'Crappy' Report Says Midas Site No Landmark

The Midas building was indeed a site where aviator Waldo Waterman designed and built flying cars, a new report has found.

The report was commissioned by Santa Monica's Landmarks Commission to settle a debate among local historians about whether Waterman used the space, once home to his manufacturing business, to make the flying car, for which he is best known. The conclusion was supposed to help commissioners determine whether to designate the building, a prominent Spanish colonial building at the corner of Fifth and Colorado, a historic site.

But to their frustration, the report concluded that the site at 1554 Fifth St. was only one of several locations where Waterman fabricated and manufactured the flying car and isn't worthy of the designation.

Commissioners called the report "crappy," full of contradictions and "non sequiturs" and are using the historical account to justify nominating the building for the designation anyway.

If the building is ultimately designated a historic site, it would stymie plans to demolish it. A developer is seeking to construct a 136-room Marriott hotel there but has said he will back out if city officials decide to make it a landmark. 

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Waterman—whom the report referred to as a "brilliant pioneer in the development of aviation engineering and design"—first leased the building for his company, Aerophysics Development Corp., in 1935. Waterman purchased it in 1940 and owned it until his death in 1976, according to the report.

The decade before he relocated Aerophysics Development from Venice to Santa Monica, Henry Ford had inspired a movement in the aerospace industry to manufacture affordable planes for the "everyman." In 1926, Ford introduced the Ford Flying Flivver, a small plane that attracted popular interest but that in 1928 crashed and killed its pilot.

When in 1933 the federal government announced a competition for American companies to develop a safe and cost-effective airplane, dubbed the
“flivver contest,” Waterman entered with a redesign of a tailless, low-wing monoplane pusher he had built a couple of years earlier, the report said.

Waterman completed construction of his Arrowplane, the earlier version of which was called the Whatsit, in July 1935. He entered it in the government's "flivver" competition, and it was one of two designs that won.

While Waterman was working on his Arrowplane design, he began looking for a facility in Santa Monica. In 1935, he moved Waterman Aircraft to the corner of Fifth and Colorado, where he set out to construct Arrowbiles, road versions of his Arrowplane.

He conducted the first test flight Feb. 21, 1937, and registered it as a motorcycle in California. But it never gained traction with the public, and during World War II, development of the Arrowbile was discontinued.

Still, the new report by PCR Service Corp. concluded that "while Waterman’s connection to the flying car movement is historically significant, the subject property is one of several places associated with his productive life."

Waterman began designing airplanes and developing airplane technology at his Venice location beginning in 1919 until the mid-1920s. The original design of the Whatsit occurred at what is now the Van Nuys Airport in the early 1930s.

After designing buildings at the downtown Santa Monica location, he also stored an Arrowbile at his home in Santa Monica Canyon at 460 Mesa Road, according to the report.

The Arrowbile, the flying car tied to the Fifth Street property, was never successful, while the Whatsit and the Arrowplane, designed at the Van Nuys Airport, won a national competition and were important in introducing the idea of the "flivver" movement to the public, the report concludes.

Also among the inconsistencies noted by commissioners is the report's assertation that the building doesn't "exemplify" its original function as an auto dealership. Constructed in 1928, the building was commissioned by Goodrum and Vincent, Inc., who opened a Buick sales room there.

But at the end of the report, the consultant writes, "the ornate Churriguresque detailing, the high showroom windows, and the tower rising on the corner were meant to attract customers and showcase the cars… the architecture reflects its connection to automobile culture in Santa Monica.”

And, while at one point the report says the building isn’t worthy of a landmark designation because it doesn’t boast “distinguishing architectural characteristics” and isn’t an “established and familiar visual feature of a neighborhood,” at another it finds that it “retains enough integrity and architectural merit to remain a contributor to the downtown business district:

It retains its corner location, footprint, form, scale, massing, materials, structural bays, spatial relationships, upper level fenestration patterns, stepped roof profile and distinctive tower. Its Spanish Colonial Revival style architecture and Churrigueresque detailing lends the building character; while altered for a variety of tenant improvements over the years, the property’s original use as an automotive showroom/dealership and garage is still apparent even with the substantial alterations to the showroom and loss of the showroom windows

"It really reads as if sociopath prankster came in and edited it in the night," Commissioner Nina Fresco said of the report. "It's so inconsistent and unprofessional.... I'm, frankly, outraged."

The Landmarks Commission has asked city staffers to find a new consultant to redo the report for its consideration in the coming months.