A MODEST HOUSE in Mill Valley was honored Tuesday as a “lost work” of renowned architect Joseph Allen Stein, who fled the Bay Area to Mexico with his family in 1950 before it was built.
The mid-century modern — an efficient glass-dominated design that housed a family of five in just 1,100-square feet — was commissioned by William Hogan, former long-time San Francisco Chronicle book editor, and his wife, Phyllis, a teacher and former journalist.
Stein himself lived only blocks away in a heralded experimental house he built for his family. But they left the Bay Area behind after he was listed as a suspected subversive during Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s Communist witch-hunt. By the time he was cleared, the family had moved to India, where the architect’s eco-friendly designs were making him world-famous.
The Stein-signed blueprints for the Mill Valley house were accepted Tuesday into the Environmental Design Archives at the University of California at Berkeley, donated on behalf of the family by Bill Hogan’s son, Dennis, a popular musician and retired teacher in Laytonville.
Betsy Frederick-Rothwell, Curator and Head Archivist of the Environmental Design Archives, said Stein was “a prominent designer in the San Francisco Bay Area … and equally important is that he collaborated with other members of the design community whose collections we also have.”
UC Berkeley’s Environmental Design Archives raises awareness of the rich architectural, landscape, and design heritage of Northern California. Mid-century modern, a casual, more organic and expressive style, is part of a larger design category called Bay Area Tradition. In both the Bay Area and India, the soft-spoken Stein’s architectural philosophy was rooted in principles of modernism, environmental harmony, cultural sensitivity and social responsibility.
“The home for the average American family,” he once said, “must be brought down to the price level of the automobile.”
Stein’s signature style
Stein’s work features clean, simple lines, low footprints, flat roofs, floor-to-ceiling glass windows and glass doors, exposed ceilings and beams, pre-constructed sections and diagonal elements inside to break up the space. The glass lets in the light and beauty from outdoors, making mid-century moderns seem larger than they are.
A large archive of Stein’s work at Cornell University connects his Bay Area work with the environmental design he did in India, said Cornell professor Jeffrey Chusid.
Stein’s India projects included major government and industrial buildings, schools, a memorial plaza (for both Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi), and the Lodhi Estate in Central Delhi, nicknamed “Steinabad” after him and containing Joseph Stein Lane. The Indian government awarded him the high civilian award of Padma Shri.
“Joseph Stein’s work stands as a bridge between two worlds,” professor Chusid said, “between modernist ideals and the nuanced realities of diverse cultures. … His works remain iconic, not just for their beauty but also for their ability to enrich lives and environments.”
Chusid said he has seen no evidence of the Hogan House in Mill Valley in the either the Berkeley or Cornell archive, or the many books and articles written about Stein such as “Building in the Garden.” (Digital copies of the blueprints also were donated to Chusid, who is working on a new book about Stein.)
Dennis Hogan preserved Stein’s blueprints for seven decades. “I pored over them endlessly as a young child, matching what was on paper to the structure, two dimensions to three, lining up the details with the house we lived in,” he said. “I credit that with my grasp of spatial visualization.” He went on to design and build his own house, and many other structures, on his land in Laytonville.
Buffeted by political headwinds
David Stein, son of the architect, said the overall political climate of the McCarthy era triggered the family’s departure to Mexico, Europe and then India. “There was a long list … the attorney general’s list of people who were suspect. My father was apparently on that list,” he said. But a later letter from J. Edgar Hoover said he was “no longer a person of interest.”
The witch hunt was only one issue. Stein opposed the Korean War, and the rise of the military industrialized complex. In addition, local bigotry and racist federal housing policies helped prevent financing for Stein’s utopian mixed-race community in San Mateo County, Ladera, a 400-home housing cooperative. “That broke my father’s will,” said David Stein.
“Joseph Stein’s work stands as a bridge between two worlds, between modernist ideals and the nuanced realities of diverse cultures. … His works remain iconic, not just for their beauty but also for their ability to enrich lives and environments.”
Jeffrey Chusid, Cornell University professor of architecture
Ironically, the mid-century modern designs of Stein and other Bay Area architects were popularized, not as housing for all, but for middle class suburban tracts. Developer Joseph Eichler played a significant role in bringing mid-century modern architecture to the masses, building some 11,000 California homes, mostly in the Bay Area. Since the 1990s, the style has been undergoing a resurgence.
“Despite everything,” the architect’s son said, “my father continued to believe in the possibility of creating spaces that brought people together and embraced openness, physically and metaphorically.”
Eric Newton is a Bay Area journalist and consultant who has worked at newspapers, museums, philanthropies and universities.
The post Mill Valley home revealed to be unheralded work of famed architect Joseph Allen Stein appeared first on Local News Matters.