{"id":258,"date":"2013-01-14T22:45:33","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T22:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brendarees.com\/?p=258"},"modified":"2015-11-06T18:40:08","modified_gmt":"2015-11-06T18:40:08","slug":"profile-of-bungalow-heavens-bob-kneisel-arroyo-magazine-june-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brendarees.com\/?p=258","title":{"rendered":"Profile of Bungalow Heaven’s Bob Kneisel, Arroyo Magazine, June 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Lasting Impression<\/strong><\/p>\n

Architecture and community have been longtime teachers for Bob Kneisel, Bungalow Heaven\u2019s longtime champion<\/p>\n

By Brenda Rees<\/p>\n

Walking down the street in his quiet, leafy, bungalow-laden neighborhood, Bob Kneisel stops and stoops to pull out a weed from a curbside median that is not in front of his house. He tugs up the offending dandelion-like plant and hurls it into the gutter. \u201cI\u2019ll come back for these with a bag,\u201d he says as he yanks up a few more. \u201cThese weeds will get in everyone\u2019s yard, if you don\u2019t watch out.\u201d<\/p>\n

One would think that after so many years of working to establish, and then protect, Bungalow Heaven in Northeast Pasadena from the lure of fast-paced urban development that started picking up steam in the 1980s, Kneisel, 65, would take a break from hands-on involvement, but he can\u2019t. The bond of man and Craftsman is as indelible as the ruffled brick porch columns of Kneisel\u2019s 1912 house.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll be in my house till I die,\u201d he says matter-of-factly about his home on Mar Vista Avenue since 1986.\u00a0 \u201cI can\u2019t imagine anywhere else I\u2019d be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The recent recipient of The Blinn House Foundation’s annual Robert Winter award (named for the noted Pasadena architectural historian and author) was selected because of his close association with the success story of Bungalow Heaven, the first and largest Landmark District in Pasadena, established in 1989. “Bob Kneisel made the landmark district a reality, which marked a turning point in preservation in Pasadena,” the foundation said in a statement announcing the award.<\/p>\n

Bungalow Heaven is a little oasis in the city and is roughly situated between Washington and Orange Grove north\/south bordered by Lake and Hill Avenues on the east\/west with inlets to Mentor and Holliston Avenues. With front doors topping 1,300 (it originally encompassed 982 homes, but the boundaries have been extended); Bungalow Heaven makes up one of the densest concentration of Craftsman homes in the country (with many Spanish Revival, Victorians, Colonial cottages and other styles represented as well). The moniker, Bungalow Heaven, has been around since the 1970s when resident John Merritt, a staffer at Pasadena Historic Preservation and fellow Robert Winter Awardee recipient this year, coined the phrase. Merritt went on to be Executive Director of the California Preservation Foundation.<\/p>\n

Mainly constructed between 1905 and 1925, these Arts & Crafts-style single-lot homes reflect a more organic approach to architecture that their immediate predecessors, the ornate Victorians. River rock and redwood shingles adorn low-slung roofs that shade wide front porches. Bungalows were initially constructed for working-class buyers who valued good taste. While prices have since soared for the popular style, it still attracts aficionados of good design. Creative folk, educators, horticulturists, scientists and people in the entertainment industry — straight, gay and of every ethnicity \u2013 all find their way to these picture-perfect streets. And Kneisel probably knows their names. \u201cYou may come here for the homes, but you\u2019ll stay for the neighborhood,\u201d he says about the close-knit community.<\/p>\n

Indeed, there is plenty buzz\u00a0 in the streets about the summer Movie Nights as well as the Fourth of July parade in McDonald Park. Residents are recovering from this year\u2019s Bungalow Heaven Home Tour which welcomed more than 1,000 visitors. In addition to these planned neighborhood events, the friendliness of the area is seen every day when young moms and toddlers meet in playgroups, children ride bikes together, couples walk their dogs or seniors enjoy a simple stroll.<\/p>\n

Back on the sidewalk, Kneisel points out architectural details (\u201cThat\u2019s called ‘peanut brittle,\u2019\u201d he says of the marriage of clinker bricks and mixed stone found in a chimney) and tells stories about unfortunate attempts at remodeling, drawn from local history. He stops at a gorgeous example of a California bungalow that would be right at home in a Greene & Greene portfolio. \u201cCan you believe it was once stucco-ed over? Just look at it now,\u201d he says with a touch of pride.<\/p>\n

