Introduction

Not many American homes are designed by architects. Most owe their layout and appearance to stock plan catalogs and house plan books rather than custom architect designs.

Stock plans are generic, pre-drawn building plans that can be ordered from a catalog, magazine, or recently, the Internet. House pattern books and plan publications include images and plans for houses, but usually do not offer them for sale.

The Stock Plans: Houses for Everyone exhibit is drawn from the Environmental Design Library's extensive collection of house pattern books and stock plan catalogs, along with related original documents and drawings from the Environmental Design Archives. The exhibit covers their precedents, origins, and influence beyond California and includes contemporary developments.

Nearly all sectors of the home building industry have used stock plans, from stock plan entrepreneurs such as Los Angeles' Henry L. Wilson and Dixon & Hillen, to builders and developers such as Schulte Homes and Eichler Homes. Architects Paul Wilson, Gertrude Comfort Morrow, Alfred Charles exhibit is drawn from the Environmental Design Library's extensive collection of house pattern books and stock plan catalogs, along with related original documents and drawings from the Environmental Design Archives. The exhibit covers their precedents, origins, and influence beyond California and includes contemporary developments. Nearly all sectors of the home building industry have used stock plans, from stock plan entrepreneurs such as Los Angeles' Henry L. Wilson and Dixon & Hillen, to builders and developers such as Schulte Homes and Eichler Homes. Architects Paul Wilson, Gertrude Comfort Morrow, Alfred Charles Williams, Hiawatha Estes, and Guy Rosebrook, among others, often sold or marketed their designs through stock plan venues. Even financial institutions, including Bank of America, and lumber organizations, namely the California Redwood Association and Pacific Lumber Company, produced stock plan books.

These scarce publications provide insight into the history of lower- and middle-class home ownership, housing costs, and land development. They also reveal trends in building materials and construction techniques; the evolution and spread of architectural styles; and the development of graphic design, publishing, and marketing techniques.

Even today these publications, in all their variety and forms, continue to play a major role in the vernacular architecture of California and the country Many items in this exhibit have multiple pages. Click on the images for these and further descriptions.

Curator

Elizabeth Douthitt Byrne, Environmental Design Library

Exhibition Team

Alfred Willis, Hampton University

Carrie McDade, Environmental Design Archives

Waverly Lowell, Environmental Design Archives

Matthew Prutsman, Environmental Design Library

Mia Jaeggli, Environmental Design Library

Shannon Supple, Law Library - Robbins Collection