CLIFF MAY PROBABLY BUILT OR INFLUENCED more architecture than any other designer to ever hail from San Diego. He left an outstanding architectural legacy that sprang literally from the California soil on which his first houses were erected and, in doing so, created a uniquely American house that captured the needs, aspirations and imagination of a growing nation.

Nationally renowned as the “father of the American Ranch House”, his founding work, and that which began his signature style, had not been fully studied until 1911, when SOHO presented our Cliff May architecture home tour highlighting the first homes he built and how they related to each other in the context of his career and the development of his style. These six rustic, adobe-like homes with beehive fireplaces and large, walled courtyards are located in the historic San Diego neighborhoods of Talmadge, Presidio Hills, Point Loma, and Loma Portal.

While much had been established in documenting his significant mid-century work after May left San Diego, the homes that were the progenitors of his signature style were not well documented with many details and information unknown. This was complicated by May’s own recollections later in life of exactly when he built particular homes.

Through SOHOs research, led by its executive director, Bruce Coons, we were able to shed light on the sequence of his first homes that were built on speculation and his first commissions which drove his career from that point on.

Since then, with further research, we have expanded the list to include all of his early San Diego built homes or structures from 1932 to 1941, a total of 36.

Through construction and building completion notices, it is now known the following were finished as listed here in chronological order: