By Glenda Winders
SDUN Book Critic
“I thought it was interesting that a woman would have designed the first high school in a brand-new school district in the middle of the Depression as a Works Progress Administration project,” Welch said in an interview. “How bizarre that a woman would get that project, but she did.”
Further investigation led Welch to discover a thesis about Rice in the University of San Diego archives, but it didn’t answer all of her questions.
“I wanted to find out more,” Welch said, “but there were no books on Lilian Rice.”
Welch wrote in her journal on June 12, 2005, that she had decided to write a book about Rice’s life and work, not realizing that June 12 was Rice’s birthday. On June 12 of this year, “Lilian J. Rice: Architect of Rancho Santa Fe, California” (Schiffer Publishing Ltd.) was launched in a worldwide release.
The book is filled with photographs and architectural renderings, and the text fleshes out a very real person who organized parties in college, was athletic and baby-sat friends’ children in her architectural office. Never married, Rice dedicated her life to her work and died in 1938 at age 49 of ovarian cancer.
The architect’s pedigree was quintessentially San Diegan. Her father was a National City real estate developer who in hard times turned to teaching. He was the first principal at San Diego High School, where his vice principal and friend was Kate Sessions. Sessions later landscaped some of the buildings Rice designed, among them the ZLAC Rowing Club on Mission Bay. Rice taught at what was then San Diego State College, and her protégé, Sam Hamill, went on to design the Del Mar Fairgrounds and the San Diego County Administration Building.
Along with Rice’s biography, Welch weaves the tale of how the land where Rancho Santa Fe is situated was first purchased by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Co. for the purpose of planting eucalyptus groves that could be used for railroad ties and fences. Later it was developed into estates where citrus and avocado groves were grown.
Community developers commissioned the architectural firm of Requa and Jackson to design the homes, but Richard Requa was busy, so he delegated control of the project to an associate—Lilian Rice. Rice brought simplicity and a love of nature to her designs and endowed them with touches from farmhouses and Spanish haciendas—the bell towers, arched colonnades, decorative ironwork, tiled courtyards, fountains and exposed redwood-beam ceilings that have come to be associated with California architecture.
Some of her Rancho Santa Fe clients were rich and famous—among them Bing Crosby—but her homes and buildings appeared in other places throughout San Diego County, too. Hamill once told the residents at 2324 Pine St. in Mission Hills that their house was one of her designs.
Welch says the quest to uncover the information in the book wasn’t an easy one.
“I literally spent a couple of years of my life going through microfilm in the National City library, looking for tiny bits of information in society columns,” she said. “Today they’d be called ‘tweets.'”
And not everyone in Rancho Santa Fe wanted to cooperate.
“Some people opted out, some people ignored me,” Welch said, “but a lot of generous, gracious people came forward when they saw how passionate I was about the project.”
Tom Clotfelter, a longtime Rancho Santa Fe resident, provided stacks of newspapers, magazines, photographs and ephemera as well as an original prospectus from 1927. He also put her in touch with Ed Spurr (now deceased), who recounted stories about how Rice entertained him as a child by giving him make-believe work to do in her office. Other residents provided photographs or allowed pictures to be taken of their homes.
Welch recruited three architectural photographers to help her as well as an art student who helped with re-creating Rice’s renderings.
“It was a team effort,” Welch said. “I just directed the show.”
She also had the support of Mim Sellgren, whose step-grandfather was Rice’s brother. Sellgren, who lives in Mission Hills, endorsed Welch as Rice’s official biographer and gave her family photos to use in the book.
“She’s very dedicated and careful in her research and her commitment to the integrity of Lilian Rice,” Sellgren said in a telephone interview. “She’s an engaging, intelligent, honorable person.”
While the book may be finished, Welch says her work is not.
“It was hard to get the information, so once I had it, I wanted to share it,” she said. “My mission is to educate the world about the life, work and influence of Lilian J. Rice so that others may be inspired to achieve and so effect cultural change.”
To that end, she and her husband, B. Paul, have made a DVD documentary about Rice, and they give pro-bono presentations to interested groups. Welch will be appearing at several events during Rancho Santa Fe Days, Sept. 24 to Oct. 2. She has also created a Facebook fan page for Rice.
Meanwhile, Welch continues to work on other writing projects. The mother of four says she has been writing before she could read, and she currently contributes articles to the Solana Beach Sun, the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Rancho Santa Fe Review. She also helps people create biographies—”future histories”—and she is working on just such a project with poinsettia grower Paul Ecke III.
“I’m very interested in the human experience,” she said. “I like to retell people’s stories—past and present. I have a real fascination with time.”
Go to lilianjrice.com to purchase the book or schedule a presentation by the Welches. For an autographed copy, contact Welch at [email protected]. The book is also available in some bookstores and at amazon.com.
