ratio, and symmetry, but without the Classical ornament. Thusly, according to Whiffen, New Formalism is a design “showing a Catholicity of taste that forbids one to classify the movement as a second Neo-Classical revival.” It’s primary examples completed by 1965, include the temple-like Classicism of Philip Johnson (Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth TX, 1961) , the decorative Modernist and ornamental tendencies of Minoru Yamasaki (Northwestern National Life Insurance Company, Minneapolis MN, 1962), and even the exoticism of Edward Durrell Stone, with his decorative breezeblock screens in varying patterns (U.S . Embassy, Delhi, India, 1959). In Los Angeles, Stone himself designed travertine-clad New Formalist twin towers flanking a Bernini-inspired courtyard and arcade as the company’s new Wilshire Boulevard headquarters in 1970, two years after Ahmanson’s passing, and named in his honor. In keeping with the brand, this design appears to have been intentionally conservative. By the late 1960s, a variety cultural, geopolitical, and economic changes, including the advent of the US within post-Fordist globalism, rendered New Formalism anachronistic. (Whiffen, 1992: 257, 260-266; Arenson, 2018: 162) Carole Rifkind, in A Field Guide to Contemporary Architecture, refers to New Formalism as “Modernist Classic,” mentioning its use of travertine or marble sheathing and raised podiums. But perhaps Modernist Classic’s most important feature to Rifkind is the design system’s use of the column as a compositional device, stating “the inherent structural logic of the colonnade links [New Formalism] to both Classic and Modernist styles.” Within the Sacramento Mid-Century Modern Historic Context Statement, it is the Yamasaki-esque former Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Building, designed by architect Sooky Lee, 1963, that is the purer New Formalist expression. A vague, after-the-fact New Formalist building, the Arden Way Home Savings building possesses no columns whatsoever. However, its late-1970s design references another tendency of the decade, what Rifkind calls “Abstract Monumentality,” of precedents with Louis Kahn, where “sheer bulk” coupled to formal abstraction, is used to achieve monumental effects and presence. Likely intentional, as portrayed upon the subject building, any traces of New Formalism and abstract monumentality are handled in staid, safe symmetry, especially compared to the sculptural Brutalism, monopitch and sharply cut Shed Style, or the prismatic mirror glass Late- Modernism then in- vogue, all of which were box-breaking. (GEI Consultants, Inc., 2017, 3-13 – 3-14; Rifkind, 2001: 115-116; 124)
Evaluation
Relative to NRHP/ CRHR Criterion A/1, a Home Savings Bank and Loan branch could have historic significance for associations to Home Savings and Loan Association as the largest savings and loan company in the US over decades. The company continued as be the largest of its kind through the 1970s, through the mid-80s savings and loan crisis which did not affect the company, and until its 1998 sale to Washington Mutual Bank. However, under Criterion A/1 a property’s period of significance would appear

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ to run from the 1956 completion of the first bank branch involving Ahmanson and Sheets, up until 1972, after Ahmanson passed and Sheets began to delegate the daily work; a year when the company went public and began a new expansion beyond Southern California. Southern California was Home Saving’s primary sphere of influence and in-turn the region’s specific context of car-oriented post-war suburbia informed all aspects of Ahmanson’s bank branch model. As one of 80 branches completed after Ahmanson’s passing- Arden is branch #51- the subject property’s association to the Home Savings and Loan Company exists but does not appear to be a historically significant expression of the Home Savings and Loan Association, which was the largest of its kind in the country at that time.

The Home Savings and Loan Arden branch does not appear to have NRHP or CRHR associative significance under Criterion B/2. Howard Ahmanson, the primary figure of significance that earlier -era branches might have had a direct and important historic association with, had passed away ten years before the subject property was finished. The company at the time was overseen by his nephews: Bill and Bob Ahmanson, who do not appear to be historically significant persons in a manner warranting the eligibility of the subject property under NRHP/ CRHR Criterion B/2.

The subject property does not appear to be significant under NRHP/ CRHR Criterion C/3. Likely intended as an update to an older Home Savings style, its architectural design reads as diluted New Formalism, well after that design system’s historically significant period, which coincided with the imperial-like era of American power during the 1950s and 1960s. The subject building’s architectural tendencies toward abstract monumentality render it a 1970s-era design, but not a historically significant example of that tendency. The designs for which Home Savings are historically associated were done with the direct input of Ahmanson and Sheets, or by the Sheets Studio for a few years after Ahmanson’s passing when they began to implement some variations in their massing and a change in the artwork, which in some ways became more creative. Although the subject building hews to the solid, secure, and conservative character of the earlier branches, the earlier “two story jewel box branches,” have a low -slung, encasing character, diminutive but solid, with even fewer windows than the Arden branch possesses, and even more artwork. The earlier branches have clear precedent with turn-of-the-century works such as Sullivan’s “jewel box” bank branches and Joseph Maria Olbrich’s Vienna Secession Building, completed in 1897. The subject building, within its park-like landscape, larger scale, and tinted window banks, reads as a 1970s-era regional office building, rather than a typical Home Savings bank branch. (Arenson, 2018:
18, 33, 38, 64).

The architect of record for the former Home Savings and Loan branch at 1950 Arden Way was not Millard Sheets. Instead, the firm of record was likely Frank Homolka and Associates of Long Beach, CA, as Homolka is mentioned repeatedly by historian Adam Arenson in his research files (Arenson, October 3, 2023). On pages 183 and 184 of Banking on Beauty, Dr. Arenson states of the 70s-era work that “most of the designs were by Frank Homolka and Associates of Long Beach, with Homolka, his fellow architect Jess Gilkerson and interior designer Don Betzsold working closely with Home Savings, the Millard Sheets Studio, and the engineering firm of Bole and Wilson.” As quoted in Banking on Beauty, according to structural engineer Frank Bole, by outsourcing the architectural and engineering work, “Home Savings could use Sheets for what we really want him for- these classic murals.” By the time Home Savings Arden

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Way was designed, Sheets had already been investigated by the California State Board of Architectural Examiners for presenting himself as an architect, though he was not one (Arenson, 2018: 170, 183-184).

In many easily located press clippings regarding Home Savings architecture through the 1970s and early 1980s, it is Frank Homolka, not Millard Sheets, who is credited as the architect of record for a multitude of branches and other buildings. Other known projects by the Homolka firm include various branches of California Federal Savings and Loan, the Studio Theater at California State University Long Beach, San Jose Savings and Loan Branches, and the 1977 Long Beach City Hall complex, in which the firm was one part of a larger collaboration called Allied Architects. Based on this body of work, the Homolka firm does not appear to be a practice associated with a master architect as described in National Register Bulletin 15, page 20. Even if Sheets asserted himself as the program design director, which he did, Frank Homolka is still the architect of these branches, and in all likelihood, the architect of Arden Way, regardless of how much creative and aesthetic direction Millard Sheets gave Homolka. Sheets is not a master architect or even an architect (Pacific Coast Architecture Database (Michelson), 2005-2023; Arenson, October 3, 2023; Arenson, 2018: 184; City of Los Angeles Building Permit, #1964LA81765, US Department of the Interior (National Park Service), 1997: 20; Santa Maria Times, Jul 16, 1981: 2; McDowell, 1973: 56; Los Angeles Times, Apr 9, 1978: 144; South Pasadena Review, Nov 28, 1984, Sutton, 1977: 29; Los Angeles Times, 1972.).

Though presently unknown, the Arden branch may have once featured additional sculptures and fountains, or the hanging interior fabric art pieces the company, increasingly concerned with cost -cutting through the 1970s, preferred over the stained glass in earlier-seen branches.

Perhaps the most significant character defining features associated with the building are the three Susan Hertel murals. However, as character-defining features of the building, the murals are not of such significance to elevate the overall design and architecture of the subject property to a level required to meet the exceptional importance required under NRHP Criteria Consideration G for properties that are less than 50 years of age. Under the CRHR Criteria, enough time has passed to develop a historical perspective of the murals as character-defining features of the building, and they were found to lack the necessary significance to elevate the property as a whole, which is the subject of this evaluation, for listing in any registration program. Hertel, with the production assistance of Sheets Studio employee Denis O’Connor, appears to have completed hundreds of similar murals, historically themed or otherwise, across California and beyond, for over 100 separate Home Savings branches.

Similarly, numerous Home Savings and Loan buildings were built in Sacramento, the region, or the state.

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Boulevard in Elk Grove, 7895 Lichen Drive in Citrus Heights, 8859 Madison Avenue in Fair Oaks, and 11200 Gold Express Drive in Gold River. (Sacramento Bee, August 11, 1975: 22; Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Public Information Center, 1998: 7-159, 7160) According to Dr. Arenson’s Google Maps database, and verified against Google Street View in December 2023, there remain over 30 examples of former Home Savings bank buildings across California that possess their original Sheets Studio mosaics, including eight branches in Northern California. This count does not include the remaining Sheets Studio mosaics for other commissions, of which there appear to be many across California alone. The fact that there are over 30 Home Savings branch examples with mosaics that remain across the state is a substantial number that does not appear to constitute “rarity,” especially for a company that ceased to exist over 25 years ago. Dr. Arenson’s Google Map geocoding indicates that of all the known Sheets Studio Home Savings projects in the Sacramento area, none are identified as demolished. (Arenson, Oct 13, [2023])
Present research yielded no potential for information important to history or pre-history in a manner warranting the eligibility of the subject property under NRHP/ CRHR Criteria D/4.

