Description
The Wallace Neff photographs and postcards span 2 linear feet and date from circa 1925 to circa 1940. The collection is primarily
composed of black-and-white photographs taken of the exteriors of various homes and civic buildings designed by Neff. Projects
documented in the collection include: the A. K. Bourne Estate (San Marino, Calif.), Boardman house, Tragerman house (Hollywood,
Calif.), Eaton house, and the Doheny Memorial library (Camarillo, Calif.) Two postcards of the Mary Pickfair and Douglass
Fairbanks house (Beverly Hill, Calif.) also part of the collection. One 1938 drawing of an unidentified ranch house (perspective
sketch by Jamison), reproduced on heavy paper, was added to the collection, previously part of the David Gebhard papers.
Background
Edwin Wallace Neff, Sr. was born on January 28, 1895 in La Mirada, California. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology where he studied architecture and graduated in 1917. Following school, Neff worked at the American Shipbuilding
Company in San Pedro, California during WWI. In 1919, Neff worked as a draftsman for George Washington Smith in Santa Barbara
before opening his own firm in Los Angeles. Wallace Neff died on June 8, 1982.
Extent
5.0 Linear feet
(1 box, 1 flat file folder)
Availability
Partially processed collection, open for use by qualified researchers.