Opening Hours
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Visual Materials
Thorne, Charles H., Pasadena
- Description
- This collection contains the papers and architectural drawings of Los Angeles architect Wallace Neff, whose career spanned 56 years, from 1919 to 1975. The collection is divided into five series: Personal papers, Professional papers, Project records, Wallace Neff Jr. papers, and Additional donations. The materials include over 100 sets of drawings and plans, Neff's project files, writings and correspondence, job lists, daily journals, sketches and renderings, and photographs. The majority of Neff's work was residential architecture in Southern California, but the collection also contains materials on many types of institutional buildings and other structures Neff designed. Most projects are in California, with some material on projects in Florida, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, D.C. The Airform project files discuss building in Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Portugal, and other countries. Residences represented include those for Edward L. and Estelle Carrie Doheny, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, Amelita Galli-Curci, Fredric March, Frances Marion and Fred Thomson, Groucho Marx, and King Vidor. Other projects include the Edward L. Doheny Memorial Library; Manresa Jesuit Retreat House; Ojai Valley Country Club; Saint Elizabeth Church; and buildings for Loyola Marymount University and Pomona College. There are many records on Neff's Airform buildings: contracts, drawings, patents, licenses, correspondence, and photographs. The collection also includes the research files of Neff's son, Wallace Neff Jr. (1930-2013), related to his father's career and works. Neff Jr. compiled this material while working on his 1986 book "Wallace Neff, Architect of California's Golden Age" (text by Alson Clark). Neff Jr.'s files contain many photographs, notes and articles on Neff buildings, as well as Neff family history, and transcripts of talks he gave on his father. In addition, Neff Jr. commissioned contemporary renderings of his father's buildings, which were painted approximately 1991 to 2007 and are part of this collection. The Additional Donations series contains drawings received from other sources after the primary donation in 2006.