All aspects of the subject property, completed in 1978, are presently less than 50 years old. In order for a property that is less than 50 years old to be NRHP eligible, it must possess exceptional historic significance in a manner warranting its eligibility under a given Criteria relative to Criteri a Consideration G.

Similarly, per 14 CCR § 4852(d)(2), a property less than 50 years old can qualify for listing in the California Register of Historical Resources if “it can be demonstrated that sufficient time has passed to understand its historical importance.” There appears to be no exceptionally significant aspect of the subject property warranting NRHP eligibility relative to Criterion Consideration G under any of the NRHP Criteria. Regarding the California Register of Historical Resources, sufficient time has passed to evaluate the Home Savings and Loan Arden branch property as a whole for any potential significance it may possess. The evaluation found that the subject property as a whole lacks the level of significance required to meet any of the criteria for listing in the CRHR.

The Home Savings and Loan Arden branch also does not meet any of the City of Sacramento Register Criteria. Akin to the analysis provided above for NRHP/ CRHR Criterion A/1, the subject property is not eligible under City Criterion I because it is one of a multitude of late-era Home Savings bank branches and is not associated with any known events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of Sacramento history, nor the history of the region, state or nation. Additionally, research of the Home Savings and Loan Arden branch yielded no known associations with the lives of persons historically significant to Sacramento’s past that warrants eligibility under City Criterion ii. Although the subject property includes notable murals that were purpose-designed and integrated into the architecture of the building, the focus of the evaluation was the Home Savings building and the property as a whole.

The evaluation considered the potential significance of the murals, but only as character defining features of the building and the property as a whole and not for any potential significance that they may possess individually as objects or works of art. With regard to the overall architecture of the property, as previously analyzed under NRHP and CRHR Criterion C/3, for the evaluation found that the Home Savings and Loan Arden branch is not a particularly good example of New Formalist design principles, nor does it

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ represent a distinctive example of Late-Modern architecture in Sacramento. Although the subject building is mentioned in the City’s Mid-Century Modern Historic Context Statement as an example of New Formalist architecture, it is nothing more than that: an example, as opposed to a historically significant one. Another New Formalist example in the Sacramento Mid-Century Modern context statement is the former Metropolitan Life Insurance Building that was designed by architect Snooky Lee in 1963. This building is more much in keeping with New Formalism’s primary era during the mid-1950s and 1960s and the style’s commonly ascribed character defining features, including its use of columns, which is lacking in the Home Savings and Loan Arden branch building Though referencing it in character, the subject 1978 building is not an exceptionally significant example of the Home Savings style itself . Significant signature examples largely pre-date 1972, and until 1968, were each undertaken with the direct involvement of H.F.

Ahmanson and Millard Sheets. When Ahmanson suddenly passed, Sheets hired a steed of in-house architects. Therefore, the subject property as a whole lacks the necessary significance to meet City of Sacramento Register criterion iii. Regarding City of Sacramento Register Criterion iv, the subject building received no architectural press whatsoever with its completion. Although Millard Sheets may be considered an important creative master and was involved to some degree with the design of the subject building, he is not considered the architect of record. The architect of the subject building is presumed to be Frank Homolka & Associates, according to Adam Arenson, but this information could not be confirmed through building permit records or other sources. Relative to City Register Criterion iv., the artist Susan Bright Lautmann Hertel qualifies as an “important creative individual,” and the murals appear to have some artistic merit. However, as affixed, integrated character-defining features of the building for which they were purposely, intentionally designed, they do not render the overall architecture and design of the building and the property as a whole eligible for listing under local Criterion iv or v.

Integr
ity
The Home Savings and Loan Arden branch possess only a fair degree of integrity. Its integrity of location remains, as the subject property has not been moved. The property’s setting, set back but upon a park- like lawn and acclimated to a prominent intersection from which it is highly visible, remains intact. The property’s workmanship also remains intact, and is particularly evident in the three murals executed by Susan Hertel. The property’s integrity of design is generally intact. As a 1970s-era building with some New Formalist design elements that are intended to reference earlier Home Savings architecture, the property as a whole is generally intact. However, what appears to have once been a prominent fountain is now a planter, and the building’s interior spaces appear to have seen modernization activities that likely occurred when the branch was sold to Washington Mutual Bank in 1998. This includes the covering up of bays of textured ceramic block in the shape of a four-pointed star that appear to have run along the base of the teller window program. Similar tile and gold painting is characteristic of the frieze of other Home Savings branches, and such tile may have once adorned the subject building’s frieze, which today reads

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ as a stucco clad box fascia. Although presently unverified, the property likely contained even more artwork than it presently does, if not additional water features at outer, ground- level corners. Even with its present murals, the building, devoid of these elements intended for it and generically modernized, reads as a compromised shell lacking the integrity of feeling it may have once possessed as a fully, art- adorned Home Savings branch. Home Savings designs were total designs down to the smallest detail s, many of which appear to have been lost, covered, modernized or removed from the subject property.

Related to this likely loss, the buildings integrity of materials remains only in the general sense that its travertine cladding is there, as is the tesserae of its murals. Though compromised, the building ’s integrity of association with the Home Savings and Loan Association generally remains, insofar as the building, with its travertine cladding and the security inducing intentions of its solid character, not to mention the continued presence of its three murals, all still remain.

Works Cited
Abrahamson, Eric John. Building Home: Howard F. Ahmanson and the Politics of the American Dream.

Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013.

Rifkind, Carole. A Field Guide to Contemporary American Architecture. New York: Penguin, 2001.

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Whiffen, Marcus. American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Fig
ure 1. Property sketch map

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Photographs Fallin Steffen, Dudek Environmental Consulting. August 29, 2023.

Pho
to 1. Front elevation. View: W, SW.

Pho
to 2. Front elevation with landscape. View: W

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Pho
to 3. Former fountain with roundabout. View E, SE.

Pho
to 4. South-side elevation. View: NE.

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Pho
to 5. Rear elevation. View: E
Pho
to 6. Recessed corner detail. View: SE.

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Pho
to 7. Interior lobby from mezzanine. View: NW.

Pho
to 8. Interior lobby and former work area in background. View NW.

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Pho
to 9. Susan Hertel lobby mural. View: SE.

Pho
to 10. Susan Hertel entryway mural, front elevation. View: W

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Pho
to 11. Susan Hertel entryway mural, rear elevation. View: E.

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P1. Other Identifier: Home Savings Bank; Home Savings branch no. 51; Washington Mutual Bank; Chase Bank.

*P3b. Resource Attributes: (List
attributes and codes) HP6.
1-3 Story Commercial Building
*P4. Resources Present: x Building
 Structure x Object  Site  District
 Element of District  Other
(Isolates, etc.)
P5b. Description of Photo: (view,
date, accession #) Front elevation, view:

NW. August 29, 2023. Fallin Steffen
*P6. Date Constructed/Age and
Source: x Historic  Prehistoric
 Both
1978; City of Sacramento, Building
Inspections Division Record Card,
April 8, 1977.
*P7. Owner and Address:

Market Street Development LLC
5930 Granite Lake Drive, Ste. 110
Granite Bay, CA 95746
*P8. Recorded by:

Daniel Paul
Dudek Environmental Consulting
1810 13th St #110
Sacramento, CA 95811
*P9. Date Recorded:
09/13/2301/17/2024
*P10. Survey Type: (Describe)
Intensive
*P11. Report Citation : (Cite survey report and other sources, or enter "none.") none *Attachments: NONE Location Map x Continuation Sheet x Building, Structure, and Object Record Archaeological Record District Record Linear Feature Record Milling Station Record Rock Art Record Artifact Record Photograph Record  Other (List):

P5a. Photograph or Drawing

*Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan- Arden branch *NRHP Status Code 6Z

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DPR 523B (9/2013) *Required information
State of California
The Resources Agency Primary #
DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI#

*B7. Moved? X No Yes Unknown Date: Original Location: *B8.

Related Features: Three integrated murals: two mosaic upon the exterior, and one painted lobby mural, by artist Susan Hertel. , chevron plan parking lot

B9a. Architect: unknown b. Builder: unknown *B10. Significance: Theme N/A Area N/A

Period of Significance N/A Property Type Commercial N/A Applicable Criteria N/A (Discuss importance in terms of historical or architectural context as defined by theme, period, and geographic scope.

Also address integrity.)

Completed in 1978, the Home Savings and Loan - Arden branch building does not appear to have National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), California Register of Historical Resources (CRHR), or Sacramento Register eligibility under any Criteria. Although the Home Savings building includes distinctive mu rals by noted artist Susan Bright Lautmann Hertel, as objects, the murals do not appearcharacter-defining features of such significance whereby the subject property, orbuilding, the murals alone are insufficient to render the muralssubject building and the property as a grouping within it, elevate the larger property to whole eligible for listing in any level of historic significance.registration program. All elements of the subject property are less than 50 years old, and no aspect of the subject property, including its the Arden branch building and/or its artworkcharacter-defining features, appear to possess exceptional significance under any NRHP or Sacramento Register Criteria, nor do these elements possess the “historical importance” necessary for CRHR eligibility for properties less than 50 years old. (please see continuation sheet page 5, and continuation sheet 13 for sketch map)

B11. Additional Resource Attributes: (List attributes and codes) HP

26. Mural

*B12. References: Please see continuation sheet page 12.

