The homes are commonly called “Ole Hanson homes,” named after the town’s founder who was the former mayor of Seattle turned Southern California real estate developer. Ole had a vision of creating a master planned city on a vast undeveloped area of land along the Pacific Coast exactly halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. He referred to it as a "Spanish village by the sea... where people can live together more pleasantly than any other place in America.”

San Clemente was founded in 1925 and quickly became an American phenomenon at the time. Cities of that era were mostly unattractive and unplanned, with a patchwork of architecture and unmapped streets. And none offered the amenities of a community. Ole Hanson took an entirely different approach in planning San Clemente. Instead of conventional grid-like streets, San Clemente’s streets followed the natural, rolling contour of the land. Its buildings were all in the same architectural style, designed in the fashion of Old Spain with red tile roofs and white stucco walls. Its landscaping provided the pigment to Ole’s painting with a profusion of flowers, shrubs, and trees. And the town offered to its community amenities that were unprecedented at the time: 3,000 feet of public beach, a 1,200 foot municipal fishing pier, a public school, a 4-acre park, a baseball field, 17 miles of bridle trails, a golf course, and an Olympic-size public pool, all done in the same Spanish architectural style. San Clemente was lauded around the world as an American achievement in city planning and building. 

Just as Ole’s vision was being realized, unfortunately, the stock market crash of 1929 devastated the young city. Development was halted and the town’s middle-class residents were forced to move elsewhere for job opportunities, resulting in a sixty percent population decline in a single decade. Many of its remaining residents went bankrupt, including Ole Hanson himself; Ole lost all of his holdings, including his beloved mansion, and was forced to leave San Clemente and his dream behind. Following the Depression, the town removed Hanson’s original decree that all buildings must be constructed in the Spanish style in an effort to promote an economic recovery and attract new residents. This ushered in a new era for the “Spanish Village.” 

Around 500 original Spanish style structures were built in the founder’s era but only 203 remain today. In the 70s, after President Richard Nixon bought one of San Clemente’s historic mansions to serve as his Western White House, the town saw renewed interest and popularity. As a result, the charming casitas as well as the large mansions on the bluffs started to be demolished by bulldozers or mysterious fires to make way for larger apartment complexes. The landmark Bartow Mansion, which sat on the bluffs just south of the pier and was the town’s finest example of Spanish Revival architecture, was even covertly bulldozed in the middle of the night in 1972 after the owner was denied permits to replace it with a 45-unit condominium. Its demise instigated a campaign by local residents to preserve the remaining historical structures. 

Today, Ole Hanson homes and the Spanish Revival architecture is appreciated and preserved by the homeowners and the entire San Clemente community. The authors, Carolyn Kipper and Diana Hardeman, each own one of these remaining homes and take pride in the preservation of their beauty, architectural integrity, and history. To date, nowhere are these historical structures documented in a beautiful or even digestible manner. Ole Hanson Homes will be a photographic journal that celebrates the beauty and history of the historical homes and their stories in the "Spanish Village by the Sea."