"Weren't the bunkers there relatively simple in shape similar to other Flynn parkland courses?"
Mark:
They certainly were, or they had become that way.
However, other than changes to perhaps five holes by RTJ, and a few added bunkers by a former super, The Cascades was pretty pure Flynn (including some of the changes he made there over app 20 years).
One might describe the evolution of the course over the last four decades, perhaps more, as sort of benign neglect and the bunkers probably showed that fact the most.
Before we went down there they'd become very plain looking with grassing lines that had become very clipped and short.
Due to the amount of tournaments they've held there over the years and the fact that The Homestead photographically (and otherwise) documented them well there was a good amount of on-ground photos to work from. And then, of course we had Flynn's very detailed hole drawings
We basically just got them to restore the look of the bunkers to those photos from the 1920s, 1930s etc during the time Flynn worked on the golf course. Up until Flynn died in the 1940s he was apparently the only one who did any architectural work on the golf course.
But a few of the bunkers were pretty odd looking and I thought very cool because of it, particularly the cross bunker on #12. It had a top line on it that was just weird---eg a huge roll and dip on the top profile.
The Cascades and the contractor seemed to at first think it looked too strange to restore but Wayne and I sort of insisted on it, if for nothing other than it's uniqueness. Fortunately they did restore it just as it was.
At one point I was standing in front of that bunker with the photograph of the way it once was (they had taken out that radical contour at some point) and with the photo in my hand I looked up at the top of the mountain behind the course and to my amazement that top contour on that radical bunker perfectly mimiced the top line up on the mountain!!
I would in no way describe The Cascades as a "parkland" golf course. It would probably be better described as a mountain golf course.