Six privately owned Nathan Rigdon homes highlight Historic Home Tour

Michael Good | House Calls

Its sounds like the recipe for a headache: first find five well-preserved, 100-year-old houses by a single, long-dead San Diego master builder. Next, convince the people who own the houses to open their doors on a warm fall afternoon so that a couple hundred enthusiasts in shorts, big hats and comfortable walking shoes can traipse through. And finally – once you’ve found five willing victims – be sure to remind them to dust the windowsills.

But when Barry Hager, board president of Mission Hills Heritage, put out the word he was looking for five Nathan Rigdon houses, he was met with an embarrassment of riches. It seems several proud Mission Hills residents have a lot of well-loved, well-maintained Rigdons they don’t mind sharing with the world.

“We actually had more than we needed,” Hager said. It doesn’t hurt that Rigdon was remarkably prolific.

In 10 short years he built more than 100 houses in Mission Hills and countless more with various partners. But there’s also something about his houses that engender a sort of pride – even awe – that has made them some of the most coveted and best preserved in San Diego. Maybe it is just good design. Or maybe it is some special magic he built into his homes that makes people think twice before attacking them with a sledgehammer.

Either way, you’ll have the opportunity to trace a career and the development of a design esthetic, from arts and crafts bungalow to sleek, 20th century suburban family home, when Mission Hills Heritage presents their ninth annual Mission Hills Historic Home Tour Sept. 21, aptly titled: “The Legacy of Master Builder Nathan Rigdon.”

Why does Rigdon matter? For one thing, he invented what we now think of as an iconic San Diego architectural style: The Mission Hills Box. Today, historians make much of the Midwest origins of that style as some of his houses borrow directly from the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and other Prairie architects. But Rigdon took those influences, combined them with an impressive, apparently self-taught, understanding of classical architecture, and made something entirely his own.

He also created one of the neighborhood’s defining features – the river rock retaining wall capped with concrete – that line some of Mission Hills’ most-prominent thoroughfares.

Although Rigdon built most of his latter houses of hollow clay tile skimmed with stucco, the overall impression one gets once inside is of wood. Lots of wood.

“The through-line that connects all the houses, particularly the houses he built himself without a partner, is the amazing interior woodwork,” Hager said. “He really put an emphasis on high-quality detail and hand-crafted woodwork.”

Rigdon also had the confidence to sign his work, frequently using the same recognizable elements: octagonal pillars that support countertops and mantels, front porch roofs that also serve as upstairs balconies, and thick, boxy, hollow wooden shelves and counters for bookcases, mantels and china cabinets.

There is often a horizontal emphasis to his millwork and, in many cases, to the houses. The tour demonstrates how those elements developed over time, as Rigdon experimented with details and refined them from one house to the next.

While his houses make a statement, Rigdon himself left a pretty light footprint. We know he served on the board of the local Methodist church, but beyond that, it’s difficult to identify any personal interests or passions. For the historian, Rigdon isn’t an easy guy to get to know.

He left little behind: no personal papers, no published writing, not even a portrait. He had but one descendant, a son, who died in 1984 and who lived at home until he was in his 40s and apparently didn’t marry until he was 71. Through public records we know where Rigdon lived, where he worked and where he went to school. But as for who he was, we can only make an educated guess.

Rigdon was born on a farm in Harford County Maryland in 1867, the eighth of 10 children. He likely learned how to build structures – barns and fences – and how to repair and maintain houses during the 20 years he lived there. By the age of 22 he was living in Denver with two brothers and working as a clerk.

In 1892, he went back east again, and enrolled in the William Dickinson Seminary where he was in the class of 1897. He was an editor of two campus publications: The Dickinson Liberal and the Dickinson Union. He posed for photographs with both groups. The photos show a raffish fellow, with an extravagant mustache. He looks neither like a minister nor a builder.

In the 1900 census, Rigdon declared his occupation as “Minister of Gospel,” while his mother and brother’s jobs are listed as “farmer.” But he was a minister without a congregation. That year he went back to Denver and enrolled in an oratory program, perhaps to improve his sermons.

In 1903 he was living in Baltimore, Md. with another brother, still listed as a minister. Three years later he returned to Colorado, as the minister of the Methodist Episcopal church in Las Animas, Colo., population 1,192. Apparently, it wasn’t a full-time job. In directories in 1906, 1908 and 1909 he’s listed as a real estate agent. His business: Las Animas Realty Co., Nathan Rigdon Proprietor.

In 1909 he bought some land in San Diego and began building a house at the northeast corner of Lewis and Jackdaw streets. In the 1910 census, he is listed as living there with his wife, the former Hattie Newell, and their son, the 2-year-old Warren Rigdon.

Apparently marriage and fatherhood changed Rigdon. He stayed in that one place in Mission Hills for 10 years, then moved just once more, to Glendale, Calif. where he continued to build houses (reportedly in the Spanish style) for at least another decade, and where he died in 1939 at the age of 72.

For a builder, Rigdon had a good run of it in San Diego: 10 years through a tumultuous decade with nary a slip up, scandal, lawsuit or nervous breakdown. Once he stopped dashing back and forth across the country, he settled down and began to resemble his houses: sturdy, reliable, well planned and stylish, without being too extravagant (well, there was the mustache). As Rigdon might have put it in one of his sermons: you will know a man by the fruits of his labor.

Hager agreed.

“He was a civic leader [and] a high-profile person in the community. He served on the board of trustees for the local Methodist church. There was even a street named for him in Mission Hills, Rigdon Way. Unfortunately, it’s since been changed. I think he was highly respected and involved as a civic leader,” Hager said. “If you want to know him as a person, look at the homes he built. I think he had a lot of integrity and wanted to leave our community with beautiful, functional homes. He took a lot of care with the little touches, like the cobblestone walls. Just the fact that so many of his houses are still standing is a testament to his character.”

The Mission Hills Historic Home Tour is Sept. 21 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets are available the day of the event for $30, or $25 for Mission Hills Heritage members, at the corner of West Lewis Street and Palmetto Way. For more information visit missionhillsheritage.org or call 619-497-1193.