Location: 500 N. Harbor Boulevard
1929: Spanish Colonial Revival
This “L”-shaped building was designed by Morgan, Walls and Clements of Los Angeles, a productive firm responsible for a large quantity of the Spanish Colonial Revival commercial architecture in Southern California. In this example, there is a mix of the earlier Mission style, such as the “bell tower” and arches.
The building was built for C. C. Chapman for $17,000, after the Alician Court Theatre (now Fox Fullerton) directly to the north was completed for him. The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company was a longtime tenant, starting in 1929; the building was used as a garage, gas station and other automobile related businesses until 1978. While obscuring to some extent the features of the original style, the building’s 1980s conversion to commercial shops is a good example of adaptive reuse.
