Spruce Park in Albuquerque, NM

Spruce Park sits just west of the University of New Mexico in central Albuquerque, bounded by Las Lomas Road on the north, University Boulevard on the east, Cedar Street on the west, and Grand Avenue near Presbyterian Hospital on the south. James N. Gladding platted it in the 1920s as the Country Club Addition, building a Pueblo Revival model home on Cedar Street to introduce the subdivision. Most of the district went up between 1923 and 1945, with a second wave along Sigma Chi Road after the war. The National Register listed it as the Spruce Park Historic District in 1982. Streets run on a walkable grid, and residents organize through a volunteer neighborhood association rather than a homeowners association.

Recognition here comes in layers. Beyond the federal listing, the district appears on the New Mexico Register of Cultural Properties, and the houses along Sigma Chi Road were registered separately in 2007 as their own residential historic district, covering construction from 1939 to 1955. Gladding's model home also holds an individual National Register listing from 1980, granted apart from its role as a contributing building in the larger district.

Gladding drew the plans for that house himself. He ran the Southwestern Construction Company and was a partner in the Gaastra and Gladding architecture firm, and he lived in the house from 1928 until 1934.

The Spruce Park Neighborhood Association is a volunteer group, not a governing body with dues or covenants. Three hospitals stand within walking distance, restaurants line the streets south of the campus, and downtown and the interstate lie a short way west.