08/28/2026
Built in 1919, more than a decade before the International Style began, Horatio West Court on Hollister Avenue is a true precursor to modern architecture.
The four-unit complex was designed by Irving Gill. Born in New York in 1870, Gill came to California in 1893. He developed his own style by combining futuristic ideas with the forms of pueblos and Spanish missions.
Horatio West Court was conceived out of Gill's desire to develop affordable housing for folks living on modest means. He wanted to design places that were not only inexpensive, but pleasant. The concept didn't quite work as planned because the new residents were all middle-income and attracted to the beach.
Horatio West Court consists of four two-story residences in facing pairs separated by a landscaped central path.
The individual units are substantial five-room homes. Downstairs is a living room, study, dining room, kitchen, and bath, with doors opening from the living and dining rooms into a private court. Upstairs is a bedroom, another bath, and a large outdoor porch enclosed by parapet walls.
Exterior walls and interior partitions are built as a six-inch concrete sandwich reinforced with steel rods, while the floors, stairs, and roof slab are also concrete. It was an extraordinarily complete application of concrete to residential construction in 1919, and the material helped the buildings survive with relatively little alteration.
In 1973, a group of architects and admirers of early California Modernism acquired Horatio West Court to restore and live in. Between 1973 and 1976, they repaired the concrete and plaster, replaced roofing, updated kitchens and plumbing, and carefully rehabilitated the buildings without changing Gill's basic plan. Their work is what allows the structure to survive to this day.
Horatio West Court was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. Looking at it now, can you tell this structure is over 107 years old?
National Trust for Historic Preservation
