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8.C. - Page 21 of 54 <br />William Kostura, Historic Resource Evaluation of the Redwood City Woman Club <br />of some of the club's members might induce prospective home buyers to purchase within <br />Dingee Park. <br />Although numerous lots were sold and dozens of houses were built in Dingee Park during <br />its first several years, it was a huge subdivision and most of the tract — many hundreds of <br />lots -- remained vacant. In August 1913 Crocker sold all of the remaining Dingee Park <br />lots to new investors: George H. Irving and Ernest Tanner of the Irving Land Company, <br />and E. K. Wood, owner of a lumber company. Under the name of the George H. Irving <br />Company they re -named the tract Redwood Highlands. It developed gradually, vacant <br />lots becoming filled with stucco -clad houses in the 1920s and 1930s and with more <br />modern houses over the next two or three decades. After World War II many of the early <br />houses on Arch and Birch streets, and along the two blocks of Broadway closest to the <br />state highway, were replaced by low-rise medical office buildings and apartments, giving <br />these blocks a mixed character of low-density residential, high-density residential, and <br />professional, uses. <br />Regarding William J. Dingee, his fortunes continued to decline after he sold his Redwood <br />City tract, and by 1921 he was bankrupt. He died in obscurity in Sacramento in 1941. <br />Construction of the clubhouse <br />With a donated lot, a membership of fifty, and some funds raised by publishing the July <br />4th edition of the Redwood City Democrat, the Woman's Club members took steps toward <br />the construction of their clubhouse. They hired the Redwood City architect R. LeBaron <br />Olive to design a two-story stucco -clad Mission Revival style building, and on September <br />15,1910 awarded a $5,147 contract to build it to the contractor George Donnelly. Upon <br />reflection, the club members realized they could not afford that amount and in February <br />1911 they asked Olive to revise his plans, and to design a building costing about $4,500. <br />Even this proved to be more than they could afford, and ultimately, on July 17, 1911, the <br />club hired contractor Charles Miller to build a one-story clubhouse costing $2,863. The <br />building notice published in Building and Industrial News on July 25th stated that there <br />was no architect. It seems very likely that Miller designed the building himself. <br />In 1939 the ell on the south side of the building was filled in with a new 17' by 39' dining <br />room. At the same time, it appears, a mezzanine level was removed from the interior, and <br />when this was done two wooden casement windows in the attic facing the street were <br />removed, the openings were filled, and the exterior was covered with shingles. The <br />architect for this work was Gillet Hodgson, the contractor was Emil G. Steinegger, and <br />the cost was $5,202. As mentioned above, the style and materials of this addition were <br />consistent with those of the original building, save in one respect, namely, that the <br />windows in the addition were made of industrial steel sash instead of wood. <br />14 <br />545 <br />