City Council to Consider Hunt Library Policy Statement

On June 15 the Fullerton City Council will consider a policy statement concerning the Hunt Library. The statement, reproduced below, begins with the very important statement that the Hunt should remain a property of the city and be utilized for the benefit of the public. Save the Hunt was founded to see a policy like this supported by the city and put into effect.

The Goals and Visions include recognition of the structure’s style and historical importance. This is a critical position for the council to adopt to avoid inappropriate restoration and/or additional structures on the site that might compromise this unique structure and campus. It could only be strengthened by adding that no additional structures should be built near the Hunt.

One might also wish for the council to support a policy of the Library Board of Trustees having some role in overseeing the site and activities there.

The City Council meeting will be held in the City Hall Council Chambers, 303 W. Commonwealth Ave., CA 92832, 303 W. Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton, Ca, 93832. Options for public participation can be found below:

“PUBLIC PARTICIPATION: Pursuant to Executive Order N-29-20 and given the current health concerns, members of the public can access meetings streamed live online at https://fullerton.legistar.com, on Spectrum Cable Channel 3 and AT&T U-Verse Channel 99. The City Council Chamber will have limited seating available on a first- come, first-served basis for members of the public to attend the meeting in person. All persons visiting City facilities shall wear face masks and observe social distancing protocols.

In lieu of public attendance, members of the public can submit comments electronically for City Council consideration by clicking on the eComment link accompanying the agenda posted online at https://fullerton.legistar.com until the close of the public comment period for the item.

Alternatively, the public can send correspondence to the City Council regarding agenda items by emailing council@cityoffullerton.com with the subject line “CITY COUNCIL MEETING CORRESPONDENCE – ITEM #” (insert the item number relevant to your comment) or “CITY COUNCIL MEETING CORRESPONDENCE NON-AGENDA ITEM”. Staff will forward correspondence received to City Council. All correspondence received becomes part of the official record of the meeting and posted online with the supplemental materials for that meeting. Contact the City Clerk’s Office at cityclerksoffice@cityoffullerton.com or (714)-738-6350 with any questions.

Quirk-Silva Celebrates City Council Vote on Hunt Library

On June 3 The office of Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva issued the following press release about the selection of ArtsOC/Heritage Future as the applicants selected by the Fullerton City Council to provide programming and oversee needed renovations to the historic structure. Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva’s securing of $ 2.5 million in state funding is a crucial element in the revival of the Hunt.

City of Fullerton Unanimously Votes to Renovate Hunt Branch Library

Sacramento, CA – Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva’s $2.5 million 2019 budget request that was approved and allocated to the City of Fullerton will be utilized for the renovations of the Hunt Branch Library. The Fullerton City Council unanimously approved the selection panel’s recommendation for the Arts Orange County and Heritage Future.

“I am very proud to have worked with the state to secure $2.5 million for a future renovated Hunt Branch Library. As a classroom teacher, and former City Council Member, I have always prioritized community spaces, literacy, and the arts. I cannot wait to see the Hunt Library open for the public again,” said Assemblywoman Quirk-Silva.

The Hunt Branch Library was designated as a local landmark by the Fullerton City Council in November 2018. The designation is meant both to recognize significant structures in the city and to prevent them from being inappropriately remodeled or destroyed. The Hunt Branch Library was donated to the City of Fullerton by Norton Simon’s Hunt Foods Foundationin 1962. The building received this designation because of its significant style and outstanding design, as well as the importance and influence of its architect, William Pereira.

Arts Orange County’s experience as a non-profit arts advocacy group founded twenty years ago, at a time when such an organization was lacking in Orange County, has established themselves as a contributor to major and most minor arts organizations. Their work with many members of the group that continue to advocate for arts funding and support helps them lead the way for this project. Furthermore, they provide organizational and other services to our community which are vital for this project.

“Having this non-profit organization along with Heritage Future that is dedicated to community building, and providing a diverse neighborhood with creative and cultural opportunities for everyone in the City of Fullerton, I am confident that they will put the $2.5 million in California State Budget Funding to good use in this project,” said Assemblywoman Quirk-Silva.

After years of discussions as to whether the facility should be renovated, the City Council has made a clear direction to the staff and community for how the site could be used and will move forward with the renovation project.

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California Historical Resources Commission Approves Landmark Nomination for Hunt Center and Library

The interior of the Hunt Library, seen in a report presented to the California Historical Resources Commission on February 1.

The California Historical Resources Commission has approved the California Register landmark nomination for the 1962 Hunt Center and Library. The landmark nomination was one of four nominated properties on the consent calendar of the Commission’s February 1 meeting agenda. The report accompanying the nomination noted that the “district retains a high degree of historic integrity.”

