OLD: Shotgun House Is Saved

Story and photos by
James Allardice
Mirror staff writer

   After spending years mired in the Santa Monica bureaucratic process, the city’s last “shotgun house” received an eleventh hour reprieve from the City Council last week — just hours before its demolition was set to begin.
   Early last Wednesday morning, very near the end of last week’s Council meeting, a group of residents convinced the Council to loan them a temporary site for the house at Santa Monica Airport so that it could be moved off its lot at 2712 Second Street.
   “They were willing to step forward and make the effort,” council member Pam O’Connor said. “The plan fell just short because of time constraints and we were able to help out.”
   Mayor pro tem Kevin McKeown said, “When the last house of an era comes down to its last hours, miracles happen. The Council had expressed interest as long ago as 1999, but the immediacy of last week turned interest into action.”
   The house’s current owner, Braden Powell, bought the house early this year and, like the previous owner, set about to demolish it.
   Preservationist Pam Vavra said, “…the item was placed on the agenda for the July 23 meeting, and the City Manager was motivated to find us a location.
   “Meanwhile we learned that the owner’s demolition permit was dependent on the plan check for the house to be built in its place, that the plans were going through their review process at the very moment and could be completed as early as Monday, July 22. So, the race was on.”
   After the Council agreed to allow the move, some of the people who had been most intimately involved in the negotiation process -– noteabley Vavra, Rick Laudati, Sherrill Kushner and Susan Love Loughmiller -– drove by the house to ensure demolition had not begun. “Sherrill, Rick, and I drove by the house to be sure it was still standing, and posted a note for the owner before retiring at 3 a.m.,” Vavra said.
   The next morning, when the demolition crew arrived at 8:30 a.m., and before an agreement was reached between the property owner and OPCO, the house’s kitchen had already been destroyed. Additionally , much of the interior detail was lost. Later that morning the owner arrived and they struck a deal, allowing the house to be moved to the airport and the owner to develop his much-coveted 25-foot wide lot.
   Under the agreement with the City, the house can remain at the airport for up to a year-and-a-half, at which time a new, and permanent site must be found. Also as part of the agreement OPCO has assumed ownership of the house.
   The battle for the house began when the house’s previous owner filed a demolition permit in September 1998. The Landmarks Commission is required to review all demolition permits for structures which are 50 years old or older. Upon reviewing the shotgun house, the Landmarks Commission filed a landmark designation application. In December, 1998, the structure was named a City landmark. According to a City Staff report, “The Landmarks Commission conditioned the designation to allow demolition of the structure provided that, within 60 days from the hearing date, the applicant submit photographs and floor plans to document the structure and provide sufficient evidence that the owner attempted to relocate the structure, but was unable to do so.”
   In January of 1999, Ocean Park Community Organization (OPCO) and the Church in Ocean Park filed separate appeals. Both appeals sought to prevent the house’s demolition.
   Fast forward to July, 2002. In the early morning hours of Saturday, July 28, the embattled house left Ocean Park. With a few onlookers, workers from Master Housemovers of Northridge began moving the house before daylight broke.
   At 7 a.m., the exact time the movers estimated the house would arrive, the 96-by-25 foot building pulled into the airport. By 8 a.m., the house had been lowered off the trailer, and those in attendance had popped a bottle (or two) of champagne to celebrate the successful move.
   It was, for those involved in the process for the last four years, finally time to celebrate. However, they are also quick to acknowledge that significant work, funding and time will pass before they can celebrate the final victory.
   OPCO, as the new owner of the structure, plans to find a permanent location. refurbish the house and eventually allow its use for community organizations.
   Love Loughmiller said, “Our preferred use is for a community meeting space for a wide variety of groups. Such meeting space, especially after 9 p.m., is sorely needed in Ocean Park by a wide variety of civic-minded and non-profit groups.”
   OPCO knows it will not be cheap. Moving the house to the airport cost in excess of $10,000. In September 2000, Mario Fonda-Bonardi gave a presentation to City Council, urging them to save the house from demolition and restore the house. Fonda-Bonardi estimated it would cost nearly $200,000 to move and refurbish the it.
   “If you look at the building today it its derelict state this is a lot of money to spend for a 584 square-foot building,” he wrote. “The cost is projected to be around $339 per square foot, so even if homes in Ocean Park sell for $400 a square-foot this doesn’t make sense from a strictly financial point of view.” Fonda-Bonardi said it would be difficult for the City to ever recoup any money they invested in the building, but urged the Council to not look at this as strictly a financial decision.
   At that time, OPCO failed to gain the Council’s support. The City Staff report estimated the land and rehab costs at $394,000, and concluded that such costs were not fiscally responsible.
   “Although this alternative would eliminate demolition of the structure and the loss of a cultural resource, given the cost of the property and rehabilitation, rental of this property is not economically feasible,” the City Staff report read.
   Essentially, the City was not prepared to get involved in the restoration process, afraid to set an expensive precedent for future cases. OPCO recognized the City’s unwillingness to get too deep in historic preservation, and refocused.
   “I don’t believe it is the City’s role to preserve and maintain privately owned buildings, even when they are historic,” O’Connor said. “People really rallied around this house.”
   “Pam O’Connor explained to me that the City simply could not be responsible for preservation of this and future structures, regardless of its preservation worthiness, and, that the City took preservation very seriously,” Vavra said. As a result, Vavra asked the Santa Monica Conservancy’s permission to take on the shotgun house on the organizations behalf.
   “There was agreement to at least help OPCO in any way we could, but it was clear that some established organization needed to step up to the plate and take responsibility for the house,” Vavra said.
   Instead of asking the City to assume ownership and responsibility for the move, restoration and eventual upkeep, as it had previously done, OPCO took the financial lead this time.
   With the house now saved from demolition, attention has quickly turned to fundraising. “OPCO will be raising money through a fundraising effort incorporating both private donations and aggressive application for various grants,” Love Laughmiller said. The City has pledged to study the viability of sites to which the house could be permanently moved.