Home Savings
Millard Sheets’s artwork is recognizable to many Southern Californians though few know his name. Banking magnate Howard Ahmanson bought Home Savings in 1947. Wanting his banks to look special — particularly the two branches he planned to build in Los Angeles — he wrote Sheets a terse letter in 1953: “Have traveled Wilshire Boulevard for twenty-five years. Know name of architect and year every building was built. Bored… Need buildings designed.” Sheets responded that he wasn’t an architect. Ahmanson replied, “I want it done the way you would do it if you were doing it for yourself.” That first project was followed by more than 150 others. Like so many of Sheets’ Home Savings designs, the Garden Grove branch, completed in 1961, is in the minimalist New Formalism style. The mural features agricultural laborers, a nod to the area’s agricultural roots.
Garden Grove, Orange County
Photographer: Andrew Schmidt