John Ekin Dinwiddie opened his own practice in Oakland in 1931 and then joined a run of Bay Area partnerships, first with Henry Hill and later with Erich Mendelsohn. San Francisco Planning counts him among the Second Bay Tradition's pioneers and the International Style's master architects, yet its records credit him with a single house in San Francisco. This guide covers his offices, how SF Planning places him in the city's early modern work, the buildings the records list, and what to look for before you credit a house to him.
Most of what is on record comes from two SF Planning documents. The first is its historic context statement for the period, San Francisco Modern Architecture and Landscape Design 1935–1970, submitted to San Francisco's Historic Preservation Commission under case number 2011.0059U, which gives him an appendix entry and names him in several chapters. The second is an architect biography stamped DRAFT, which repeats the statement's entry and adds a few lines. Where the records differ, this guide gives each version.
Offices and partnerships
The statement's entry lists his firms and years. The name in a title block helps date a set of drawings:
John Ekin Dinwiddie, Architect, his own office in Oakland, 1931 to 1938;
Dinwiddie & Hill, with Dinwiddie as senior partner, 1938 to 1940;
Dinwiddie, Hill & Joseph, 1940 to 1942;
Mendelsohn, Dinwiddie & Hill, 1945 to 1947.
Before his own office, the firm list has him as a draftsman for York & Sawyer in New York in 1926, then as a designer for Lewis P. Hobart in 1928 and for Charles W. McCall from 1930 to 1931, both in San Francisco. The draft biography adds a draftsman's job with Bliss and Fairweather in San Francisco around 1927. Its list then ends with a later office of his own in New Orleans, Louisiana, from 1953 to 1959, which the statement doesn't give.
Neither list names a firm for 1943 or 1944, or for 1948 through 1952. A drawing dated in one of those gaps needs its own evidence before it goes under his name.
Where the partners' entries disagree
The statement also has entries for Hill and Mendelsohn, and their dates don't match his exactly. Henry Hill's entry lists Hill as a draftsman in Dinwiddie's Oakland office from 1936 to 1937 and an associate in 1938, then gives Dinwiddie and Hill as 1939 to 1940, a year later than Dinwiddie's own entry. Its narrative says Hill worked in Dinwiddie's office in San Francisco, not Oakland, and was made a partner in 1939.
The last partnership has the same kind of gap. Dinwiddie's entry starts Mendelsohn, Dinwiddie & Hill in 1945, while Hill's entry and Mendelsohn's both start it in 1946. Mendelsohn's entry is also the one that places that firm in San Francisco.
The name itself varies too. His appendix heading and Hill's firm list spell it "Ekin." The table of the 1949 museum show and a passage on Streamline Moderne buildings spell it "Elkin." When you search an archive or a permit index, try both.
How SF Planning places him in early modern San Francisco
The statement uses him as one of its markers for the arrival of modern houses in the city. It says that from 1937 to the start of World War II, Bay Area modern pioneers including Dailey, Dinwiddie and William Wurster designed a few dozen buildings. The statement then opens the Second Bay Tradition's period of significance, 1937 to about 1964, with residences by the same three men.
He is listed under two styles, not one. The Second Bay Tradition section names him among the key architects aligned with that style after Wurster and Gardner Dailey, beside fellow architects such as Joseph Esherick. The International Style section names him among its master architects alongside Richard Neutra, Dailey, Mendelsohn and others. His appendix entry joins the two, describing his work as a distinct blend of the International Style and the Second Bay Tradition and calling him "an early and influential Second Bay Tradition architect."
The statement also uses his custom work to frame what tract builders did next. In the late 1930s, it says, while master architects including Neutra, Wurster, Dailey and Dinwiddie designed custom buildings in those two styles, San Francisco's builder-developers began offering modern facade options in their tracts, which helped popularize Streamline Moderne.
Three more lines put him in the period's design circles. The statement lists him among the eventual members, contributors and associates of Telesis, the volunteer group that put on the 1940 "Space for Living" exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Art. It names him with Neutra, Wurster, Harwell Hamilton Harris, Hervey P. Clark and Frank Lloyd Wright as architects included in the museum's 1942 "Western Living" show. And it notes that a 21-page article and photo spread in the April 1940 issue of Architect & Engineer showed his modern residential and commercial design.
The 1938 house on Divisadero Street
The one San Francisco house the records give him went up in 1938 on Divisadero Street, and one of the statement's captions puts it in Pacific Heights. SF Planning describes it as Cubist-influenced and lists its features:
modern geometric forms;
ribbon windows;
a canted bay window;
an unusual siding of wooden dowels made to look like corrugated metal.