B13. Remarks:
*B14. Evaluator: Daniel Paul
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Sheets did so over a ten-year stint, renaming the school Otis College of Art and Design, which still exists to this day. Additionally, Sheets was the art director of the Los AnglesAngeles County Fair for 25 years, from 1931 to 1956. Sheets was already a known Southern California figure when Ahmanson first wrote to him. Pleased with Sheet’s design for the National American Fire Insurance Company Los Angeles office, Ahmanson promptly hired Sheets to design and artistically adorn a multitude of forthcoming Home Savings and Loan branches. (Arenson, 2018: 6-7; Artcloud, 2023) As Millard Sheets undertook his own arts and education activities, he opened a Claremont-based design studio with muralists, stained glass artisans, painters, and later architects, whose primary commissions were for Ahmanson’s Home Savings and Loan commissions. Originally a thrift dating back to 1889, Ahmanson acquired the Home Savings and Loan in 1947. Ahmanson and Sheets opened their first collaborative Home Savings bank branch in 1956, located in Beverly Hills, upon Wilshire Boulevard: a Page of 19 *Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan – Arden branch *Recorded by: Daniel Paul *Date September 13, 2023January 17, 2024 x Continuation  Update DPR 523L (9/2013
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Ahmanson often personally selected potential branch locations, located upon prominent, highly visible intersections. To get a community interested, Ahmanson was aggressive about rapidly constructing even temporary branches until the actual branch was finished, and even the temporary branches included the artwork and other design features commonly associated with Home Savings. The company continued this approach through its existence; one of these temporary branches, 54’ x 99’ and of one story, was constructed in 1973 and present at the site of the subject Arden Way location, before the 1978 of the three-story building now present. (Arenson, 2018: 67, 69, 169; City of Sacramento, 1973; Home Savings Bank and Loan Association, 1974.)
Not just through their ubiquity and visibility, Home Savings became increasingly popular through their art program. Ahmanson himself was a substantial Southern California arts patron. His art collection seeded what became the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and according to former UCLA Chancellor Franklin Murphy, “The Ahmanson Foundation had played a greater role in the cultural life of Southern California than any other single force.” Through his use and employ of Millard Sheets studio, during his lifetime Ahmanson integrated a substantial amount of artwork into all Home Savings and Loan Branches, that he also gave Sheets the liberty to architecturally design. This generous use of artwork onto consistently handled building designs- commonly low-slung, largely windowless, monumental and travertine clad buildings that became a form of Home Savings branding. Intended metaphors of the designs were timelessness, security, and tradition, all undertaken upon architecture that was neither strictly Modernist nor Neoclassical, though often monumental, fortified or temple-like in their presence. (Abrahamson, 2013:
264; Arenson, 2018: 64)
The buildings frequently featured prominent murals, often dominating a front elevation and visible from the car, focused upon local history themes that Sheets’ in-house historian Nancy Colbath researched at local history rooms and libraries. The artwork made the branches not only beautiful and familiar, but the local theming connected each to its respective place. According to Ahmanson, “Using as much art as we did, that was different than anything else that had been done at that time. They went crazy for it […] they stood in line on Wilshire Boulevard (The first HS&L location) a block and a half long waiting to put money in, in the savings and loan […] It paid for itself in the first ten days. It paid for the land, it paid for the building, it paid for the furnishings, landscaping. Everything. […] They sent out questionnaires to confirm what was happening, asking, “why did you choose Home Savings?” Customers answered, ‘We like to be associated with something beautiful.’” According to Home Savings historian Adam Arenson, “The Home Savings artwork was effective because it functioned in many registers at once: as a nominal history lesson but also as a beautiful aesthetic object, as a depiction of local distinctiveness but also as art framed by the confines of the Home Savings style.” (Arenson, 2018: 7, 180) Page of 19 *Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan – Arden branch *Recorded by: Daniel Paul *Date September 13, 2023January 17, 2024 x Continuation  Update DPR 523L (9/2013
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Though Home Savings grew, and remained, as before, the largest savings and loan in the U.S., the entity saw foundational changes over the course of the 1970s. Howard Ahmanson died in 1968, the same year that the California State Board of Architectural Examiners investigated Millard Sheets for his referring to himself as an architect, when he was, in fact, not. Sheets claimed that he never formally identified himself as one, though the design ideas, undertaken with licensed but uncredited architects, were his. After Ahmanson’s passing, Home Savings and other Ahmanson companies became publicly traded, quickly expanding across the state, and after 1978, beyond it as well. (Arenson, 2018: 170) Millard Sheets relocated to Gualala- a seaside town in Northern California in 1968, and over the course of the 1970s, gradually delegated more and more of his studio’s activities and responsibilities to others.Over the course of the 1970s, Millard Sheets gradually delegated more and more of his studio’s activities and responsibilities to others. There is conflicting information in the public record regarding the year that Millard Sheets retired and gave up control of his studio to others. In Banking on Beauty, Dr. Arenson writes that Sheets “completely retired” by the end of 1977, and by 1978 he was often in front of his easel in Gualala, CA. Elsewhere Arenson states that “Millard Sheets was actively involved in all Home Savings commissions done by his studio until 1980.” Banking on Beauty mentions that Sheets had a hard time giving up complete control, while also implying that “full control of design and fabrication [was] handed over” to other Sheets Studio artists around this time, who experienced “their own burst of creativity.” (Arenson, 2018, 209-211; Arenson, October 3, 2023).

By the end of 1977, as the subject building, which opened the following year, was being constructed, Millard Sheets fully retired. As he did, Sheets appointed artist Susan Lautmann Hertel (last name “Hertel” after her 1958 marriage) his primary assistant for over 25 years,. She also served as President of Millard Sheets and Associates Design Incorporated (formerly Millard Sheets Designs, Inc .)..) for over 25 years.

Hertel designed the two murals and large lobby painting associated with the subject Arden branch. (Arenson, 2018: 208-209)
Susan Bright Lautmann Hertel (1930-1993) was born in Evanston Illinois, raised in Highland Park Illinois, and moved to California to attend art school at Scripps College in Claremont, CA., and studied art at the Kaan Art Institute in Los Angeles. At Scripps, she had Millard Sheets as an art teacher and graduated in 1952, as Sheets was on the precipice of a work windfall with Ahmanson for the Home Savings company.

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ New Formalism is a Modernist variant strongly informed by Classicism, while avoiding its most obvious decorative design tropes. The design system is associated with a specific mid-1950s to mid-1960s period:
an imperial-like era of American economic abundance, expressions of power, cultural superiority, timelessness, and security. Ahmanson’s vision for Home Savings not only occurred at time, but as the largest savings and loan in the US, also expressed that American moment.

New Formalism was commonly seen upon institutional architecture of different kinds, including banking institutions, public and governmental buildings and college campuses. In its Classicism, New Formalism was Modernism of a conservative bent. According to architectural historian Marcus Whiffen, New Formalism was a sensory architecture that included “self-contained free-standing blocks with strictly symmetrical elevations, heavy projecting roof slabs, smooth- if not glossy- wall surfaces, and thicker more modeled columns.” New Formalist buildings are commonly a Modern take on temple-like, Classical design in terms of its sense of harmony, balance, proportion, ratio, and symmetry, but without the Classical ornament. Thusly, according to Whiffen, New Formalism is a design “showing a Catholicity of taste that forbids one to classify the movement as a second Neo-Classical revival.” It’s primary examples completed by 1965, include the temple-like Classicism of Philip Johnson (Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth TX, 1961) , the decorative Modernist and ornamental tendencies of Minoru Yamasaki (Northwestern National Life Insurance Company, Minneapolis MN, 1962), and even the exoticism of Edward Durrell Stone, with his of decorative breezeblock screens in varying patterns (U.S. Embassy, Delhi, India, 1959). In Los Angeles, Stone himself designed travertine-clad New Formalist twin towers flanking a Bernini-inspired courtyard and arcade as the company’s new Wilshire Boulevard headquarters in 1970, two years after Ahmanson’s passing, and named in his honor. In keeping with the brand, this design appears to have been intentionally conservative. By the late 1960s, a variety cultural, geopolitical, and economic changes, including the advent of the US within post-Fordist globalism, rendered New Formalism anachronistic. (Whiffen, 1992: 257, 260-266; Arenson, 2018: 162) Carole Rifkind, in A Field Guide to Contemporary Architecture, refers to New Formalism as “Modernist Classic,” mentioning its use of travertine or marble sheathing and raised podiums. But perhaps Modernist Classic’s most important feature to Rifkind is the design system’s use of the column as a compositional device, stating “the inherent structural logic of the colonnade links [New Formalism] to both Classic and Modernist styles.” Within the Sacramento Mid-Century Modern Historic Context Statement, it is the Yamasaki-esque former Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Building, designed by architect Sooky Lee, 1963, that is the purer New Formalist expression. A vague, after-the-fact New Formalist building, the Arden PlaceWay Home Savings building possesses no columns whatsoever. However, its late-1970s design references another tendency of the decade, what Rifkind calls “Abstract Monumentality,” of precedents with Louis Kahn, where “sheer bulk” coupled to formal abstraction, is used to achieve monumental effects and presence. Likely intentional, as portrayed upon the subject building, any traces of New Formalism and abstract monumentality are handled in staid, safe symmetry, especially compared to the sculptural Brutalism, monopitch and sharply cut Shed Style, or the prismatic mirror glass Late- Modernism then in-vogue, all of which were box-breaking. (GEI Consultants, Inc., 2017, 3-13 – 3-14; Rifkind, 2001: 115-116; 124)
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ Relative to NRHP/ CRHR Criterion A/1, a Home Savings Bank and Loan branch could have historic significance for associations to Home Savings and Loan Association as the largest savings and loan company in the US over decades. The company continued as be the largest of its kind through the 1970s, through the mid-80s savings and loan crisis which did not affect the company, and until its 1998 sale to Washington Mutual Bank. However, under Criterion A/1 a property’s period of significance would appear to run from the 1956 completion of the first bank branch involving Ahmanson and Sheets, up until 1972, after Ahmanson passed and Sheets began to delegate the daily work; a year when the company went public and began a new expansion beyond Southern California. Southern California was Home Saving’s primary sphere of influence and in-turn the region’s specific context of car-oriented post-war suburbia informed all aspects of Ahmanson’s bank branch model. As one of 80 branches completed after Ahmanson’s passing- Arden is branch #51- the subject property’s association to the Home Savings and Loan Company exists but does not appear to be a historically significant expression of the Home Savings and Loan Association as, which was the largest of its kind in the country at that time.

