Wednesday, September 23, 2009

San Clemente

My blog entries are usually driven by current events, by material suggested or sent to me by others, or by whatever strikes my fancy. There's no real plan. Accordingly, I occasionally notice that I've unfairly ignored certain communities. It just happens. For instance, it turns out I've only posted about five images San Clemente over the past three years. My mea culpa begins with the 1950s postcard of Downtown San Clemente posted above.
This next photo shows beach parking at San Clemente in about 1928. From my own childhood, I seem to remember a big dirt parking lot. Today the lot is paved, landscaped, and well-lighted.
In the early days, developer Ole Hanson decreed that all buildings in San Clemente must conform to the town's slogan: "The Spanish Village of White Houses." Everything built was in a Spanish motif and featured white walls and red roofs. Perhaps you thought South County's planned communities and strict CC&Rs were something recent?

2 comments:

Randy Kraft said...

I love San Clemente !

That is one city with a hot bar scene !

Anonymous said...

If you're curious how CC&Rs and planned communities came to be, you might enjoy reading "Bourgeois Nightmares: Suburbia, 1870-1930" by Professor Robert M. Fogelson. The planning at Palos Verdes definitely helped set the tone in Southern California. It's a good read and available from Amazon.