History: The link between Van De Kamps Holland Dutch Bakery, Volcano House, Baskin-Robbins

Born quite literally on the family dining table in Pasadena in 1925, Harold Bissner Jr. was delivered into the hands of his grandmother when his namesake architect-father rushed out and found the family doctor drunk. According to architect James Spencer, the inauspicious beginning was followed by long years of deprivation during the Great Depression, when the Bissner family struggled to survive.

Bissner Jr. was a naturally gifted draftsman and artist. He’d watched his architect-father struggle to make ends meet, often sleeping in his office on a bedroll kept under his drafting table to avoid paying rent on an apartment. He did not intend to follow in his father’s footsteps.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, changed everything. Both Bissners decided to serve despite their ages. Bissner Sr. was 41, too old to be drafted, and Bissner Jr., not yet 17, fibbed about his age and enlisted. According to Spencer, after basic training, Bissner was transferred to the USS Buchanan, a destroyer deployed to protect the landings at Guadalcanal.

Spencer summarizes, “The Guadalcanal Campaign and the Battle of the Coral Sea turned the tide of war. USS Buchanan became one of our most decorated ships by surviving to fight in nearly all the major naval campaigns, culminating with Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Her last act was to deliver General McArthur to the USS Missouri for the Unconditional Surrender in Tokyo Bay.”

Bissner, Jr. was witness to all those historic events as a member of the Buchanan’s crew from its start in 1942 “through her decommissioning in 1946 when he accompanied her to South Carolina and mustered out of the Navy.” He’d worked himself up from an enlisted man to Yeoman First Class, demonstrating the industry that would serve him well for the rest of his life.

Father and son were reunited in Southern California after the war and the building boom brought an abundance of work to the Bissner firm. They worked together designing scores of single-family homes, apartment buildings and some commercial spaces. In 1951, Bissner, Jr. struck out on his own.

Bissner Jr. brought in John E. Nyberg as a partner in 1953, a relationship that would last more than 40 years. In addition to architecture, Nyberg was licensed as a structural engineer. Jim Burns, joined the firm in 1959 forming the firm’s final iteration: Nyberg, Bissner & Burns. Spencer notes, “This merger of talents greatly enhanced the versatility of the firm in pursuing new directions and unorthodox projects.” Their work ranged from custom single-family homes to entire residential tracts, commercial developments, apartment buildings, and hotels.

While Bissner Sr. removed to Palm Desert, Bissner Jr. continued to practice in Pasadena. A design exists for additional rooms for the El Mirador Hotel in Palm Springs in a modern stacked arrangement adjacent to the massive swimming pool during Ray Ryan’s ownership.

Bissner Jr. became acquainted with Lawrence L. Frank, co-owner of Tam O’Shanter, Lowry’s, Five Crowns, and the Van De Kamps restaurant chains and Bissner, Jr. began designing for the whole family of businesses. Frank allowed for imagination and innovation.

In 1967, Bissner Jr. designed the now iconic “Dutch bonnet” folded plate and windmill prototype for Van De Kamps Holland Dutch Bakery coffee shops throughout Southern California. There would be 13 spinning windmill-topped outlets in all. (The prototype and last survivor in Arcadia is now a Denny’s restaurant at 7 East Huntington Drive.)

Another avant garde client, Vard Wallace, commissioned an unique house to top an extinct cinder cone in Newberry Springs, east of Barstow. Desolate as a moonscape, the desert landscape was pierced by the cone creating panoramic views from its height. Bissner Jr.’s 1968 Volcano House was equal to the dramatic setting. Spencer remarks that the house “was virtually unknown until given notoriety by the late Huell Howser who featured it on his PBS travel show ‘California’s Gold’ and then purchased it.”

Bissner Jr.’s son, Harold James Bissner III, known as Jamie, told The Desert Sun in 2016 that the design was “inspired by a dome-shaped visitor’s center at a nuclear power plant in San Onofre, Calif., while also incorporating elements that fused two of (Wallace’s) passions: astrology and fishing.” Bissner Jr.’s initial design included a massive lake and observational deck for Wallace’s telescope which was completed in one afternoon. Bissner Jr. “just wanted to round off the top of that cinder cone so that it didn’t disturb anything.”

The Desert Sun article interviewed Bissner Jr., “’It was quite a little thing to do out in the desert because there wasn’t anything out there to do these things with.’ Using resources brought in from neighboring towns and a rotating staff of workers, the build continued with white latex amalgam sprayed on the roof, serving as a waterproof covering that also reflected the heat.”

“’I was trying to keep the sun from getting in the house,’ says Bissner of the roof’s design, as it partially hangs over the patio. ‘I didn’t want the sun to get too hot there on the deck. Now, they get sun when it sets and they get sun when it rises. And then the rest of the day, you don’t get sun above you.’”

An extended platform roofed the carport providing the massive deck off the circular two-bedroom, two-bathroom house. “The center opens like an aperture, designed to ‘accommodate Vard so he could be at the top of the world as close to the stars as he was going to get in the desert,’ Jamie says. ‘… Vard was really into stargazing and the vicinity was as dark as a goat’s gut on a moonless night. It suited him perfectly.’”

Less iconic but highly influential were Bissner’s designs for Baskin-Robbins. The company was developing a range of ice cream flavors, 31 to be exact. Prior to that, only the usual chocolate, strawberry and vanilla were offered by most shops. Bissner Jr. helped develop their production lines to blend and freeze the many flavors of gourmet product for shipping to local ice cream parlors. He designed all the production plants for the company in the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Mexico, and parts of Europe.

Firms Nyberg & Bissner, and then Nyberg, Bissner & Burns worked extensively throughout Southern California producing innovative architectural designs for discerning clients. Bissner Jr.’s success and fame rivaled that of his father. He had come a very long way from most humble beginnings. The father and son are often confused or conflated but each was a major talent in his own right.

Tracy Conrad is president of the Palm Springs Historical Society. The Thanks for the Memories column appears Sundays in The Desert Sun. Write to her at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs history: Van De Kamps Holland Dutch Bakery, Baskin-Robbins