Cliff May

OK, California, drop those barbecue aprons to half-mast and pause a moment in memory of Cliff May (Obituaries, Oct. 20).

Here was a man who made practical applications of the American spirit of the times after WWII.

I lived in a Cliff May-inspired house in Long Beach and, except for a Wilson’s infielder’s glove I used during the summers of 1958-1962, it was the most elegantly form-fitting piece of construction I have ever occupied.

May’s designs recognized and anticipated the middle-class social contour in post-war California: the need for cheap housing for the returning GIs; lots of space to expand for the growing families; removal of the public front porch to the private back yard--sans garage, of course; open, flowing space within the houses to accommodate the interactions of family life.

Since May there have been others who have interpreted the changing zeitgeist , notably the designers of all those apartment buildings with the underground garage and just enough height to avoid the terrible expense of high-rise building codes. In their own way, they are as important as May.

But how mean-spirited and glum are these buildings compared to the glowing optimism of May’s bourgeois charmers. What a lucky man he was to have designed the architectural equivalent of hope.

JOHN LEVERENCE

Burbank