The Home Savings and Loan - Arden branch does not appear to have NRHP or CRHR eligibilityassociative significance under Criterion B/2. Howard Ahmanson, the primary figure of significance that earlier-era branches might have had a direct and important historic significance toassociation with, had passed away ten years before the subject property was finished. The company at the time was overseen by his nephews: Bill and Bob Ahmanson, who do not appear to be historically significant persons in a manner warranting the eligibility of the subject property under NRHP/ CRHR Criterion B/2.

The subject property does not appear to have eligibilitybe significant under NRHP/ CRHR Criterion C/3.

Likely intended as an update to an older Home Savings style, its architectural design reads as a diluted New Formalism, well after that design system’s historically significant examples, that once expressed an period, which coincided with the imperial-like era of American moment over by the end of power during the 1950s and 1960s. The subject building’s architectural tendencies toward abstract monumentality render it a 70s1970s-era design, but not a historically significant example of that tendency. The designs for which Home Savings isare historically associated were done with the direct input of Ahmanson and Sheets, or by the Sheets Studio for a few years after Ahmanson’s passing when they began to seeimplement some variations in their massing and a change in the artwork, which in some mannersways became more creative. Although the subject building hews to the solid, secure, and conservative character of the earlier branches, the earlier “two story jewel box branches,” have a low-slung, encasing character, diminutive but solid, with even fewer windows than the Arden branch possesses, and even more artwork. The earlier branches have clear precedent with turn-of-the-century works such as Sullivan’s “jewel box” bank branches and Joseph Maria Olbrich’s Vienna Secession Building, completed in 1897. The subject building, within its park-like landscape, larger scale, and tinted window banks, reads as a 70s1970s-era regional office building more, rather than a typical Home Savings bank branch. (Arenson, 2018: 18, 33, 38, 64).

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ 2023). On pages 183 and 184 of Banking on Beauty, Dr. Arenson states of the 70s-era work that “most of the designs were by Frank Homolka and Associates of Long Beach, with Homolka, his fellow architect Jess Gilkerson and interior designer Don Betzsold working closely with Home Savings, the Millard Sheets Studio, and the engineering firm of Bole and Wilson.” As quoted in Banking on Beauty, according to structural engineer Frank Bole, by outsourcing the architectural and engineering work, “Home Savings could use Sheets for what we really want him for- these classic murals.” By the time Home Savings Arden Way was designed, Sheets had already been investigated by the California State Board of Architectural Examiners for presenting himself as an architect, though he was not one (Arenson, 2018: 170, 183-184).

Perhaps the most significant character defining features associated with the building are the three Susan Hertel murals themselves. But even apart from the . However, as character-defining features of the building, if such an analysis was possible, the three murals as “objects” for the purposes of the present analysis are not of such significance to elevate the overall design and architecture of the subject property to be an exceptionally significant onea level required to meet the exceptional importance required under relative to NRHP Criterion C with CriterionCriteria Consideration G applied. Althoughfor properties that are less than 50 years of age. Under the CRHR Criteria, enough time has passed to view the subject murals as part of a past develop a historical chapter, perspective of the murals are devoidas character- defining features of the “historical importance” building, and they were found to lack the necessary significance to elevate the larger property- as a whole, which is the subject of this evaluation- as a CRHR eligible one under Criterion 3 that is less than 50 years old, for listing in any registration program .

Hertel, with the production assistance of Sheets Studio employee Denis O’Connor, appears to have Page of 19 *Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan – Arden branch *Recorded by: Daniel Paul *Date September 13, 2023January 17, 2024 x Continuation  Update DPR 523L (9/2013
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ completed hundreds of similar murals, historically themed or otherwise, across California and beyond, for over 100 separate Home Savings branches.

Similarly, numerous Home Savings and Loan buildings were built in Sacramento, the region, or the state.

Home Savings and Loan are not rare and there are eight known locations just in Sacramento. All eight of these original buildings are extant. In addition to the branch at 1950 Arden Way, there is the Capitol Park Office at 1003 L Street, two Madison Avenue locations—5222 Madison Avenue and 4741 Madison Avenue, the latter of which is the other Sacramento Sheets Studio Home Savings project that as of May 2023 was still standing and possesses its mosaic)—as well as the branch at 6150 Florin Road, 9165 Kiefer Boulevard, 930 K Street, and 4701 Freeport Boulevard, which is pictured on the cover of the Sacramento Mid-Century Modern historic context statement. Venturing just outside Sacramento, the four known, additional Home Savings locations all still remain, including the building at 8725 Elk Grove Boulevard in Elk Grove, 7895 Lichen Drive in Citrus Heights, 8859 Madison Avenue in Fair Oaks, and 11200 Gold Express Drive in Gold River. (Sacramento Bee, August 11, 1975: 22; Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Public Information Center, 1998: 7-159, 7160) According to Dr. Arenson’s Google Maps database, and verified against Google Street View in December 2023, there remain over 30 examples of former Home Savings bank buildings across California that possess their original Sheets Studio mosaics, including eight branches in Northern California. This count does not include the remaining Sheets Studio mosaics for other commissions, of which there appear to be many across California alone. The fact that there are over 30 Home Savings branch examples with mosaics that remain across the state is a substantial number that does not appear to constitute “rarity,” especially for a company that ceased to exist over 25 years ago. Dr. Arenson’s Google Map geocoding indicates that of all the known Sheets Studio Home Savings projects in the Sacramento area, none are identified as demolished. (Arenson, Oct 13, [2023])
Present research yielded no potential for information important to history or pre-history in a manner warranting the eligibility of the subject property under NRHP/ CRHR Criteria D/4.

All aspects of the subject property, completed in 1978, are presently less than 50 years old. In order for a property that is less than 50 years old property to be NRHP eligible, it must possess exceptional historic significance in a manner warranting its eligibility under a given Criteria relative to CriterionCriteria Consideration G. Similarly, per California PRC14 CCR § 4852(d)(2), a property less than 50 years old can qualify for listing in the California Register of Historical Resources listing if “it can be demonstrated that sufficient time has passed to understand its historical importance.” There appears to be no exceptionally significant aspect of the subject property warranting NRHP eligibility relative to Criterion Consideration G under any of the NRHP Criteria. Relative toRegarding the California Register of Historical Resources, although sufficient time has passed whereby to evaluate the Home Savings is now of a past historic chapter,and Loan Arden branch property as a whole for any potential significance it may possess. The evaluation found that the subject property appears to be devoid ofas a whole lacks the level of significance warranting its CRHRrequired to meet any of the criteria for listing under any Criteria as a historically important property less than 50 years old. in the CRHR.

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ In-part on account of its fairly young age,The Home Savings and Loan- Arden branch also does not appear to meet any of the City of Sacramento Register Criteria. Akin to the analysis provided above for NRHP/ CRHR Criterion A/1, the subject property - is not eligible under City Criterion I because it is one of a multitude of later late-era Home Savings bank branches, and is not associated with any known events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of Sacramento history, nor the history of the region, state or nation, warranting the property’s eligibility under City Criterion i. Research.

Additionally, research of the Home Savings and Loan Arden branch yielded no known associations towith the lives of persons historically significant to Sacramento’s past warranting the property’sthat warrants eligibility under City Criterion ii. Although the subject property includes notable murals that were purpose- designed and integrated into the architecture of the building, the focus of the evaluation was the Home Savings building and the property as a whole. The evaluation considered the potential significance of the murals, but only as character defining features of it, the murals themselves arethe building and the property as a whole and not exceptionally distinctive examples of their type, but are instead intact, excellently executed examples of the kind of Home Savings mural seen upon dozensfor any potential significance that they may possess individually as objects or works of branches, across Southern California and beyond. The art. With regard to the overall architecture itselfof the property, as previously analyzed under Criterion NRHR/NRHP and CRHR Criterion C/3, for the evaluation found that the Home Savings and Loan Arden branch is unremarkable for not a particularly good example of New Formalist design principles, nor does it represent a distinctive example of Late-Modern architecture in Sacramento.