Drawing on a published account, the statement adds that the house expressed the eastern reading of the International Style more than the work of later Second Bay Tradition architects. In the Second Bay Tradition section, a photo pairs it with a 1958 Wurster house on Pacific Avenue.
The dowel siding shows up again in a different chapter. A caption on commercial buildings says several of Mario Ciampi's buildings on Mission Street, including a 1948 mixed-use building in the Excelsior District, experimented with vertical corrugated cladding reminiscent of Dinwiddie's house. In our view, that means a ribbed or corrugated-looking wall in San Francisco is not on its own a sign of his hand.
His other work in the records
The only other San Francisco project on his list is an automobile showroom on Van Ness Avenue. The records don't agree on it. His entry dates it to 1938 under one dealership's name. The statement's Streamline Moderne section names a different dealership at the same address, dates the building to 1937 and lists it among the style's notable extant examples. The draft biography repeats the 1938 date and marks the building demolished.
Beyond San Francisco, the statement says he designed "many residences and storefronts in the East Bay," but it lists none of them by name or street. Its table of the 1949 show at the San Francisco Museum of Art, "Domestic Architecture of the San Francisco Bay Region," has one entry under his name, located in Orinda, with landscape work by Eckbo, Royston & Williams. Our East Bay page covers mid-century houses across that side of the bay.
The appendix entry calls the mid-1940s some of his firm's most productive years, with Hill and Mendelsohn as partners. Neither record lists a building from those years under the firm's name.
Is my house a John Dinwiddie?
Before you put his name in a listing or a permit filing, run these checks:
Fit the year to a firm. Up to 1938, look for his own Oakland office. From 1938 or 1939 to 1940, look for Dinwiddie & Hill; from 1940 to 1942, Dinwiddie, Hill & Joseph; from 1945 or 1946 to 1947, Mendelsohn, Dinwiddie & Hill. The draft biography's New Orleans office covers 1953 to 1959.
Get the original permit and any drawings the city holds. The name on them should match the firm for that year. The features and records that narrow a build year are in our house-dating field guide.
Search both spellings. Try "Ekin" and "Elkin," and each firm name, in any index you use.
Treat a second San Francisco house as unproven. The statement says the Divisadero Street house is his only residential design in the city. A seller's claim for another one needs a permit or a signed drawing, not a resemblance.
Use the East Bay line as a lead, not a credit. The records name none of his East Bay houses, so start with the city's permit files.
Find the 1940 article. The statement's bibliography lists "John E. Dinwiddie, Architect," Architect and Engineer, April 1940, pages 23 to 44. A library copy may show 1930s work the appendix leaves out.
Owning a house by Dinwiddie or his firms
SF Planning's statement labels him a "master architect"; its draft biography uses "Architect of Merit." Neither label by itself lists a house on any register or designates it.
The master-architect label does come up later in the statement. Among the factors it lists for prioritizing Article 10 landmark nominations in San Francisco are an association with master architects, signs that a property is vulnerable to demolition or inappropriate alteration, and how fully a property embodies a style. Those are factors, not a finding about any one house. SF Planning's integrity tests are covered in our context statement guide.
Before planning exterior changes, check with San Francisco planning staff on whether the property carries a survey rating or another flag. Is My House Historic in California? puts the state's registers and the review process side by side, and mid-century houses elsewhere in the city are on our San Francisco page. Nothing here replaces a lawyer's guidance.
Frequently asked questions
Does a John Dinwiddie house count as mid-century modern?
His San Francisco house dates from 1938. That is early in SF Planning's 1935 to 1970 study and right at the opening of the Second Bay Tradition period, which the statement dates from 1937 to about 1964. SF Planning presents his work as a blend of that style and the International Style.
How many San Francisco houses did he design?
One, on Divisadero Street, according to the statement and the draft biography. His other listed San Francisco project is the Van Ness Avenue showroom.
Related reading
Gardner Dailey: San Francisco Architect of Bay Region Modern Houses
John Funk, Architect: Bay Region Modern Houses and How to Check One
San Francisco's Modern Architecture Context Statement for Owners
More guides on this topic: Mid-Century Modern Architects & Builders
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Researching a John Dinwiddie house? Call or text the Boyenga Team at Compass at (408) 373-1660 or (650) 383-8606, or contact the Boyenga Team to talk through the house and its history.