Farther down the street, Kneisel calls attention to a modest bungalow that was moved from the area around the Caltech campus in 1992, saving it from demolition. \u201cLinus Pauling lived in it back in the ’20s,\u201d he says of the two-time Nobel Prize-winner. \u201cWe have a saying, \u2018Bungalow Heaven is where bungalows go when they are good.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

There may be no one who knows these streets as intimately as Kneisel. For the past 20 years, Kneisel has been a block captain, receiving complaints and passing along communication to the residents. He is currently serving his second term as president of the Bungalow Heaven Neighborhood Association and is a regular docent for the Home Tour.<\/p>\n

But 1985-1989 was when Kneisel really<\/em> pounded the pavement of Bungalow Heaven. When a lovely two-story 1912 Craftsman bungalow on the corner of Wilson Avenue and Washington Boulevard was unceremoniously demolished to make way for, as Kneisel says, \u201cone of the tackiest apartment houses anyone has ever seen,\u201d he and the neighborhood decided to take action.<\/p>\n

Petitions were circulated to rezone the area for only single family use with Kneisel leading the way as he and other concerned residents went door to door to garner support. Eventually, the city changed the zoning, a sweet victory.<\/p>\n

With that new found high, residents decided to step further into preservation. They had saved bungalows from destruction from the outside, but could these houses be saved from themselves? Up and down the street, classic bungalows were being altered, fitted with aluminum windows or sadly stucco-ed over. Resident mulled the pros and cons of becoming a historic district. Once again, Kneisel and other residents put on their walking shoes to take the pulse of neighborhood, one by one.<\/p>\n

Some homeowners immediately grasped that such a status would increase their property values \u2013 others, saw the designation as infringing on their rights. \u201cThere were those who said, \u2018These homes are historical, they are nothing special,\u2019\u201d recalls Kneisel. \u201cWe had a little image problem back then.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a year and a half, \u201cConservation Plan,\u201d was hammered out between city and homeowners. The plan is a list of what kinds of minor and major home alternations would be reviewed by city staff or commission. Kneisel was part of that initial review panel as a neighborhood representative.<\/p>\n

\u201cBob was incredibly enthusiastic and he engaged a lot of people in the effort,\u201d says Linda Dishman, executive director of the Los Angeles Conservancy, who at the time served as a senior planner for Pasadena. \u201cThere was a lot of footwork those early days and Bob never shied away from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a working Conservation Plan in hand, Kneseil and company once again knocked on doors to garner signatures to accept the regulations.<\/p>\n

During the canvassing, it became evident that while homeowners were interested in their preserving their homes, they were also overtly concerned about their community. Traffic, rising crime, potholes. McDonald Park didn\u2019t feel safe to many residents. \u201cForming a Neighborhood Association was a tremendous step,\u201d says Kneseil who was instrumental in that creation. Not only did the organization create a bond between neighbors, it was a necessity since Pasadena required that areas seeking historic status must have an active neighborhood association.<\/p>\n

Finally, enough property owners signed the petition for Landmark District designation by the City Council which, in 1989, made Bungalow Heaven the first neighborhood in Pasadena to be granted such a distinction. The status ensures that the neighborhood will retain its architectural integrity for generations to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cBob and a handful of people really made this happen,\u201d says Tina Miller, past president of the Bungalow Heaven Neighborhood Association, about those early canvassing days. \u201cBob knows the folks on the City Council, and he knows how the system works. He\u2019s like a politician in the good sense of the word. He likes being out there, shaking hands, kissing babies and listening to what you have to say. It matters to him. He wants to get things done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Kneisel\u2019s activism has expanded beyond the boundaries of Bungalow Heaven, especially since that association joined in 2002 the Pasadena Neighborhood Coalition, which unites local neighborhood associations. \u201cWe offer our experience and can be a resource to those associations that are trying to do what we did back then,\u201d he says. \u201cWe want others to benefit from our knowledge.\u201d Kneisel served as president of that coalition for two years.<\/p>\n

