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Overview

The Ben Hur Estates tract was developed in 1951, with 81 one-story, Modern ranch houses being built in 1951 and 1952. The tract occupied hilly terrain and required extensive grading, cutting, filling and compacting of earth to produce flat building sites. It occupied a 31-acre parcel located in East Whittier, CA. It stood on a parcel bounded by the rear (southeast) lot line of Valley View Avenue on the southeast, El Soneto Drive on the northeast, La Entrada Avenue on the northwest and Whittier Boulevard on the southwest. Development costs were set at $1.5 million and prices for each house ranged between $15,500 to $16,500. The developer, Kenbo Corporation, sold the dwellings on FHA-insured mortgage financing.

Building History

Earl P. Snyder and Kenneth P. Schmidt of the Kenbo Corporation commissioned the architectural firm of Burge and Roach and the surveyor William H. Fair, Jr., (1904-1998) to the design of Ben Hur Estates tract. Burge and Roach also designed the three basic models of houses in three-bedroom and two-bedroom-plus-den configurations. Many of the Henry Burge-designed residences had flat roofs, others had pyramidal hipped roofs. They sited the houses on softly curving streets and arranged the houses to occupy large lots, each a quarter- to a half-acre each.

The periodical House and Home published an article on Ben Hur Estates in its 02/1952 issue. It explained that the tract was built on very hilly, low-cost land, formerly thought unsuitable for residential development: "Never considered a good development site because of the 40' drop in its 1,000' width and because of its many gullies, the Ben Hur tract was available at $3,000 an acre or about $1,150 per lot--bargain prices in this part of suburban Los Angeles. Its possibilities could be appreciated only by those, who like Ben Hur's land planners, were familiar with the abilities of modern earth-moving equipment. First, the land planners remodeled the terrain on paper, then called in the bulldozers. Instead of shoving the earth big distances to form a few big shelves for level rows of houses, the bulldozers lopped off the high spots, filled in the gullies and then transformed each building site into a level platform with terraces in between. (Along many lot lines the terraces were replaced by concrete block retaining walls four to six courses out of the ground.) Thus the general configuration of the terrain was preserved, bulldozing costs were minimized and each lot was raised above its neighbor so that it could better enjoy the view and breeze. Next came the sheepfoot--a huge spiked roller used extensively in compacting highway fills. At Ben Hur each 6" of dry fill was rolled with the sheepfoot and rolled again after it had been thoroughly soaked. This operation was repeated after each 6" of fill was placed. In some low spots a 15' fill was required but 8' was the most required on any actual building site. Since road builders have successfully placed highways on 30' fills, Ben Hur's developers were not worried about pouring floor slabs on 8' fills. In fact, compaction tests indicated that the fill was stronger than the original soil. This extensive earth moving and compacting cost surprisingly little: $30,375, or an average of $375 per lot. But, in conjunction with streets, utilities and other site improvement ($94,625 or $1,175 per lot), they boosted the cost of developed lots to an average of $2,700." (See "Prize Subdivision," House and Home, vol. 1. no. 2, 02/1952, p. 110.)

Kenbo Corporation aimed to build two more subdivisions in the Los Angeles area during the year 1952. (See "Home Sales Reach $350,000 at Whittier District Project," Los Angeles Times, 07/15/1951., p. E5.)

Building Notes

The Ben Hur Estates tract was one of five national subdivisions to be honored as prize winners in the $14,000-$17,500 bracket, in the National Association of Home Builder's (NAHB) fourth annual Neighborhood Development Contest. in 1952. Another on the West Coast was the Wedgwood tract in Seattle, planned by owner Albert Balch, and the architectural firms of Thomas, Grainger and Barr and Chiarelli and Kirk.

PCAD id: 25922