Mystery of the Architect and the Cemetery Fountain

What do author Raymond Chandler and city father Alonzo Horton have in common? Both are buried at Mt. Hope Cemetery in San Diego, which is also the home of an endangered fountain designed by San Diego architect Irving Gill at the height of his career.

Unraveling the story behind the fountain’s decline since its creation in 1908, and its pending demolition at the hands of the city, which owns the cemetery, is turning into a mystery worthy of Chandler. Among the elements of the plot: misplaced money, mistaken identities and a re-discovered will.

Bruce Kamerling, a local Gill expert and curator at the San Diego Historical Society, has assumed informal leadership of a movement to restore the fountain. Recently, the Phoenix Companies, a San Diego construction company with expertise in concrete repair, volunteered to serve as a clearing house for “Save the fountain” interests, and to donate some construction services.

The neglect that’s obvious in the monument’s current condition is only one example of a general ennui that has already cost San Diego such Gill masterpieces as the Melville Klauber house and the Ellen Browning Scripps house in La Jolla. New attention was drawn to Gill’s fountain a few months ago when George Stelter, the cemetery’s manager, notified city officials that a portion of the concrete fountain had caved in, making it a retreat for transients and a hazardous pit for children.

Kamerling discovered about eight years ago that the fountain is Gill’s design. Apparently, the architect only did two fountain designs. One, known as the “Electric Fountain,” was built in Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego in 1910. The other was for years thought to have been an earlier version of the Horton Plaza fountain. But during a visit to Mt. Hope, Kamerling recognized Gill’s second fountain from a photo of the original model.

“I think the sweeping simplicity of the Mt. Hope fountain is remarkable,” Kamerling says. “The way it sits on a low, triangular base, the arrangement of the urns and benches. The fountain base was carefully thought out by Gill to work on an oddly sloping piece of property.”

Imperial Avenue, which runs along the south edge of the cemetery, was once Mt. Hope’s major point of access, and the fountain made a prominent visual landmark. At this edge of the cemetery, the Masons and Oddfellows had separate burial areas set aside for their members. Dr. Luke A. Port, a Mason, requested the fountain in his “Last Will and Testament,” recently unearthed by Kamerling.

The monument is named the “Omega Port Fountain” after Port’s son, who--according to the will--had drowned at sea.

The Ports are buried next to the fountain, underneath where two triangular wings once extended. Port left $3,000 for perpetual maintenance, a sizable sum in those days, but no one knows what happened to the money after the Masons plot became part of the city cemetery several years ago.

Given the stature of the fountain’s architect and its obvious value as a historic treasure, Kamerling and others are surprised how awkwardly the city handled the matter. A July letter from Maureen Stapleton, deputy city manager, to Kathryn Willets, chairwoman of the city’s Historic Site Board, advised that the fountain would be demolished in four months unless community interest could be found for preservation.

The letter also mentioned that no money was available for maintenance, affirming that the city is unaware of Port’s maintenance fund. The cemetery’s annual budget, including maintenance and staff costs, amounts to $763,000 this year. Apparently that’s not enough to include service for the fountain.

Only about half of Gill’s original monument remains. Long triangular platforms which once extended to either side are gone, apparently to make room for additional graves. Some key elements of the fountain--including several bronze turtles that once spouted water into its central basin--are missing.

Instead of exploring a faithful restoration, the city’s building department and an out-of-town consultant came up with a $150,000 estimate to fix only the portion that remains, and not in a totally authentic fashion. A mosaic of tiny red, gray, green and white tiles was to have been “retiled” instead of restored. Concrete surrounding the fountain would have been removed. A new retaining wall would have been built around the large central basin.

Kamerling and the Phoenix people are optimistic the fountain can be carefully and completely restored. Phoenix has dedicated a separate phone line (274-3119) to the project for any callers interested in donating money or services.

The city’s Historic Site Board will discuss the fountain at its September 28 meeting. Even if the board designates it as a city historic site, the gesture would be largely symbolic. The city has no budget for such projects. There is some possibility, according to city planner Ron Buckley, that the fountain could qualify for state funding.

Kamerling thinks that with a change of attitude, the city could make the fountain and cemetery an important city asset.

Certainly, the cemetery is one of the city’s richest repositories for local history. Besides Chandler and Horton, such prominent San Diegans as Hotel Del Coronado developer Elisha Babcock, pioneer landscape designer Kate Sessions and G. Aubrey Davidson, an original developer of Kensington, are buried there, along with members of prominent San Diego families with names like Marston and Jessop.

There are also several interesting tombstones and monuments, including a small granite Marshall family mausoleum probably designed by architect W.S. Hebbard, Gill’s employer in the 1890s, and a tall marble obelisk dedicated to Horton’s family.

Even if the fountain is completely restored, Kamerling and others won’t be totally comfortable without some provision for its upkeep. After all, they reason, there was already one endowment for maintaining the fountain. Who’s to say it could survive any better the second time around?

DESIGN NOTES: The El Cortez Hotel in downtown San Diego will reportedly be restored by local developer Mark Grosvenor under the guidance of San Francisco architects Tanner VanDine if it qualifies for designation as a National Historic Landmark . . . San Diego’s New School of Architecture opens the fall quarter September 19 in its new 18,000-square-foot space in the Ratner Building at 12th Avenue and F Street in downtown San Diego. Architect Ted Smith has been added as a design instructor . . . San Diego magazine’s current article on plans for a new downtown civic center notes that architectural consultants ROMA “enthusiastically suggest . . . a domed City Hall,” and speculates about how impressive such a domed building could be. Seems like jumping the gun, especially since a competition is anticipated for the project’s design. Actually, the idea of a dome is just “artistic license” on the part of ROMA, says San Diego architect John Henderson, who’s consulted with the city on the process . . . Fairbanks Ranch’s new Church of the Nativity, designed for the Roman Catholic parish by internationally known architect Charles Moore, with San Diego architects Austin Hansen Fehlman serving as project architects, is finally under construction and should be done by next summer.