Although the subject building is presentmentioned in the City’s Mid-Century Modern Historic Context Statement as an example of New Formalist architecture, it is nothing more than that: an example, as opposed to a historically significant one. Another New Formalist example in the Sacramento Mid-Century Modern context statement: is the former Metropolitan Life Insurance Building that was designed by architect Snooky Lee, of in 1963,. This building is more much in keeping towith New Formalism’s primary era andduring the mid-1950s and 1960s and the style’s commonly ascribed character defining features, including its use of columns, which is lacking in the Home Savings Building is devoid of.and Loan Arden branch building Though referencing it in character, the subject 1978 building is not an exceptionally significant example of the Home Savings style itself , whose. Significant signature examples largely pre- date 1972, and until 1968, were each undertaken with the direct involvement of H.F. Ahmanson and Millard Sheets, when. When Ahmanson suddenly passed, and Sheets hired a steed of in-house architects. Therefore, neither the subject property as a whole nor elements thereoflacks the necessary significance to meet City of Sacramento Register criterion iii. Regarding City of Sacramento Register Criterion iv, the subject building received no architectural press whatsoever with its completion , and its architect is presently unknown.. Although Millard Sheets may be considered an important creative master , his involvement and was involved to some degree with the design of the subject building was likely minimal, if it occurred at all, as this , he is not considered the architect of record. The architect of the subject building was produced years after he began delegating Sheets studio authority to others, hiring additional in-house architects, and was completed the moment Sheets retiredis presumed to be Frank Homolka & Associates, according to Adam Arenson, but this information could not be confirmed through building permit records or other sources. Relative to City Register Criterion iv., the artist Susan Bright Lautmann Hertel qualifies as an “important creative individual,” and the murals upon the subject building clearly possess artistic merit. Nonetheless, it is questionable that each of the murals is truly a standalone Page of 19 *Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan – Arden branch *Recorded by: Daniel Paul *Date September 13, 2023January 17, 2024 x Continuation  Update DPR 523L (9/2013
State of California - The Resources Agency Primary#
DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI #
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ object to be separately analyzed, versus affixed, integrated character defining features of the architecture and spaces for which they were purposely, intentionally designed. In this regard, the Hertel works are important character defining features to an otherwise generic and later-era Home Savings architectural design. As part of the subject building, the subject murals are not of such significance, let alone exceptional significance under City Factor e for properties less than 50 years old, to elevate the total property to Sacramento Register eligibility under City Criterion iv, for associations to an important creative individual, or for high artistic values under Criterion v. Even if the three murals could conceivably be analyzed as a grouping of objects separate from the building, the subject murals are examples of a type that Hertel and O’Connor undertook upon dozens of former Home Savings branches across California and beyond. Though beautiful, masterfully executed, and in two instances locally themed, the level of their significance does not appear to elevate them as exceptionally significant objects less than 50 years old per Factor e, relative to City Register Criteria iv and v.appear to have some artistic merit. However, as affixed, integrated character-defining features of the building for which they were purposely, intentionally designed, they do not render the overall architecture and design of the building and the property as a whole eligible for listing under local Criterion iv or v.

Integrity
The Home Savings Bank and Loan - Arden branch appears to possess only a fair degree of integrity that is fair only. Its integrity of location remains, as the subject property has not been moved. The property’s setting, set back but upon a park-like lawn and acclimated to a prominent intersection from which it is highly visible, all remainremains intact. The property’s workmanship appears to remainalso remains intact, and is particularly evident uponin the three masterfullymurals executed murals designed by Susan Hertel. The property’s integrity of design: is generally intact. As a 1970s -era building with some New Formalist design elements that are intended to reference earlier Home Savings architecture, is generally intact,the property as is the design of three primary artworks, intended as integral parts of the building itselfa whole is generally intact. However, what appears to have once been a prominent fountain is now a planter, and the building’s interior spaces appear to have seen modernization activities that likely occurred when the branch was sold to Washington Mutual Bank in 1998. This includes the covering up of bays of textured ceramic block in the shape of a four-pointed star that appear to have run along the base of the teller window program. Similar tile, and gold painted,painting is seen runningcharacteristic of the frieze of other Home Savings branches, and such tile may have once adorned the subject building’s frieze, which today reads as a stucco clad box fascia. Although presently unverified, the property likely contained even more artwork than it presently does, if not additional water features at outer, ground-level corners. Even with its present murals, the building, devoid of these elements intended for it and generically modernized, reads as a compromised shell lacking the integrity of feeling it may have once possessed as a fully, art-adorned Home Savings branch. Home Savings designs were total designs down Page of 19 *Resource Name or # (Assigned by recorder) Home Savings and Loan – Arden branch *Recorded by: Daniel Paul *Date September 13, 2023January 17, 2024 x Continuation  Update DPR 523L (9/2013
State of California - The Resources Agency Primary#
DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION HRI #
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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________ to the smallest details, many of which appear to have been lost, covered, modernized or removed uponfrom the subject property. Related to this likely loss, the buildings integrity of materials remains only in the general sense that its travertine cladding is there, as is the tesserae of its murals. Though compromised, the buildingsbuilding’s integrity of association towith the Home Savings and Loan Association generally remains, insofar as the building, with its travertine cladding and the security inducing intentions of its solid character, not to mention the continued presence of its three murals, all still remain.

Works Cited
Abrahamson, Eric John. Building Home: Howard F. Ahmanson and the Politics of the American Dream .

Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013.

Rifkind, Carole. A Field Guide to Contemporary American Archite cture. New York: Penguin, 2001.

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________

Figure 1. Property sketch map

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________

Photographs Fallin Steffen, Dudek Environmental Consulting. August 29, 2023.

Photo 1. Front elevation. View: W, SW.

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________

Photo 2. Front elevation with landscape. View: W

Photo 3. Former fountain with roundabout. View E, SE.

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________

Photo 4. South-side elevation. View: NE.

Photo 5. Rear elevation. View: E

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________

Photo 6. Recessed corner detail. View: SE.

Photo 7. Interior lobby from mezzanine. View: NW.

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________

Photo 8. Interior lobby and former work area in background. View NW.

Photo 9. Susan Hertel lobby mural. View: SE.

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________

Photo 10. Susan Hertel entryway mural, front elevation. View: W

Photo 11. Susan Hertel entryway mural, rear elevation. View: E.

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Property Name: __Home Savings Bank and Loan- Arden branch __________________________

4078156.1 1

Charles E. Smyth February 16, 2024
Market Street Development, LLC
5930 Granite Lake Drive, Ste. 110
Granite Bay, CA 95746
Dear Mr. Smyth,
Dudek reviewed the City of Sacramento’s Statement of Nomination staff report dated December 21, 2023, as well as its DPR evaluation regarding the former Home Savings and Loan branch at 1950 Arden Way and has the following comments.

In the City’s Statement of Nomination, the Community Development Department staff concluded that “Listing 1950 Arden Way as a historic landmark on the Sacramento register is consistent with the Historic Preservation Chapter (17.604) of the City Code . . .” Dudek does not agree with this statement and stands behind its original assessment that the former Home Savings and Loan branch at 1950 Arden Way does not appear eligible for listing in the Sacramento Register or the California Register of Historical Resources (CRHR).

City Code § 17.604.210(A)(1)(a)(iii) a
nd CRHR Criterion 3 – Resources embodying distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction

Under the Sacramento City Code § 17.604.210 (A)(1)(a)(iii) and CRHR Criterion 3 , the City staff selectively highlighted features of the New Formalist style, while conveniently disregarding other essential characteristics of the style, to justify their finding that the subject Home Savings and Loan branch at 1950 Arden Way embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction.

While the subject property represents an example of late -era New Formalism, by no measure does the Home Savings Arden Way building “embody the distinctive characteristics” of New Formalism as required by Criterion iii of the Sacramento Register and Criterion 3 of the CRHR. Although the 2017 City of Sacramento Mid-Century Modern Historic Context Statement and Survey Results (2017 Historic Context Statement) identifies the building as an example of New Formalism, this in itself does not make the subject building a historically significant example of the design.

The New Formalism section of the 2017 Historic Context Statement only cites three secondary source documents:
1) a 2008 Fullerton Heritage description; 2) the 2009 Riverside Modernism Context Statement by Christopher A.

Joseph and Associates (CAJA); and 3) the 2011 San Jose Modernism Context Statement by PAST, all of which have New Formalism sections of their own. The Fullerton Heritage document only includes a reading list, while the three previously cited documents only include one in -text citation: Marcus Whiffen American Architecture Since 1780 .

Whiffen’s book is one of the few national style guides to characterize the style as “The New Formalism.” Published in 1981, Whiffen’s book was among the first to describe the style. CAJA, PAST, and Whiffen identify New Formalism as peaking in popularity in the 1960s, and Whiffen’s New Formalist examples all pre-date 1965. Each of the three sources referenced in the 2017 Historic Context Statement mention the design’s primary era lasting no later than the mid-1970s, when the Arden Way branch was barely on the drawing board. Besides Whiffen, one other key style guide, Carole Rifkind’s A Field Guide to Contemporary American Architecture , addresses New Formalism, wh ich Rifkind refers to as a part of “Modernist Classic” architecture. Among the style’s key features is the colonnade, which Rifkind considers is of distinct importance . The “inherent structural logic of the colonnade ,” according to Rifkind, is what links Modernist Classic architecture to both Classicist and Modernist schemes. (Christopher Joseph and Associates (CAJA), November 3, 2009: 16; PAST Consultants, LLC, June, 2009: 81. Whiffen, 1981: 257-260, 262; Fullerton Heritage, 2010-2023; Rifkind, 2001: 115).

