If there is something to be said about a city’s history, it lies solely within the hands of its archivists. And two of Long Beach’s most vigorous of such workers—Cara Mullio and Jennifer Volland of Alamitos Heights—do it in addition to their everyday professional lives.

The pair—Jennifer is a curator by day, Cara is a principal for a real estate development and consulting firm—have become authors by night, single-handedly placing them as the authoritative figures on Long Beach’s architectural landscape.

Having examined the city for over a decade, their diligent research has brought forth two books, an archive on famed Long Beach architect Edward Killingsworth and a comprehensive roundup of Long Beach’s heteropolis history.

The latter, Long Beach Architecture: An Unexpected Metropolis, not only examines this unexpected metropolis but became (and still is) an unexpected success, having been through its third printing while their second book, Edward A. Killingsworth: An Architect’s Life, just released its first edition last month.

Of course, their obsession with Long Beach architecture was not always so concrete.

“I was born and raised in Belmont Heights and I left at 18 never to return again,” Mullio said. “After my graduate program [at UCLA where I met my husband], we had just never planned on coming back. My first kid changed that and I realized I needed to nest and come back. My entire perspective of Long Beach was different by that point.”

Simultaneously, Volland and Mullio were working at MOCA, where they had originally met after their graduate studies.

“I came here by accident fifteen years ago expecting only to be here a year or two,” Volland said. “Long Beach was reasonable for [my husband and I] so we got a loft downtown and then we sort of just fell in love with it: the diversity, the grittiness… It was perfect.”

That love–on both accounts—cemented their seemingly off-the-cuff idea to do a book on Long Beach architecture, something that Volland describes as “so naive that we just jumped into it without really thinking.”

Their compulsive desire to jump into such a deep archiving/documentation project began with the exploration of Long Beach—by car, by foot, by bike—that eventually led to an epiphany that, once discovered, seems quite obvious: every decade of the past century has a significant presence in the city. And while documenting in depth the way in which a city has developed has been done endlessly for Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Venice, Pasadena, and many others, Long Beach had an empty niche filled with rich opportunities.

Even with the success of Long Beach Architecture, their follow-up endeavor was met with some uphill battles. Having begun interviewing Killingsworth shortly before his death in 2004, the publishing world was beginning to alter as costs of printing physical books skyrocketed, the proliferation of ebooks increased, and the recession forced publishers to be incredibly cautious with their titles.

“Bottom line, it was funding [that held back the Killingsworth book],” Volland explained. “A lot of publishers viewed Killingsworth as a gamble and/or were steering away from monographs. His name is not as well known as other Case Study House architects, but for us, this is what made his story all the more fascinating.” Thankfully, that story was told as it is the sole piece of literature dedicated in its entirety to the master architect who altered mid-century modernism and design while maintaining full-time offices and residence in Long Beach.

Not stopping for a breath, they are already at work on their next project—something they are more akin to associate with documenting than archiving—about the Long Beach gem that is the Frank Brothers furniture store that spanned nearly fifty years of operation from 1938 to 1982. “Sometimes, people in Long Beach complain, ‘Why aren’t we more like Santa Monica or Pasadena or…?’” Cara said. “But in all honesty, the real question is, ‘Do we ever want to be?’”

Long Beach Architecture: An Unexpected Metropolis and Edward A. Killingsworth: An Architect’s Life are both available in hardcover through publisher Hennessey + Ingalls as well as through online bookstores.

For more information about Cara Mullio, visit rootdevelopment.com.

For more information about Jennifer Volland, visit jennifermvolland.com