Access
Custodial History note
Preferred Citation note
Biographical Note
Scope and Contents note
Related Archival Materials note
Title: Cliff May papers
Identifier/Call Number: 0000156
Contributing Institution:
Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
350.0 Linear feet
(184 record storage, card boxes and flat boxes, and 55 flat file drawers)
Date (inclusive): circa 1931-circa 1989
Location note: Boxes 1-6/ADC - regular Boxes 7-12/Mosher - regular Boxes 13-28/ADC - regular Boxes 29-45/Mosher - regular Boxes 46-55/ADC
- regular Boxes 56-82/Mosher - regular Boxes 83-85/ADC - regular Box 86/ADC - oversize* Boxes 87-170/ADC - regular Box 171/ADC
- oversize* Boxes 172-178/ADC - regular Box 179A/ADC - regular (+ ADD material, gift in 2012 re Power House) Box 179B/Mosher
- 3-D object (bust of Cliff May) Box 180/ADC - regular Boxes 181-183AB/ADC - oversize** NOTE: box and folder numbering off,
starting at box # 77
creator:
Choate, Chris, 1908-1981
creator:
Cliff May Homes.
creator:
Gordon, Elizabeth, 1906-2000
creator:
Jamison, Frederick
creator:
May, Cliff, 1908-1989 -- Archives
creator:
Parker, Maynard
creator:
Watson, Sterling
Access
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Custodial History note
Gift of Cliff May, 1989. Additional materials gifted by Michael May in 2001, David Balfour in 2003, and Greg Friedman 2011.
Preferred Citation note
Cliff May papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California, Santa Barbara.
Biographical Note
Born in San Diego, Cliff May (1908-1989) was a sixth-generation Californian. He studied business at San Diego State College
from 1929-1931, but left without a diploma. After leaving San Diego State, May began building Monterey style furniture. Furniture
building led to building his first house with help from developer Roy Lichty, his father-in-law. Before May moved to Los Angeles
in 1936, he had built 35 houses over a 5 year period in San Diego.
Cliff May relocated to Los Angeles to work with financier John A. Smith. Together they embarked on building and marketing
May’s urban ranch house designs, including for the development called Riviera Ranch, a subdivision in West Los Angeles marketed
to the wealthy. By 1943, he had established a national reputation as a designer of custom California Ranch Houses.
May participated in
House Beautiful's Pace Setter Program, a series of exhibition houses, by designing the first Pace Setter House, which was built in Riviera
Ranch in 1948. As Cliff May Homes Incorporated, May sold low-cost ranch home plans to developers in California and across
the country. May designed and built the corporate headquarters for the Lane Publishing Company (
Sunset magazine) in Menlo Park and the Robert Mondavi winery in Rutherford, California. May maintained an active architectural practice in
Los Angeles until his death in 1989.
Scope and Contents note
The Cliff May papers span 350 linear feet and date from circa 1931 to circa 1989. The collection is comprised of architectural
drawings and sketches (originals and reprographic copies), clippings and scrapbooks, correspondence, photographs, awards,
financial records, legal files including for lawsuits, appointment books, one model, a bust, and ephemera. Papers document
most of Cliff May's house designs and his marketing of his work, beginning in the 1930s in San Diego, and including his designs
for haciendas, Monterey Revival, and California ranch houses for individual clients and for licensing by other builders and
developers for medium and low cost ranch house developments in California, Texas, other places in the U.S., and even in other
countries.
Related Archival Materials note
Jody Greenwald research materials on Cliff May, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University
of California, Santa Barbara.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
May, Cliff, 1908-1989
May, Cliff, 1908-1989
Architects -- California
Architectural drawings
Architecture -- California
Architecture -- California -- 20th century
Architecture -- California -- Los Angeles -- 20th Century
Architecture, Modern -- 20th century -- California
Dwellings -- Design and construction -- Economic aspects -- United States
Photographic prints
Prefabricated houses -- United States
Ranch houses--Design and construction