DUDEK’S RESPONSE TO THE CITY OF SACRAMENTO’S EVALUATION OF THE HOME SAVINGS ARDEN WAY BRANCH 4078156.1 2

The zeitgeist that New Formalism developed from and expressed was one that was intrinsically associated with an abundant and expansive United States that pre-dated the Vietnam War, the disruptive cultural changes of the late 1960s, economic globalism, the passing of Howard Ahmanson (the founder of the Home Savings and Loan Association) and the subsequent cost-cutting measures that the company undertook with regard to the art and architecture of its branches, including the Home Savings and Loan branch at 1950 Arden Way. In an October 3, 2023, email to the City of Sacramento, the research notes of Dr. Adam Arenson mention that the Arden Way branch was subject to “cost cutting to the bone.” Dr. Arenson is the author of Banking on Beauty: Millard Sheets and Midcentury Commercial Architecture in California, the most substantial published work for understanding the Home Savings art, architecture, and design program, and Millard Sheets’ role within it. Dudek relied on Dr. Arenson’s book to inform the analysis and evaluation presented in the DPR 523 form (Christopher Joseph and Associates (CAJA), November 3, 2009: 16; PAST Consultants, LLC, June, 2009: 81. Whiffen, 1981: 257- 260, 262; Arenson, 2023; Fullerton Heritage, 2010-2023)

The former Home Savings and Loan property at 1950 Arden Way exhibits some New Formalist features, but it is missing others that are critical to the style. Although not all features of a style must be present for a building to be eligible as a significant example of its design, the sources referenced in the historic context statement consistently list, or even emphasize, certain New Formalist features: the presence of arcades, the prominence of architectural screens or grilles, and perhaps most importantly, the presence of a colonnade, often full -height, and used as a compositional device. The subject building possesses none of these features, and therefore does not embody New Formalism architecture or represent an exceptionally significant example of the design applied to a property that is less than 50 years old.

Furthermore, it is curious that on page 7 of the City’s DPR, the evaluators provide a list of New Formalism’s general features (“Character Defining Features of New Formalist architecture 1950’s–1970s”), which do not align with the general New Formalist features listed in the 2017 Historic Context Statement. The omission of key character defining features of the style from the DPR appears to have been deliberate, since th ose features are absent on the subject building. In its list of general features of the style, the City’s DPR conveniently omits key features such as the “Full-height panel of stylized columns that visually connect the roof to the ground” and “cast stone or concrete block screens that connect the building to the site,” as listed in the 2017 Historic Context Statement for the New Formalist style. If the DPR’s list of New Formalist elements is what the City really believes is all New Formalism is, then the City does not have a full and proper understanding of New Formalism. (GEI Consultants, Inc. and Mead & Hunt, Inc., 2017: 3-14)

Dudek also disagrees with the City’s statement that 1970’s-era New Formalism existed as a bulwark against a rapidly changing world, which the City’s DPR implies in its conclusion on page 10. At least with regard to the subject building, the Home Savings designs of the 1970s follow the same general formula, intentions, and business reasons as the branches that were first developed during the late 1950s by Howard Ahmanson—whose role the City evaluators oddly minimize throughout their DPR—and the artist and ed ucator Millard Sheets . In new locales wherever proposed, including Northern California, Sheets fought for consistency of a branch typology, which by the late 1970s was two decades old. The choice to use this mode, and the specific character ascribed for the subject property, was simply a branding choice irrelevant of where American society was in the 1970s. (Arenson, 2018:
193-199)

Undertaken after the fact and devoid of key character defining features, the subject Home Savings and Loan property does not embody the distinctive characteristics of New Formalism and is therefore not a historically significant example of New Formalist design at the local level, let alone one of exceptional significance less than 50 years old, or eligible for the California Register of Historical Resources. Dudek asserts this position regardless of the degree to which Millard Sheets was personally involved in the building’s design. And, for the reasons discussed below, Dudek continues to believe that Millard Sheets’ role was much more limited than the City’s DPR implies.

DUDEK’S RESPONSE TO THE CITY OF SACRAMENTO’S EVALUATION OF THE HOME SAVINGS ARDEN WAY BRANCH 4078156.1 3

City Code § 17.604.210(A)(1)(a)(i v) and CRHR Criterion 3 – Resources that represent the work of an important creative individual or master

Under the Sacramento City Code § 17.604.210(A)(1)(a)(iv) and CRHR Criterion 3, the City staff argue that the former Home Savings and Loan building at 1950 Arden Way represents the work of an important creative individual or master. Dudek disagrees with this assertion.

In the City’s DPR dated October 23, 2023, the evaluators assert that the subject building “was designed by celebrated visual artist Millard Sheets.” However, according to the correspondence between the City and Dr.

Arenson, the files that Dr. Arenson shared with the City make it clear that the architect for the former Home Savings and Loan branch at 1950 Arden Way was not Millard Sheets. Instead, the firm of record was likely Frank Homolka and Associates of Long Beach, CA, as Homolka is mentioned repeatedly in Arenson’s file, and it is disingenuous of the City to not mention Homolka in the DPR even once, falsely implying that Sheets alone was the architectural designer of the Home Savings project on Arden Way. (Arenson, October 3, 2023). Dudek also conducted in-person archival research at the Huntington Library on January 23, 2024, While the available architectural site plans and elevations for the former Home Savings and Loan branch on Arden Way give credit to the “Millard Sheets Design Studio” (and not Millard Sheets the architect) , the drawings also give credit to “Frank Homolka and Associates, Architects,” which supports Dudek’s conclusion that the architect of record for the subject building was Frank Homolka and Associates and not Millard Sheets.
1 On pages 183 and 184 of Banking on Beauty, Dr. Arenson states of the 70s-era work that “most of the designs were by Frank Homolka and Associates of Long Beach, with Homolka, his fellow architect Jess Gilkerson and interior designer Don Betzsold working closely with Home Savings, the Millard Sheets Studio, and the engineering firm of Bole and Wilson.” As quoted in Banking on Beauty, according to structural engineer Frank Bole, by outsourcing the architectural and engineering work, “Home Savings could use Sheets for what we really want him for- these classic murals.” By the time Home Savings Arden Way was designed, Sheets had already been investigated by the California State Board of Architectural Examiners for presenting himself as an architect, though he wa s not one. By leaving Homolka out of the City’s DPR, coupled with how the City identifies Sheets’ role in its DPR evaluation , the City is perpetuating the same false narrative that got Millard Sheets in trouble with State Board of Architectural Examiners in 1968. (Arenson, 2018: 170, 183-184)

In many easily located press clippings regarding Home Savings architecture through the 1970s and early 1980s, it is Frank Homolka, not Millard Sheets, who is credited as the architect of record upon a multitude of branches and other buildings. Other known projects by the Homolka firm include various branches of California Federal Savings and Loan, the Studio Theater at California State University Long Beach, San Jose Savings and Loan Branches, and the 1977 Long Beach City Hall complex, in which the firm was one part of a larger collaboration called Allied Architects. Based on this body of work, the Homolka firm does not appear to be a practice associated with a master architect as described in National Register Bulletin 15, page 20. Ev en if Sheets asserted himself as the program design director, which he did, Frank Homolka is still the architect of these branches, and in all likelihood, based off Dr. Arenson’s email, the architect of Arden Way, regardless of how much creative and aesthe tic direction Millard Sheets gave Homolka. Sheets is not a master architect or even an architect. Even if the City chose to also credit the Sheets Studio for its design input, failing to acknowledge Homolka in any capacity, especially in light of Arenson’s correspondence, is inappropriate. (Pacific Coast Architecture Database (Michelson), 2005 -2023; Arenson, October 3, 2023; Arenson, 2018: 184; City of Los Angeles Building Permit, #1964LA81765, US Department of the Interior (National Park Service), 1997: 20; Santa Maria Times, Jul 16, 1981: 2; McDowell, 1973:
56; Los Angeles Times, Apr 9, 1978: 144; South Pasadena Review, Nov 28, 1984, Sutton, 1977: 29; Los Angeles Times, 1972.).

1 “Project Files: Home Savings and Loan Association, Los Angeles , Calif ., 1962-1980, n.d., Branch Offices —Sacramento Point West Building—Correspondence 1927-1979.” Box 13, Folder 19. On file at the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.

DUDEK’S RESPONSE TO THE CITY OF SACRAMENTO’S EVALUATION OF THE HOME SAVINGS ARDEN WAY BRANCH 4078156.1 4

In the pantheon of Home Savings designs, the subject branch on Arden Way is atypical, and its larger and taller three-story height reflected its importance as a regional headquarters. Its status as a regional headquarters , however, does not equate to historic significance. The quintessential Home Savings designs are what the Sheets Studio referred as the “two story jewel box branch” during the mid-1970s. This is a direct reference to the widely used, scholastically noted, “jewel box” moniker for the series of seven diminutive, 1910s -era Midwestern bank buildings designed by master architect Louis Sullivan, that Sheets acknowledged as a primary influence for Home Savings designs. Each of the Sullivan works is two stories in height and planted solidly on the ground. Additionally, they are artistically adorned inside and out, with solid, slab-like, and largely windowless, double height interior. The Home Savings and Loan property at 1950 Arden Way, however, does not reflect the design of a “two story jewel box branch” and instead reads like an office building with its larger scale and bands of Solarbronze windows, and hyper- symmetrical, classically informed monumentality (Arenson, 2018: 64).

City Code § 17.604.210(A)(1)(a)(v) – Resources that possess high artistic value

Under the Sacramento City Code § 17.604.210(A)(1)(a)(v), the City staff argue that the former Home Savings and Loan building at 1950 Arden Way possesses high artistic values. Dudek disagrees with this assertion. Dudek’s evaluation considered the three visible murals as affixed, character-defining features of the building that ultimately do not imbue the subject property as a whole with high artistic values.