The Hunt Center includes the Hunt office building, the designed landscape, a platform with metal canopy, six modernist benches, and six hexagonal planters. The Hunt Office Building was characterized as exhibiting “all the striking elements of the international style,” including its “rectilinear form and steel structure, glass panels, and repeated modular panels.” The Hunt Office Building and its surrounding grounds are owned by Grace Ministries International, who added a large unrelated structure to the property after purchasing it was Hunt Wesson, Inc. Grace Ministries currently leases the Hunt Library from its owner, the City of Fullerton.

The Hunt Library, conceived as a companion to the Hunt Office Building in style, was described as embodying all the features of a small branch library of the period, designed in the international style, one seldom otherwise used in Fullerton. The nomination also cited the importance of the Hunt Library having been designed by word famous architect William Pereira and commissioned by Norton Simon, a self-made industrialist and art collector.

The nomination was by Fullerton Heritage, who authored an extensive report found on this site.

A view of part of the Hunt Center and Library campus, showing the pavilion and library. Photo by world famous architectural photographer Julius Shulman.

Hunt Library Before Landmarks Commission Wednesday, October 24

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The Hunt Branch Library is on the agenda of the Planning Commission, who also act as Fullerton’s Landmarks Commission Wednesday evening, October 24 at City Hall. The meeting will take place in the City Council chambers, 303 West Commonwealth Avenue, beginning at 7:00 p.m. It is the third item on the Commission’s agenda.

Local preservationist group Fullerton Heritage, have written an extraordinarily complete application found at this link on this website:

https://wordpress.com/post/savethehunt.com/229

For reference, the Fullerton Municipal Code is cited in the staff report for the item. It reads, in part:

“15.48.060. Criteria for designation.

A. In considering a request for a “Historical Landmark” designation, the following criteria shall be used in determining eligibility:

1. Character, interest or value as part of the heritage of the city.

2. Location as a site of a historic event.

3. Identification with a person or persons or groups who significantly contributed to the culture and development of the city.

4. Exemplification of a particular architectural style or way of life important to the city.

5. Exemplification of the best remaining architectural types in an area.

6. Identification as the work of a person or persons whose work has influenced the heritage of the city, the state of California or the United States.

7. Embodiment of elements of outstanding attention to architectural design, detail, materials, or craftsmanship.

8. Relationship to other landmarks, where the preservation of one has a bearing on the preservation of another.

9. A unique location or singular physical characteristic representing an established and familiar visual feature of a neighborhood.

10. Integrity as a natural environment that strongly contributes to the well being of the people of the city.

B. In considering a request for a “Landmark District” designation, support of the designation should be demonstrated by a substantial majority of the property owners within the boundary of the proposed district.

(Ord. 2982, 2001).“

The Hunt Branch Library, designed by a world famous architect who had a profound impact on the development of California in the last century, commissioned by an industrialist/philanthropist whose business was a significant employer in our city for over half a century, is a strong candidate for Landmark status. Please be sure to attend the meeting to support protection for this irreplaceable and unique structure Wednesday night.

Final Library Ad Hoc Committee Meeting Wednesday, Oct. 10, 5:30 p.m. the Muckenthaler Cultural Center

The Library Ad-Hoc Committee will have its fourth and last meeting on Wednesday, October 10, , 1201 W. Malvern Ave. (park in the main lot at the top of the hill). The Committee is expected to draft a recommendation to the City Council regarding the possible uses for the Hunt Library. The agenda for the meeting can be found at this link: October 10 Library Ad Hoc Agenda

The Landmarks Commission hearing for the Hunt Library, that we originally expected for the same evening, has been postponed, so you can attend the Ad-Hoc at the Muckenthaler instead. We will alert you when the Landmark hearing is eventually scheduled.

Public Attend Hunt Tour and Presentation About William Pereira by Preservationist Alan Hess

DSCF7344 — Alan Hess leads members of the public around the Hunt Branch Library. Photo by Damion Lloyd.

Over a hundred people turned out Monday night, Sept. 24 to hear renowned architect and historian Alan Hess lead tours through Fullerton’s Hunt Branch Library before his evening presentation about the building and its architect next door at Pacific Drive Elementary School. The free program was organized by SaveTheHunt, a community group dedicated to keeping the currently closed library in public hands. The library is normally closed to visitors because the building and grounds are leased to neighboring Grace Ministries International (GMI), but access was arranged through the Fullerton Public Library. The large number of attendees necessitated two successive tours led by Mr. Hess, who spoke about the structure’s integration of indoor and outdoor spaces and other mid-century modernist design strategies employed by the library’s architect William Pereira.

Mr. Hess is a co-founder of Preserve OC a non-profit dedicated to preserving Orange County’s architectural and cultural heritage. He is the author of more than twenty architecture books, the latest entitled The Ranch House, copies of which he later signed for the public.

