35101 Camino Capistrano

35101 Camino Capistrano

35101 Camino Capistrano Doheny House

35101 Camino Capistrano (The Doheny House)

1928 Doheny

The Doheny House main house was also known as Palisades House # 1 since it was the first home of Edward “Ned” Doheny Jr.’s development and it was a gathering place for the Doheny family and guests. An especially distinctive one-story Spanish Colonial Revival house commissioned by Ned Doheny and, by all indications, designed by his staff architect, Roy C.Kelley, it is an excellent example of the style built after World War I. The street facade has an interesting mix of elevations that step forward and recede in imitation of an idealic Spanish village. Both hipped and gabled roof lines define each elevation in a friendly, rather than imposing, manner. The exposed rafters are consistent throughout the structure and indicate a uniform date of construction for the garage and two-story guest house behind it. Across the front of the house are French doors, open archways and casement windows with iron grilles. All of the roofs are of red clay barrel tile and the walls are of hand trowelled stucco, The home has been judged as eligible for State and National Register listing as the home of Harry Leyden, the supervisor of the Doheny development of Capistrano Beach after the untimely death of Ned Doheny, from 1929 until 1945. It was also the home of artist Louise Leyden and her husband Don Leyden,who worked with his father. While Louise lived in the home for only two years, the ocean views must have had an influence on her seascapes. The home has come to symbolize the area’s most famous family and the Doheny development of Capistrano Beach, as well as their sizable donation of the land for Doheny State Beach, given to California in 1931 in memory of their only son, Ned. Although the house is deemed one of Dana Point’s two most important historic homes and was listed on the Historic Register by the City of Dana Point in 2001, the current developers still have not publicly announced their   plans for this historic home in the Spring of 2010.

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