Sources on the Rock Garden and Fireplace

The environmental context and cultural landscape of the Walking Box Ranch is vital for our interpretation on both a micro and a macro level; what human habitation takes and what it gives back. The Walking Box itself is a result of desert manipulation to create a space of habitation in the Mojave. However, that manipulation is rooted in unique vernacular style of architecture and interior design; the house is placed within the grey area of so many other schools of thought. The interpretation of the fireplace, the rock gardens and of Big John Silveira require the combination of photographs, scholarly sources, news articles, public records and oral histories.

If we interpret desert gardens as an effort to anglicize and manipulate the desert landscape, the extinct rock gardens at the Walking Box Ranch and the extant Nipton Hotel’s Garden of Mystery fall in between. For a vintage view at desert gardens, see Ralph D. Cornell’s “Desert Gardens,” (Landscape Architecture Magazine 51, No. 3 (April 1961): 178-182), who acknowledges the horticultural problems of desert gardening and necessitates the flexible use of native plants to create a tasteful design compatible with the climate. For further reading on mission gardens, see Elizabeth Kryder-Reid’s “’Perennially New’: Santa Barbara and the Origins of the California Mission Garden, (Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 69.3 (September 2010): 378-405). For photographic evidence of how Clara and Rex interacted with the Mojave, refer to The Walking Box Ranch Collection at UNLV Special Collections and Archives. Clara Bow in the courtyard of the ranch house at Walking Box Ranch. The rock garden is visible in around her, Bell Family Scrapbook Scanning Set 4 D67848_312, and Clara Bow and an unidentified man at the rock garden in Nipton, CA,” Bell Family Scrapbook Scanning Set 4 D67848_201. Note the prominence of the Joshua tree in the first photo mentioned. Balancing these sources with Lary Dilsaver’s article, “A National Park in the Wasteland: American and National Park Service Perceptions of the Desert” (The Public Historian 38 No. 4 (November 2016): 38-55), which illuminates the legal struggles the Joshua Tree has faced for its own environmental agency. Juxtaposed, these sources show us that the house was built with the desert in mind.

The fireplace in the Great Hall is by far one of the most important artifacts in that space. For photographic representation of its use, refer to photograph of Clara Bow and Rex Bell (George Francis Beldam) in front of the fireplace in the great room at the ranch house at Walking Box Ranch, (Dorothy Bell Scans UNLV-Public Lands Institute D99999_278). This interpretation is rooted in a vernacular triangulation of the Arts and Crafts Movement, Mission Revival Style and Organic Architecture. To learn more about the historical, cultural and architectural development of the fireplace, refer to Elizabeth Wilhide’ The Fireplace, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1994) and Miranda Innes’ The Fireplace Book: Designs for the Heart of the Home, (New York: Viking Press, 2000). The Arts and Crafts Movement stipulated that household items should have both utility and beauty. The use of local materials was important in the decorative arts, simplicity was best, and beauty was to be found in the way it was made, rather than how ornate it was. For further reading on the Arts Crafts Movement, refer to Monica Penick, Christopher Long, Eric Anderson’s The Rise of Everyday Design: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and America (Yale University Press, 2019), Elizabeth Cummings and Wendy Kaplan’s The Arts and Crafts Movement, (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991), Robert Winter and Alexander Vertikoff, Craftsman Style, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, 2004).

Mission Revival Style of the 1890s to 1915, and the following Spanish Colonial Revival from the 1915 to the 1940s, was a blend of indigenous, Hispanic and Anglo style bordering on romantic. The Walking Box differed in style from the style popular in California at the time. Jerry Cook’s and Tina Skinner’s Spanish Revival Architecture (Atglen PA: Schiffer Publishing LTD, 2005) provide a collection of photographs from homes in the 1920s and 1930s that display adobe and other Spanish-Mexican influences in their architecture. Using these as an interpretive foil, we can see how simple the Great Hall, the mission furniture and the fireplace, were in comparison. We can also make the same inferences with Wallace Neff’s Architecture of Southern California (Chicago: Rand McNally and Company, 1964). As such, the house harkens back to the first phase of this style which was relatively simpler, where the second phase was more eclectic. For a broad history of Mission Style Architecture and interior design, refer to Elmo Baca’s Romance of the Mission, (Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1996). For sources that provide a visual representation of mission furniture in conjunction with the Arts and Crafts Movement, refer to Robin Langley Sommer and David Rago’s The Arts and Crafts Movement (New Jersey: Chartwell Books Inc., 1995), Paul A Royka’ Mission Furniture: Furniture of the American Arts and Crafts Movement (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2003), Kevin W Tucker’s Gustav Stickley and the American Arts and Crafts Movement (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010) and Roger Renick and Michael Trotter’s Monterey Furnishings of California's Spanish Revival (Atglen PA: Schiffer Publishing LTD, 2000). The Walking Box Ranch is a space which encapsulates Mission Revival Style architecture and interior design in the context of the Arts and Crafts movement in the form of a ranch house. Thus, it is crucial to include it as a precursor of the post-World War II economic boom where this style of homes became more popular. For a more thorough look into this architectural tradition, refer to Alan Hess and Noah Sheldon’s The Ranch House (NY: Harry N. Abrams Inc. Publishers, 2004).

Finally, more broadly for the interpretation of the Walking Box Ranch, is how the theory of Organic Architecture, the literal and symbolic harmony of human habitation with its environment, is applicable. Frank Lloyd Wright, the pioneer Organic Architecture, drew from both the American Craftsman tradition and Mission Style, but his philosophy was very eclectic. For further reading, refer to An Organic Architecture: The Architecture of Democracy (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1970) and The Natural House (New York: New American Library, 1970). Wright was a prolific designer of fireplaces; to learn more, refer to Carol Lind’s Frank Lloyd Wright's Fireplaces (Portland: Pomegranate, 1995). For a more recent overview of Organic Architecture, refer to David Pearson’s New Organic Architecture: The Breaking Wave (Berkeley: University of California Press. 2001).