The program continued next door in Pacific Drive’s Multipurpose Room, where SaveTheHunt organizer Jane Reifer welcomed the audience to the presentation. Following brief remarks about the history of the Hunt Branch, Fullerton Public Library Director Judy Booth spoke about the Library Ad Hoc Committee, of which she is an ex-officio member, charged with formulating a recommendation for the facility’s ultimate use to Fullerton’s City Council. (The Ad Hoc meets next at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center on October 10 at 5:30 p.m.).

Alan Hess Hunt Program — Alan Hess shows images of details of the Hunt Branch Library, Headquarters building next door, and a bench on the campus.

The presentation by Alan Hess traced the varied career of William Pereira from architecture school days in Illinois to Hollywood, where he became an art director who won an Oscar for Best Special Effects in the early 1940’s. Eventually returning to architecture, Pereira formed a partnership with classmate Charles Luckman. Mr. Hess noted that the team’s landmark 1953 CBS Television City in Los Angeles was the first studio designed specifically for television production, and, thanks to good planning, is still operation today. The prolific team also designed the original Disneyland Hotel and the iconic “Theme Building” in the center of Los Angeles International Airport.

Later, Pereira’s own firm designed San Francisco’s Transamerica Tower and the original buildings of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Mr. Hess emphasized that good planning and individual architectural character were the keys to Pereira’s success in designing not only buildings, but entire campuses, like the University of California, Irvine, and the master plan for the City of Irvine itself. He cautioned that, although Pereira’s 1973 wing of the L.A. Times complex just received Landmark status, many of William Pereira’s buildings have been lost, and that the LACMA buildings are threatened by that museum’s new master plan. Mr. Hess stressed the importance of protecting buildings like the former Hunt headquarters building, now own outright by GMI, and its companion Hunt Branch Library both as important local structures and internationally significant buildings to serve future generations.

DSCF7327 — Members of the public gather for the tour. Photo by Damion Lloyd.

Public Pressure Keeps Fullerton City Council From Supplanting Library Board

Library Trustee Audience Poll — Audience members stand to show opposition to members of the Fullerton City Council appoint themselves as Trustees to the Fullerton Library Board

A strong show of support for maintaining the Library Board of Trustees as appointees of Fullerton City Councilmembers kept the Council from passing an agenda item that would have seen them begin to supplant the Trustees on the Board as early as December. The agenda item, one of several in series ostensibly intended to streamline and update city commissions and committees, drew widespread public opposition. Dozens of attendees to the City Council’s meeting last Tuesday evening stood when Mayor Doug Chaffee asked who in the audience was against the change, while not a single member of the audience stood when the Mayor asked who supported it.

Following a presentation by the City Clerk Mayor Chaffee attempted to assuage audience concerns about eliminating appointed Trustees, assuring the crowd that no one on the City Council intended to supplant the Board, even though the agenda item’s appearance was engendered by Councilmember Jennifer Fitzgerald’s May 1 City Council comments, wherein she directly suggested exactly what the city staff report recommended on Tuesday night–that the City Council appoint its own membership to serve as Trustees to the city’s Library Board and create a less powerful Advisory Board, to which each Councilmember would appoint a representative. Since the founding to the library a century ago, members of the City Council have appointed members of the public, not themselves, to serve as Trustees.

Mayor Chaffee advocated passing other staff recommended changes to the Fullerton Municipal Code regarding the library, but met with direct opposition to even this course of action because the changes to the language were nowhere reproduced in the staff report attached to the City Council agenda. Many audience members were strongly circumspect about making any changes without know what they were and how they would affect the operation and governance of the library and its properties. The City Council, including Mayor Chaffee who is in tight race for the 4th District O.C. Board of Supervisors in November, ultimately backed down from passing anything.

Many community members were very suspicious about the motives behind the measure, ostensibly intended to bring the city’s code into compliance with the amended state code the governs libraries in California. Lacking any stated or printed reason for a revision that called for Council Members to serve as Trustees, some thought it might be an avenue for allowing the city to more easily absorb revenue generated by sale of library property–like the Hunt Branch. Both Doug Chaffee and Jennifer Fitzgerald have voiced support for selling the facility, currently closed to the pubic and leased to neighboring Grace Ministries International.

Special Tour and Presentation About Hunt Branch Library September 24 (Updated with Parking Map)

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UPDATED WITH PARKING MAP! (See below)

William Pereira’s Hunt Branch Library: Fullerton’s Hidden Mid Century Gem

Rare Opportunity to tour Fullerton’s Hunt Branch Library, September 24, 5:30 – 6:30 p.m., 201 S. Basque Ave, Fullerton, CA

Presentation by Alan Hess, September 24, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m., Pacific Drive Elementary School, 1501 W. Valencia Dr., Fullerton, CA

Save The Hunt Event-Parking Map_09-24-18 copy — Parking for the Sept. 24 tour and presentation.