Dr. Arenson stated that during the late 1970s, the Millard Sheets studio was “faced with a number of simultaneous commissions for branches across California, ” and “utilized more generic designs that began with stereotypical figures garnished with some local detail.” Additionally, “In the newest mosaics, Hertel and O’Connor used generic historical vignettes within new, expressive shapes.” The mid -to-late 1970s appear to have been an era of cost cutting for the Home Savings art program, and the larger-scale murals that were completed through the early 1970s on the company’s prototypical “two story jewel box branches” were now themselves of the past, replaced by triptych tableaus, or smaller-scale entryway murals such as those seen at Arden Way. (Arenson, 2018: 201, 203, 212-213).

There is conflicting i nformation in the public record regarding the year that Millard Sheets retired and gave up control of his studio to others. In Banking on Beauty, Dr. Arenson writes that Sheets “completely retired” by the end of 1977, and by 1978 he was often in front of his easel in Gualala, CA. Yet Dr. Arenson’s email correspondence of October 3, 2023, states that “Millard Sheets was actively involved in all Home Savings commissions done by his studio until 1980.” Banking on Beauty mentions that Sheets had a hard time giving up complete control, while also implying that “full control of design and fabrication [was] handed over” to other Sheets Studio artists around this time, who experienced “their own burst of creativity.” (Arenson, 2018, 209-211; Arenson, October 3, 2023).

Just as Sheets’ role as architectural design director does not make him a design architect, his role as art director does not make him the artist of record for every mural designed by his Studio . Throughout chapters 5 and 6 of Banking on Beauty, Arenson discusses the Home Savings and Loan Association of the 1970s and its expansion into Northern California . Arenson clearly gives Susan Lautmann Hertel and Denis O’Connor artist credit as appropriate, just as Arenson separately credits Sheets himself. Arenson noted, for example, that at Encino, “Millard Sheets painted a new mural, showing a smiling Latino cowboy . . . ” Arenson refers to Hertel and O’Connor signing their own works as “A declaration of independence, as they took complete control in the studio.” In some instances, Arenson provides Sheets and Hertel equal credit, as in Banking on Beauty where he states that “Sheets and Hertel designed (and cosigned) a mosaic that celebrated San Francisco as the “Gateway to the Pacific.” Arenson also states in Banking on Beauty that it was O’Connor and Hertel who “stretched the possibilities of their condensed triptych to local history.” In a footnote to this statement, Arenson specifically refers to the Home Savings and Loan building on Arden Way as “Point West,” which is the only time that this building is specifically mentioned anywhere in Banking on Beauty. (Arenson, 2018: 199-201, 213-214, 331-332, footnote 7).

To therefore ascribe the murals, as the City’s DPR does, to Millard Sheets is misleading, even if the murals are based on techniques or modes Sheets taught Hertel and O’Connor over the years while they were under him, and DUDEK’S RESPONSE TO THE CITY OF SACRAMENTO’S EVALUATION OF THE HOME SAVINGS ARDEN WAY BRANCH 4078156.1 5

even if Sheets provided input to the very end. It would be acceptable —though vague in light of available information—to state that the buildings’ murals were designed by the Sheets Studio. But to state, as the DPR does, that the murals were “designed by Millard Sheets and translated into full-sized working drawings by Susan Hertel,” is misleading and inappropriate.

It is unlikely Sheets would permit one of his artists to sign a mural if they were simply, as the City’s DPR implies, processing his working drawings. By the late-1970s, according to Dr. Arenson’s book, Hertel’s role at Sheets Studio transcended that which the City implies on their DPR. After decades of working under Sheets, it is unlikely Hertel would have suddenly signed murals unless her creative role was elevated, which by then it was. More than just a fabricator, available biographies for Hertel identify her as a mural designer who collaborated with Sheets for nearly 30 years. Regardless of Sheets’ input and influence, insofar as she signed them, Dudek asserts that Susan Bright Lautmann Hertel is the artist of the Arden Way murals. Ultimately, despite Hertel’s artistic mastery, the murals affixed to the subject building do not warrant elevating the property as a whole as exceptionally significant, especially since it is less than 50 years of age (Square i Gallery, 2023; Square I Gallery [2023]).

City Code § 17.604.210(A)( 2)(e)
and 14 CCR § 4852(d)(2) – Resources less than 50 years old with exceptional historic importance

Under the Sacramento City Code § 17.604.210(A)( 2)(e) and 14 CCR § 4852(d)(2) , the City staff argue that the subject Home Savings and Loan building has achieved significance within the past 50 years because it possesses exceptional historic significance for embodying an important evolution in commercial architecture ( through the incorporation of art in the building design) and because of the rarity of Home Savings and Loan buildings in Northern California, in addition to being the work of an important individual and master Millard Sheets. Dudek disagrees with these assertions for all of the reasons noted in our previous responses above and for the following additional reasons supporting our original assessment that the subject building is not a rare example of a Home Savings and Loan building in the area or in Northern California.

The Home Savings and Loan Association had eight known locations in Sacramento, and all eight original buildings remain. Aside from the branch at 1950 Arden Way, there is the Capitol Park Office at 1003 L Street, two Madison Avenue locations—5222 Madison Avenue and 4741 Madison Avenue, the latter of which is the other Sacramento Sheets Studio Home Savings project that as of May 2023 was still standing and possesses its mosaic —as well as the branch at 6150 Florin Road, 9165 Kiefer Boulevard, 930 K Street, and 4701 Freeport Boulevard, which is pictured on the cover of the 2017 Historic Context Statement. Venturing just outside Sacramento, the four known, additional Home Savings locations all still remain, including the building at 8725 Elk Grove Boulevard in Elk Grove, 7895 Lichen Drive in Citrus Heights, 8859 Madison Avenue in Fair Oaks, and 11200 Gold Express Drive in Gold River. (Sacramento Bee, August 11, 1975: 22; Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Public Information Center, 1998: 7-159, 7160)

According to Dr. Arenson’s Google Maps database, and verified against Google Street View in December 2023, there remain over 30 examples of former Home Savings bank buildings across California that possess their original Sheets Studio mosaics, including eight branches in Northern California. This count does not include the remaining Sheets Studio mosaics for other commissions, of which there appear to be many across California alone. The fact that there are over 30 Home Savings branch examples with mosaics that remain across the state is a substantial number that does not appear to constitute “rarity,” especially for a company that ceased to exist over 25 years ago.

Dr. Arenson’s Google Map geocoding indicates that of all the known Sheets Studio Home Savings projects in the Sacramento area, none are identified as demolished. (Arenson, Oct 13, [2023])

Integrity Discussion

Though the subject building still reads as a Home Savings property, even with the presence of its two exterior mu
rals, the building feels denuded. That Millard Sheets proposed each branch as an art-focused total design raises DUDEK’S RESPONSE TO THE CITY OF SACRAMENTO’S EVALUATION OF THE HOME SAVINGS ARDEN WAY BRANCH 4078156.1 6

distinct and unusual historic integrity questions for Home Savings branches missing their Sheets/Sheets Studio purpose-designed artwork and other detailing.

In the 1978 Sacramento Bee advertisement in Photo 12 of the City’s DPR, which Dr. Arenson also included in his October 3 correspondence, a rendering of the project presents sculpture at the planter beneath each corner notch, another sculpture within the fountain, and the building’s frieze has a shiny and reflecting vertical scoring. A multitude of Home Savings branches had a gold -colored tile motif, of compass points, grids, bars or otherwise across their friezes, and it is presumed that the frieze material in this image was itself gold-colored. At Arden Way, none of the rendered sculptures, nor the adorned frieze remain, and it is unknown if , presumably due to the cost cutting mentioned in Dr. Arenson’s notes, these features were ever installed. The frieze at present is wide and unadorned blank stucco, which seems unbecoming for the Home Savings brand, and no sculpture is present at either of the notched planters or within the fountain. Either these elements have been removed , which presents considerable integrity issues for the art -first total designs for which Millard Sheets and his studio were known, or perhaps due to cost cutting “to the bone,” these features were never installed. If the latter case is correct, by its own architectural rendering, the subj ect property was never of the artistic caliber or completeness Sheets envisioned, or as seen upon other built branches that remain across California. (Arenson, October 3, 2023; Sacramento Bee, May 23, 1978).

The interior of the building has sustained substantial renovations due to corporate branding efforts of later tenants (Washington Mutual and Chase Bank), including a missing mural that may or may not still be in-situ. Hanging fabric artworks commissioned for the interior are now lost, and even if the partially visible Gladding McBean ceramic compass tile along the teller counter remains in its entirety, the presence of this element by a noted California ceramics company would not be enough to warrant eligibility of the total property under any criteria, especially for a property that is less than 50 years old.

Aside from the three murals, perhaps the property’s strongest remaining character defining features are its landscape design, and the siting of the building upon it. The property has a distinctive triangular lot, fronted by a generous, park-like space. Oge e curved, bell -form planters with manicured shrubs flank walkways, mature tree specimens are part of the design, and even the parking areas incorporate landscaped medians, boundaries and berms. Thoughtfully done, the alignment of the building is of one axi s with the bilaterally symmetrical, classically informed landscape, and integral with it. Sheets had often mandated clear glazing at ground floor entries, that at Arden Way affords axial views from the parking area through the building out onto the frontal landscape, with its fountain and sitting areas. (Arenson, 2018: 184)

Much like the murals, Dudek perceives this landscape, as well as the relationship of the building to the surrounding landscape, as noteworthy character defining features of the larger property. However, the relative weakness of the main building’s New Formalist design, coupled with its missing details and artwork —issues of either integrity or severe cost cutting—and the property’s inability to meet the threshold for exceptional significance required for a property that is less than 50 years of age, preclude the overall property from qualifying as an eligible property in the Sacramento Register, the California Register of Historical Resources, and the National Register of Historic Places.

