Solar Energy Comes to Suburbia

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PHOTO: N. H. COMINOS
The Blue Skies development in Hemet, California features houses with radiant solar heating with solar panels.

When you drive by the first time, you might think the Blue Skies development near Hemet, California is “just another housing tract.” As you approach the ten-foot-wide sign at the development’s entrance, however — the one that says “Now Open … Blue Skies Radiant Homes” — you’re suddenly stopped by something unusual: namely, the words “solar heating” and “designed for total energy conservation” at the bottom of the sign, underneath a portrait of Ole Sol himself.

What the mini-billboard is saying, of course, is that the stucco haciendas in this development are solar-heated, and thus represent some of the very first solar-equipped tract homes in California … if not the country.

The Man With the Plan

The man behind the Blue Skies development is Warren Buckmaster, a former diamond salesman who — at age 46 — decided to give up precious stones and go into the home-building business with Whittier, California contractor Marvin Lauren.

  • Published on May 1, 1977
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