Lilian J. Rice Designed a Small City
Lilian J. Rice (1889 – 1938) was one of the first women to graduate from the University of California-Berkeley’s architecture program, in 1910. She is best known for designing many of the buildings in Rancho Santa Fe, a planned city built on 9,000 acres near San Diego. Douglas Fairbanks and Bing Crosby were among the early residents of the community.
Rice headed the Architecture Department at Rancho Santa Fe for five years for the Santa Fe Land Improvement Company, a division of the Santa Fe Railway, beginning in 1922 or 1923. During this time she supervised construction and designed many of the city’s homes and civic buildings.
The initial planning for the small city was conducted by L. G. Sinnard who selected Requa and Jackson as the community’s official architecture firm. Rice was working for that firm at the time and, she later wrote, “It became my privilege to work out the details of design on the ground at Rancho de Santa Fe and in time the entire responsibility was thrown upon my shoulders.” It was a responsibility she enjoyed. “With the thought early implanted in my mind that true beauty lies in simplicity rather than in ornateness, I found real joy at Rancho Santa Fe,” she wrote.
Rice proved herself, although her architectural experience when she assumed the responsibility was somewhat slight. She had worked less than three years for Requa and Jackson before starting work on Rancho Santa Fe, according to her 1931 application for membership in the American Institute of Architects.
Prior to working for Requa and Jackson, Rice cared for her sick mother in National City, California, about ten miles north of the border with Mexico. Rice earned her teaching diploma in 1911 and taught math and geometric drawing at various schools. She also worked part-time as a drafter for Hazel Wood Waterman who was a protégé of Irving Gill, an architect who helped define modern architecture in Southern California.
ZLAC Boathouse, 1932 (Mollymcc, 2024. CC-BY-4.0)
Rice embraced this modernism and the region’s vernacular architecture. “The modern architect, far from throwing tradition overboard and starting with a clean slate,…gladly accepts California’s early Spanish background as the richest source of inspiration,” she wrote in 1928 in The Architect and Engineer.
Rice designed a house for herself in Rancho Santa Fe, where she lived the rest of her life. In 1928 or 1929, Rice became the tenth woman in California to earn her architectural license. She started her own practice in Rancho Santa Fe at that time. Although she applauded the covenants that restricted architectural styles in Rancho Santa Fe, she embraced other building materials and styles for her work in different contexts.
In 1938, Rice died of ovarian cancer at age 49. She had earned the respect and affection of her fellow San Diego architects, former students, and others.
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Sources:
Sarah Allaback, The First American Women Architects (University of Illinois Press, 2008).
Lilian J. Rice, “Architecture: A Community Asset,” in The Architect and Engineer, March 1928: 43-45.
Diane Y. Welch, “Lilian J. Rice,” Pioneering Women of American Architecture, n/d.
“Lilian J. Rice,” American Institute of Architects Directory of American Architects.