DUDEK’S RESPONSE TO THE CITY OF SACRAMENTO’S EVALUATION OF THE HOME SAVINGS ARDEN WAY BRANCH 4078156.1 7

WORKS CITED

“Among Winners of Tile Awards.” Los Angeles Times, Apr 9, 1978: 144.

Arenson, Adam. Banking on Beauty: Millard Sheets and Midcentury Commercial Architecture in California. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2018.

________. “Re: Home Savings Bank - 1950 Arden Way, Sacramento - Preservation Question.” Email, October 3, 2023.

________. “Millard Sheets Studio Commissions and all Home Savings and Loan/Savings of America buildings with Art.” Google My Maps . October 13 [2023]. https://adamarenson.com/books/banking -on-beauty-millard-sheets- and-midcentury-commercial-architecture-in-california/definitive-list-for-home-savings-and-loan-artwork-savings-of- america-artwork-and-the-millard-sheets-studio-public-projects-2-3/.

Christopher A. Joseph &Associates (CAJA). “City of Riverside: Riverside Modernism Context Statement.” technical report. Los Angeles, CA: Christopher A. Joseph & Associates, November 3, 2009.

City of Los Angles Building Permit #1964LA81765. August 18, 1964.

“City planners OK plan for new Home Savings site.” Santa Maria Times, Jul 16, 1981: 2.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Public Information Center. “1998 Bank & Thrift Branch Office Data Book:

Office Deposits and Addresses of FDIC-insured Institutions, Summary of Deposits, West Region.” [Washington DC:

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation], 1998.

Fullerton Heritage. “Architectural Styles in Fullerton.” Fullerton, CA: Fullerton Heritage, 2010 -2023. https://www.fullertonheritage.org/architectural-styles.php.

GEI Consultants, Inc., and Mead & Hunt, Inc. “Mid -Century Modern in the City of Sacramento Historic Context Statement and Survey Results.” Sacramento, CA: GEI Consultants, Inc. September 30, 2017.

“Home Savings Business Winner: Workman, Haynes- Farley, LaSarte Homes Win SoPas Beautiful Golden Arrow Awards.” South Pasadena Review, Nov. 28, 1984: 2.

McDowell, Carolyn. “Socially Speaking: Curtain Goes Up.” Long beach Independent, Nov 25, 1973: 56.

“Now-Home Savings on Arden Way has a beautiful new home.” advertisement. Sacramento Bee, May 23, 1978:

A7.

“Now there are 4… beautiful Home Savings Offices to serve you in Sacramento!” advertisement. Sacramento Bee, Aug 11, 1975: 22.

Pacific Coast Architecture Database (Alan Michelson), “City of Long Beach, City Hall #3, Downtown, Long Beach, CA, 2005-2023 https://pcad.lib.washington.edu/building/1125/.

PAST Consultants, LLC. “San José Modernism Historic Context Statement.” technical report. Petaluma, CA: PAST Consultants, LLC, June, 2009.

Rifkind, Carole. A Field Guide to Contemporary American Architecture. New York: Penguin, 2001.

DUDEK’S RESPONSE TO THE CITY OF SACRAMENTO’S EVALUATION OF THE HOME SAVINGS ARDEN WAY BRANCH 4078156.1 8

“Susan Bright Lautmann Hertel.” Square I Gallery. Accessed December 31, 2013. https://susanhertel.com/index.php/biography/

“Susan HERTEL.” Square i Gallery, 2023.
https://www.squareigallery.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=186_233

Sutton, Charles. “10 Story Bank Building Hailed.” Long Beach Press-Telegram, Mar. 24, 1977: 29.

Los Angeles Times, Jan 30, 1972: 136.

Whiffen, Marcus. American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981.

1 Summary of findings from Huntington Archives site visit Site visit conducted January 23, 2024.

The Smithsonian houses the Millard Sheets Papers. A microfilm duplicate is housed at the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA. The subject archives were viewed at the Huntington Library on January 23, 2024. Items of interest came from one folder:
“Project Files: Homes Savings and Loan Association, Los Angles, Calif., 1962-1980, n.d.

Branch Offices – Sacramento
Point West Building – Correspondence 1972-1979”

According to the Smithsonian’s finding aid the subject folder was Folder 19 in Box 13. The folder included a variety of correspondence regarding the Home Savings Point West building, Sacramento, CA.

Presumably because neither Sheets nor his studio completed them, the papers did not include blueprints or other architectural drawings for the subject property. However, the files include a variety of architectural correspondence regarding the subject building, articulated below. This correspondence often references drawings from the firm of Frank Homolka and Associates.

The below observations are based off a review of selected items, addressed as they appeared on microfilm. The figure list follows, and Appendix A includes all images as scanned.

- Available architectural site plans and elevations are credited to “Millard Sheets Design Studio” and “Frank Homolka and Associates, Architects.” By their own account, the Sheets Design Studio are not the “Architects” of the subject building. Millard Sheets the individual is not the architect of the subject building. Figure 1, Figure 13.

- The initial project drawings feature a sharper, leaner design of more generous fenestration with articulated, distinctively narrow vertical windows with double-height projecting fins. Centered between these broad bays at the north and south elevations appears to be a large art artwork of some kind. Additionally, indicated at each corner, Sheets proposed a reflecting pool and sculpture. Whether they were never installed or later lost, none of these elements are present now. The character of this this early design version reiterates the “jewel box” motifs of the earlier Home Savings branches. Figure 2.

- The project files contain a multitude of cover letters from the Frank Homolka practice referencing their architectural assignments. Based off this information, Frank Homolka and Associates appears to be the architect of record for the Home Savings Point West project. There would be no other reason to involve an architect whose Long Beach, CA office is over 400 miles away from the job site, especially when the Sheets Studio had in-house architectural staff of their own. Even if Homolka agreed to give Sheets the limelight to better enable the Ahmanson/ Sheets brand, Frank Homolka and Associates is still the building architect. Figures 3 through 7, and Figures 9 through 11.

- Correspondence from the Sheets Office references parapet and soffit details “drawn by the Homolka Office.” Figure 8 [in reference to Figure 5]

- In Figure 9, correspondence from the Homolka office references “One (1) complete set each Specifications for Home Savings Sacramento and Encino.” An online archival news article 2 identifies Homolka as the architect of various Home Savings projects, including the above- referenced Encino branch.

Los Angeles Times. April 9, 1978: Part IX, 4 (144).

- In order to finish the contract drawings, Jess Gilkerson Jr. of the Homolka office had correspondence with Sheets Studio staff architect Bob Nilson regarding aesthetic details related to adornment, cladding, fixture and landscape. Architecture, which also involves firmitas and utilitas, transcends aesthetics alone. Figure 4.

- The Spink Corporation undertook the initial land survey. They were under contract with Frank Homolka and Associates and not Millard Sheets Design Studio. Figure 12.

- The file includes a rendering considerably more in-line with the finished product than Figure 2.

Figure 14.

3 FIGURES

Figure 1. Image 0107: lower right attribution to “Millard Sheets Designs Inc- Claremont, California, and Frank Homolka & Associates- Architects, Long Beach.”

4 Figure 2. Image 0108: Earlier Rendering of Point West project

5 Figure 3. Image 0112: Correspondence cover sheet from Frank Homolka and Associates .

6 Figure 4. Image 0115. Correspondence from Jess Gilkerson Jr. of Frank Homolka Office to architect Bob Nilson of Sheets Designs, regarding Sheets Designs Inc. input. (Finishes, landscape, art, and adornments)

7 Figure 5. Image 0118. Homolka Office correspondence regarding revised plaster parapet and soffit design.

8 Figure 6. Image 0120 Frank Homolka office correspondence regarding section design and building height.

9 Figure 7. Image 0122. Frank Homolka office correspondence (Jess Gilkerson, Jr.) for site plan, parapet and soffit detailing.

10 Figure 8. Image 0127. Millard Sheets & Associates Design, Inc. in-house correspondence from Sheets architect Bob Nilson to John Sheets referencing parapet and soffit detail “drawn by Frank Homolka and Associates.”

11 Figure 9. Image 0133. Homolka Office correspondence to Millard Sheets & Assoc, Designs Inc. with complete set specifications for Sacramento and Encino, the latter of which press has credited Homolka as designing.

12 Figure 10. Image 0134. Homolka Office correspondence to Millard Sheets & Assoc, Designs Inc. Cover sheet for One (1) complete set of plans […]

13 Figure 11. Image 0139. Homolka Office correspondence to Millard Sheets & Assoc ., Designs Inc. Revised exterior elevation, August 5, 1977.

14 Figure 12. Image 209: Spink Corporation property survey for client Frank Homolka and Associates.

15 Figure 13. Image 0228 and 0229. Site plan clippings. Image 0229 attributes project to “Millard Sheets Designs, Inc” and “Frank Homolka & Associates, Architects.”

16 Figure 14. Image 0284. Home Savings Arden Way/ Point West rendering.

APPENDIX A
Millard Sheets Papers
Home Savings Point West: Captured Microfilm with Digital ID number.

Sacramento City CouncilAugust 27, 2024

Sacramento City Council
August 27, 2024