The Cumberland application would add a significant chunk of North Glendale to a growing set of historic boundaries that have been either approved or are under consideration.
Three neighborhoods — Royal Boulevard, Cottage Grove and Ard Eevin Highlands— have secured the historical designation, which limits what homeowners can do to their facades. The Rossmoyne neighborhood — which at 509 homes would be the largest district in Glendale — is going through the evaluation process.
The North Cumberland Heights neighborhood has 179 homes from the south at Cumberland Road, to the west at Grandview Road, north at Mountain Avenue, and to the east at Crestview Avenue and Matilija Street. The application would also include several blocks of Ben Lomond Drive.
Most of the homes were developed in the 1920s to 1955, said Jay Platt, the city's historic preservation and urban design planner.
The homes in the neighborhood incorporate a range of architectural styles, including Spanish colonial, Monterey, Mediterranean, American colonial and English Tudor revivals, minimal traditional, ranch-style and French eclectic.
"We thought this neighborhood really does obviously have the consistency and the sense of districtness that we expect from districts in Glendale," Platt said.
City officials and independent consultants have for years recognized the neighborhood's historic preservation potential, he added.
The neighborhood, he said, has a solid boundary and a logical and appropriate district name.
"It tells us a lot about how people lived, how the city developed, what our tastes were and what our aesthetic choices were throughout the early decades of the city's development," Platt said.
