Awhile back I was asked by one of you if I had any pictures of the small cottages that use to dot the NSH campus. It took me a long time, but I found them. The homes were still on the campus when my dad started working there in the mid 1970s. I saw at least one that remained in 1996. If I remember correctly, they were sold but had to be removed by the new purchasers from the campus.
They were originally built in the 1930s to house married doctors at the facility. Back then one of the perks for working at a state hospital was that you got housing, kind of like the military. Not everyone received this, but it was offered to some. They were built in part because of the distance between the hospital and the town proper.
I think my mother first started calling the homes ‘cookie cutters’ to us, possibly because of some architectural style that she may have been familiar with growing up in Southern California, but all I know is that is what she called them.
I was in them a few times. They were cute modest homes with a couple bedrooms. They looked nice and comfortable, even when I saw them when they had been abandoned for quite some time. The kitchens were cute with that classic style from the 1940s or 1950s, when possibly some sort of a remodel was made. The baths were much the same with lots of tile work. They were well constructed and whoever owns them now has quite a jewel.
Northern State Hospital Book 