Heritage Register
Fairfield

75 Cook Street

Built 1926
Heritage-Designated 2008

For: Arthur & Grace Alexander

ARCHITECTURE:

This is a good example of a late British Arts & Crafts/ Cotswold Cottage-style house. Because the elements are slightly more exaggerated here, it verges on the type known as Storybook House, so-named because of the many examples in California in 1920s when Hollywood was developing its version of visual storybooks. Storybook style developed from Old Country, especially British, vernacular types, as had the British Arts & Crafts Movement. It utilized asymmetrical façades with steeply-pitched gabled roofs, generally with no eaves (or rounded shingled, edges imitating thatch), large chimneys, dovecote-like louvered attic vents, small inset front entrance porches (sometimes with towers), and siding generally of stucco (sometimes with half-timbering). This house includes a shed-roofed dormer nestled into a roof corner, window boxes under several of the banks of windows, and a typical 1920s addition, an integrated basement garage for the family automobile.

ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS:

Original owners Arthur H. and Grace Alexander lived here until the mid-1940s. Arthur was the proprietor of Auto Electric Service. By 1949 widow Helen I. Jones was the resident. She lived here until 1951. In 2002 the house was purchased by members of the Russian noble family, the Galitzines (451 Durban, Fairfield), who designated it in 2008.

OTHER OCCUPANTS:

By 1949 widow Helen I. Jones was the resident. She lived here until 1951. In 2002 the house was purchased by members of the Russian noble family, the Galitzines (451 Durban St, Fairfield), who designated it in 2008.