Just some details added here and there to update this post.
By 1880, there were few vacant lots in the core of downtown Santa
Cruz . One prominent spot remained, but that changed in 1882 when Santa
Cruz County
The rest of the little building, however, was a surprise. Oakland
architect J. W. Newcum chose an octagonal shape, the only such building in
Santa Cruz (that I know of – help me out, readers, if you know of others).
Another surprise was that a little research found many octagonal residences in other U.S. places,
many built earlier in the 1800s. BTW: the tower visible behind the Octagon is the 1876 Santa Cruz City Hall.
Another surviving building with an unusual shape was built not far
away just a couple of years later. Perhaps inspired by the octagonal Hall of
Records, a hexagon-shaped house was built in 1884 down on Sycamore St. Note the
curved steep-pitched roof, borrowed from the Second-Empire style popular a few
years earlier (the porch and garage were added later).
About the same time, a much larger and more traditionally-shaped
house went up on Mission Street ,
across from the plaza. Calvin Davis and his brother Wellington
were very busy designer-builders in Santa Cruz
during the 1870s. Calvin converted some of his sweat into a big house on the
hill, second only to the Hihn mansion (which the brothers also designed and
built). Still in excellent condition, the Davis
house is one of the finest historic homes in town.
Two other profitable businesses in Santa
Cruz in those years were livery stables and hotels. A.
P. Swanton had both - first a stable, then a hotel - at the corner of Front and Water streets.
By 1884, he had done well enough to build a new hotel on the site (with
expanded stables on the ground floor). Hotel guests today would probably balk
at a room above a horse barn, but horses were a fact of life in the 1880s, so
noses were perhaps not so sensitive.
The photo at left shows Albion Paris Swanton in 1886. If the name Swanton sounds familiar, it’s because of A. P.
Swanton’s son Fred, who grew up into a most ambitious local entrepreneur a few
years later. Among Fred Swanton’s lasting contributions to the Santa
Cruz scene were the beginnings of today’s Beach
Boardwalk complex - more on that subject and Fred Swanton in future.
It’s worth mentioning a couple of other locals whose building endeavors haven’t been mentioned previously in this blog, and which can be seen in this photo showing Cooper Street from Pacific Avenue. The two-story 1870s building at the far left corner of Pacific and
Cooper housed owner Mike Leonard’s saloon and other businesses. That corner dome
should look familiar to Santa Cruzans – Leonard imitated it for his second
building, built in 1894 and still standing at the corner of Cooper and Front - opposite the Octagon.
To the right of the Octagon is the 1866 County
Courthouse, and to the right of that is a Santa Cruz
in 1870 to became a developer and streetcar investor. Ely later built another
“block” on the other side of the Oddfellows
Building
Looking at that photo, I bet County officials wished they had bought more of that Pacific-Cooper corner property, to give the courthouse
more space. Following the 1894 fire that destroyed both buildings, that’s
exactly what they did to build the second courthouse – later known as Cooper
House.
One more note: look at the street paving in the Cooper
Street view and the Swanton House photo. These
were the years when Santa Cruz was getting its first street paving,
using locally-mined bituminous rock. Edges of the new paving can be clearly
seen at the Pacific-Cooper junction, and at the Front-Water Street meeting in
front of Swanton House (Water Street is the muddy one to the left of the hotel).
Sources:
* Chase, John L. Sidewalk Companion to Santa
Cruz
* Elliott, * Santa Cruz Public Library historical photo collection