Renowned architect, historian, and author Alan Hess will discuss William Pereira’s contributions to architecture and planning in the 20th Century and the significance of Fullerton’s Pereira-designed Hunt Branch Library building on Monday, September 24, 7:00 – 8:30 p.m. at Pacific Drive Elementary School, near the library itself. The presentation will be preceded by a special tour of the Hunt Branch Library from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. The program is presented by Save the Hunt, a community group dedicated to keeping the now closed Hunt Branch Library in the public realm. The tour and program are free of charge. Free parking is available at Pacific Drive School.

Though beloved by generations of Fullerton residents, the Hunt Branch Library is unknown to many outside of the city, who are often surprised to find such a well preserved modernist “hidden gem” near quiet suburban neighborhoods. This tour offers a rare opportunity to experience the spacious interior of the Hunt Library, with its largely untouched mid century details and open air alcoves.

The Library was a gift to the City of Fullerton from the Norton Simon Foundation in 1962. The ten thousand square foot building closely mirrors the style of the former Hunt Food & Industries headquarters, a four story structure located adjacent to it, also designed by Pereira as part of an award-winning unified campus. Both buildings are particularly significant because they represent some of the architect’s final high modernist designs, but incorporate some elements of his later brutalist style.

For many years Norton Simon showcased paintings from his world famous art collection, now housed in his eponymous Pasadena museum, inside the library and installed sculptures by Giacometti and Rodin on its grounds. Mr. Simon had originally intended to build an art museum on the Hunt campus in Fullerton.

For five decades, since its September 1962 dedication, the Hunt Branch served as one of only two branches of the Fullerton Public Library, until being closed for lack of adequate operating funds in 2013 and eventually leased to neighboring Grace Ministries International. This arrangement was said to be temporary while GMI renovated their adjacent headquarters, the former Hunt Food & Industries headquarters. However, the lease has continued through 2018.

Architect and historian Alan Hess has written numerous books and monographs on Modern architecture and urbanism in the mid-twentieth century, including works about the Googie style, the Ranch House, and about architects John Lautner, Oscar Niemeyer, and Frank Lloyd Wright, and has researched the history of Irvine, California, a city master planned by architect William Pereira. Mr. Hess earned a Master’s degree from the UCLA Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning. He is active in the preservation of post-World War II architecture.

Save the Hunt is a group of Fullerton citizens concerned that the historic Hunt Branch Library building is in imminent danger of being sold by the City of Fullerton. The group is exploring viable options for its use to benefit the community rather than allowing this irreplaceable public asset to be sold to a private concern.

A pdf of the flyer above can be found here: Sept. 24 Event Flyer

Library Ad Hoc Committee to Meet at Muckenthaler Center on September 4

Hunt Register — The Library Ad Hoc Committee will meet at another one of Fullerton’s architectural treasures, the Muckenthaler Cultural Center, on Sept. 4 at 5:30 p.m.

The third of four planned meetings of Fullerton’s Library Ad Hoc Committee will be held on Tuesday, September 4, 5:30 p.m. at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center, 1201 W. Malvern Ave. Interested members of the public are invited to attend. Parking is free.

The Library Ad Hoc Committee voted at their last meeting to invite members of the public to submit ideas about possible funded uses for the Hunt Library by the September 4 meeting.

The full agenda can be found at these links:

https://docs.cityoffullerton.com/WebLink/1/edoc/687632/09-04-2018%20Complete%20agenda%20packet.pdf

09-04-2018 Complete agenda packet

The agenda alone, without notes from the previous meeting, can viewed below…

09-04-2018 Complete agenda packet

Library Ad Hoc Meeting, August 6

The Library Ad-Hoc Committee will hold its second meeting on Monday, August 6 at the Conference Center Room of the Main Library, located at 353 W. Commonwealth Ave. The Agenda can be viewed at this link: Agenda-12.

At the committee’s request, the meeting will begin with a short presentation by a member of SaveTheHunt.com about our Hunt 101 presentation last month.

The Regular Business Agenda includes the following items:

Selection of a Chair and Vice-Chair, held over from the previous meeting.
Prioritizing Council Direction Regarding the Purpose of the Library Ad Hoc Committee, evidently still not clearly understood by the Ad Hoc.
Cost to Operate the Hunt Library as a Library, provided to the council numerous times, when they have continually declined to fund it.
Requirements and Estimated Costs to Bring theHunt Library up to Current Standards for Publicly Accessible Buildings, a critical number to have when considering any use for the facility.
Proposed Publicly Beneficial Uses of the Building and Grounds, the two important words here are “publicly” and “grounds.”
Proposed Funding Sources for Improvement of the Building and Grounds, we’ll see what sources the members have identified.