Romantic eclecticism is exemplified by the Scharbauer House in Country Club Estates, where small-scaled storybook gables, dormers, and shingled walls are used to break down and disguise a sprawling 30,000-square-foot house. Joe Black (1900–1983) practiced in Midland from 1934 to 1964.
In marked contrast, Black’s design for the James A. Mascho House (1959; 909 Bedford) is a low, angular ranch house built of flat ledgestone that further emphasizes the horizontality of the low-pitched roofs and broad, sharp-edged eaves. Corner windows add ambiguity to the angular shape.
A few blocks away, the Andrew A. Bradford House (1950; 1209 W. Cuthbert Avenue) in the North Park Hill neighborhood is the work of Burton A. Schutt of Beverly Hills, who produced a glamorous, flat-roofed, one-story, Hollywood modern house that angles and curves to frame protected backyard space on its corner site.