Walking Tour: Wilson Avenue (Fresno, California)
Hilliard Giffen Adobe (1940)
3937 North Wilson Avenue
Franklin & Kump, Architects
Thomas Church, Landscape
Architect
Adobe Ranch
A California Adobe Ranch-style house for agribusiness giant Russell Giffen's cousin, Hill Giffen, who was a prominent Certified Public Accountant in Fresno.
Thomas Church (1902-1978), who designed the gardens on this property, studied at the University of California, 1918-1923, and Harvard Graduate School of Design, 1924-1926. He later was Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of California, 1929-1930, and operated a private landscape architecture practice in San Francisco. He served as the master planner for the University of California, Santa Cruz campus grounds.
Church was considered the preeminent twentieth-century residential landscape architect in the U.S., and designed over two thousand private gardens nationwide. He was a master of the"informal" garden style.
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