Pacific coast architecture

This was the view at sunset our first evening in lovely San Diego, from the roof of our hotel. I was intrigued by the elaborate tower lit so attractively by the low sun. Little did I know that the next day I would learn that it's just the tip () of an iceberg full of amazing buildings in Balboa Park, just a few blocks away.

This is the California Tower, part of a gorgeously ornate collection of buildings constructed for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition. When we visited the San Diego Natural History Museum (read about it here) we also got to ogle many of these amazing buildings along the way. Here's a sampling...

street-level view of the Tower and  dome of the Museum of Man
(wish we'd had time to climb the Tower!)

Casa del Prado (south wing)

Botanical Building (at the Botanical Gardens,
another site I wish we'd had time to visit)

California Building (the base of the Tower)

not sure which building this is...but can you believe those trees?!!

Of course, there are other fine buildings elsewhere in San Diego, and we did get to see a few during our very brief visit. This is our almost decadently luxurious hotel, the Inn at the Park (Balboa, that is):

Handsome, isn't it? And boy, did we feel pampered!

We also had a nice little stroll around a neighborhood in Coronado, where we saw some lovely flowers that I showed you a few posts ago, as well as quirky residential decorative touches, like this imaginative gate...

Distinctive features of many San Diego neighborhoods are alarmingly steep ravines, like this one...

,,, fortunately often spanned by useful footbridges like the one shown here. I mean, why let something like a 100-foot chasm limit your building sites?

Crossing one of these ravines (on the Spruce Street Suspension Bridge) led us to a real gem of residential architecture, a house not only lovely and historically significant, but of personal importance to my husband and his sister (who was with us for this walk).

Here is the ravine that the bridge spans (more pictures are on the website linked above)...

...and here's our destination, a house Henry and his sister remember visiting as children...

 

This is where Henry's wonderful Aunt Lucy lived for many years. We were in San Diego for her memorial service, as I told you back at the beginning of these San Diego posts. And as you know if you read the obituary I linked there, she was quite a remarkable lady, and definitely famous enough for her house to be designated a historic site.

According to this listing of sites from the San Diego Historical Resources Board, the house is not only an architectural treasure (built in 1920) but is also significant for Lucy's having lived there (although the listing doesn't mention Henry's visiting it ).

We miss you, Aunt Lucy!