MONTEREY COLONIAL STYLE
The eight houses were built using an adaptation of the Monterey architectural style. Designed by Boulder architect James M. Hunter (working at that time for Glen Huntington) and built by contractor John Nelson, the residences are a mix of one-story, one and one-half story, and two-story brick and frame construction.
All residences exhibit individual shape and massing, however, all eight include similar exterior architectural features. Reflective of the Monterey style (Colorado-Monterey, Modified Colorado Ranch House, or California-Monterey), the structures display red tile roofs, decorative arches, quoins, and second floor porches. Additional shared features include shutters (mostly in shades of green or blue), individually-crafted front doors of various colors, and painted white brick walls; salvaged "used" brick from the demolished State Preparatory School (the predecessor of the current Boulder High School building) located at 17th and Pearl Streets, was used for the white-painted brick veener on each residence. All of the wood used in construction was Number 1, Kiln-dried fir; a quality of building material virtually unobtinable after World War II. Hunter took six months to complete his design for the residences, community garage, and Commons landscaping plan. He described the architectural style as being drawn from a variety of sources, and in later years publicly rejected the "Monterey Colonial" label, attributing "the roof slope as being in the style of the University buildings, while detailing was culled from Williamsburg, and molding was in the Colonial style."
Shared common space was an unusual housing feature in the 1940s. The planned interior courtyard (Commons) and the shared detached one-story parking structure are frequently found in developments today, but during the 1940s, the idea of sharing a garage that was not attached to a single family home, having shared property boundaries, and using one's backyard as a common area were considered avant-garde.
While the majority of the interiors of the homes have been remodeled and have even seen some modest exterior modifications over the years the streetscape view of each residence remains essentially unchanged since the 1940's.
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