Stucco worked well for the Mayas, built much of Rome, and covers San Diego Two factors helped bring the artistic use of stucco to a halt: modernism, with its emphasis on simple, unbroken planes, and …
December 26, 2022
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Stories by Peter Jensen
San Diego’s architects finally understanding an ancient material
San Diego's good stucco, Cliff May designed 50 ranch houses here
Stucco Reigns Cunningham’s opinions on stucco range from passion — over buildings like the San Diego Museum of Fine Art in Balboa Park, “all the old theaters,” and Requa’s A.H. Sweet House at 435 West …
February 14, 2022
1939 Australian Sixteen pops up in San Diego, falconry on Fiesta Island
The Simple Magic of Being Pushed Forward By Wind Norm was still alive. From photographs Annie had sent, he identified the skiff as his own creation by the unique placement of ribs just aft of …
February 13, 2022
Moon flowers, a romantic Ocean Beach garden, the Monterey cypress
The Lesson the Moonflower Teaches He showed her that everything he’d planted had grown: the cosmos, the tomatoes, the chamomile, the mint, the marigolds, the nasturtiums, the baby’s breath, the basil, the oregano, the anise, …
June 6, 2021
Who still hitchhikes, the California Zephyr, the climb up El Cajon Mountain
There’s Only One Hitch At first I didn’t take him for a hitchhiker, even though he was standing at the on-ramp at Via de la Valle. He had a preoccupied look, as if being without …
March 8, 2021
Best Reader stories from 1995
I've got Perry Mason on board! In early 1960, the man who created Perry Mason was introduced to an Imperial Beach resident named Francisco Muñoz. Erle Stanley Gardner had many friends, and he particularly liked …
January 11, 2020
Best Reader stories from 1994
A little bit east of Eden When I was living in Los Angeles years ago, a door-to-door solicitor pitching San Diego vacations and tours showed me a brochure of local attractions. Included on the list …
January 5, 2020
Peter Jensen and the Reader
A prolific writer for Sunset magazine, Jensen has authored books on San Diego and California. He wrote stories on local architecture for the Reader in the mid-1990s. Pat Welsh, the Julia Child of Gardening At …
May 25, 2019
Pat Welsh, the Julia Child of Gardening
At lunch she is joined by her husband, Louis Welsh, whose parents, Frances and John Lloyd Wright (son of Frank Lloyd Wright), both now deceased, lived next door. Pat and Lou eat in the garden if it’s sunny.
August 17, 1995
The secret life of San Diego's alleys
Today in Mission Hills’ neighborhoods a few blocks north and south of Fort Stockton Drive, Sunset Boulevard, and Juan Street, alleys have a different feeling than straight alleys in Pacific Beach.
August 17, 1995
The look of San Diego branch libraries
“We narrowed the Mira Mesa branch down to a design we liked, one with a roof we thought was very attractive. But the community group didn’t like it: they thought it looked like a Quonset hut.”
May 18, 1995
San Diego pick-up basketball - heroes, courts, legends
San Diego is one of the only basketball meccas where beach sand tracked onto the court is part of the game. At South Mission or Crown Point or in North County at Pillbox or Glen Park up in Cardiff.
April 6, 1995
Russell Forester, the architect of Jack in the Box
McDonald’s, once known for its exuberant golden twin parabolas flanking a glass-and-steel pavilion, is now the most boring recitation of mansardism. Only the Wienerschnitzel chain still clings to its defining, red-roofed mini-A frames.
March 30, 1995
Cliff May, inventor of the ranch house
"One of the county’s most appealing concentrations of ranch houses occurs in an unlikely place, the steep hillsides and winding streets of Del Mar…. several of these May mass-market houses were built in Del Mar as second homes.”
March 2, 1995
Stucco worked well for the Mayas, built much of Rome, and covers San Diego
Two factors helped bring the artistic use of stucco to a halt: modernism, with its emphasis on simple, unbroken planes, and the invention of the stucco “gun,” a machine process for blowing stucco onto walls.
December 1, 1994
Bridges of San Diego County: Cabrillo, Scripps pedestrian, San Luis Rey River, Lilac Road, Pine Valley
Pine Valley is famous among bridge engineers. The first prestressed concrete bridge in the U.S., built using a particular kind of cantilever technology, it appeared to defy gravity during construction. It is located near two earthquake faults.
September 15, 1994
Are San Diego courtyard solutions too good to be true?
One disturbing element of the Mercado Apartments is its parking facilities. The two lots accommodate 100 cars each, and until shade trees (jacarandas and other flowering species) take over, will invite comparisons to a small Wal-Mart.
July 28, 1994
San Diego's signs as public language
People wanted SLOW signs in their neighborhoods, on dangerous curves, intersections. But “slow is no longer a legal sign,” says Levy. “It’s too general. Now it must be why you’re supposed to go slow.”
June 23, 1994
Built to Last: In Search of San Diego's Hundred-Year Buildings
Landscape architect Roger DeWeese cites Balboa Park’s landscape as San Diego’s most enduring feature. “Our society has been borrowing on the foresight of some real visionaries for three or four generations now,”
April 14, 1994
Baja Was Made for Travelers Like Henry
Henry left this morning. He hooked up with a fellow we met on the morning radio net who was looking for a little company on his drive to La Paz. He’ll bring the truck back tonight.
March 10, 1994
San Diego's towers: MTDB, zoo, SDSU, Solana Beach train depot, Tower Bowl
In San Diego’s towers we find our final denial of the endless plains and deserts that brought us to this Western shore. We embrace the power of mountains, the connection between man and the firmament.
February 17, 1994