Kneisel also continues to defend individual historic buildings and neighborhoods that are being threatened. He recently got a call from other local neighborhood associations to join them to lobby on behalf of three structures around Hill Avenue and Washington Boulevard. One of them, a brick Colonial Revival building at 1313 N. Hill which houses the Shoetorium, did qualify for landmark status and is heading to City Council for a vote as of this writing.<\/p>\n

Kneisel is a natural for the preservation spotlight, despite the fact that he never academically studied architecture or history \u2013 he worked for years as an environment economist for the South Coast Air Quality Management District.<\/p>\n

\u201cBungalows were built for human scale, they aren\u2019t mansions with high ceilings,\u201d he says. \u201cThey are modest and easy to live in. Craftsman bungalows have lots of windows, great ventilation and integrate nature in the design so there\u2019s a woodsy natural feeling to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

So how was this love match made? Growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, Kneisel remembers riding his bike in the 1950s to check out houses in the \u201cnew development.\u201d When his history professor father took a job at Long Beach City College and moved the family west, Kneisel recalls preferring Knott\u2019s Berry Farm to Disneyland because \u201cit was more interesting \u2013 probably because it felt older.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 1970s, when Kneisel was a grad student in Economics at UC Riverside, he became the caretaker of the eclectic Weber House in Riverside. The experience sparked his affinity for historic homes and gave him the organizational know-how to save such beloved structures from the wrecking ball.<\/p>\n

Built between 1932 and 1938 by architect Peter J. Weber, the house’s hard-carved and hand-decorated elements combine Moorish, Craftsman and Art Deco styles. \u201cI cut my teeth on home repair there on the Weber House,\u201d says Kneisel, remembering the imaginative brick house on nine acres with its gas-powered refrigerator, a \u201cchallenging\u201d electrical system and a solar water heater (installed in 1935 and still operational) with collector panels made of automobile windshields. The elaborate floor-to-ceiling bathroom mosaic, created with recycled broken tiles, is, as Kneisel says, \u201can amazing piece of artwork.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kneisel befriended Weber (\u201cIt\u2019s not often you can meet the architect of a home you are living in\u201d) and learned much from his early unofficial mentor in historical architecture. Weber had worked for noted designer Julia Morgan in San Francisco; later he was a chief designer at the architectural firm of G. Stanley Wilson where he planned much of Riverside’s elaborate Mission Inn. \u201c[Weber] was a man who wasn\u2019t afraid to do things his own way,\u201d says Kneisel.<\/p>\n

Throughout his two years as caretaker of the Weber House, Kneisel became involved in preserving his old dwelling; even after he moved from the area, he served on the board of the Old Riverside Foundation for Historic Preservation which ultimately saved the house from demolition. \u201cI think I came of age about historic preservation as [the foundation] learned the ropes about saving the house,\u201d he says. \u201cThat was my first taste of being an activist citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Weber House still remains (it\u2019s on the National Register of Historic Places and offers tours by appointment only), although it\u2019s no longer surrounded by the original nine acres of orange groves. Two modern hotels now tower over the house in an odd juxtaposition of new dwarfing old.<\/p>\n

Despite his fondness for the past, Kneisel has two feet in the present with his eyes on the future. Back on the pavement, he stops and takes in the scene before him: sparkling homes, wonderful gardens, singing birds and an incredible sense of peace that\u2019s just seconds away from the bustle of Lake Avenue.<\/p>\n

When Kneisel first moved into Bungalow Heaven, he saw a diamond in the rough, with homes in various needs of attention, but now, the neighborhood \u201cfeels more authentic. I love when the stucco comes off and homes change into something beautiful,\u201d he says. \u201cWe are fortunate to live in this wonderful island, surrounded by people with common values who want to live here. That is what makes any neighborhood great.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For this Arroyo Monthly article, I got a chance to explore the roots of Pasadena’s Bungalow Heaven as I profiled mover and shaker, Bob Kneisel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":263,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-arroyo-monthly","9":"post-with-thumbnail","10":"post-with-thumbnail-large"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brendarees.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brendarees.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brendarees.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendarees.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendarees.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendarees.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":696,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendarees.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendarees.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brendarees.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendarees.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brendarees.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}