Restoring the PastDondi’s Home in Better Homes & Gardens

ll my life I have been intrigued by historic buildings. I am fascinated by their sturdiness, architecture and detail. I was never one of those people who had a goal to own my own home (and never thought I would be able to afford it) but I knew that if I did I would want a historic home. My dream home was

A one with an oval plaque on the front…a home that had its own name and its birth date posted right on the plaque as a reminder of all the history that the house had seen.

In 2004 my father, who was also my best friend, died from complications

“My dream home was one with an oval plaque on the front…”

The construction, scrap-ing and painting of the 104 year-old redwood house took place in the spring and summer of 2008. Great efforts were made to restore and work with all original wood. We removed rain gut-ters, restored the historic porch, removed boxed in eves to reveal rafter tails, lowered the front fence, demolished the modern storage space, removed the trellis, recovered the original glass doorknob and hardware, removed/preserved/replanted the landscaping and exposed “Craftsman” notches at cornices and painted the house the original colors.

with diabetes. He left my sister and me an inheritance. We knew that he would have been most proud of us if we bought homes with our money instead of letting it squan-der away, as money can. My sister bought a house in the mountains and I bought one near the sea in San Diego. I longed for a Queen Anne Victorian pre-1900. That is a VERY tall order in “Spanish Revival” San Diego and I didn’t have the budget for any Victorian that was on the market (in a city of

3 million, I think there were a total of two Victorians for sale, both over $2 million.) I searched the MLS daily and typed in key words: “historic,” “canyon,” “fireplace.” Af-ter two months of nothing that truly reso-nated with me, I came across a home that had just been listed- a 1905 “Craftsman” on a canyon with a fireplace. I drove to the Mission Hills area of San Diego to see it and fell in love with it. I searched on the Inter-net for local historians and emailed them. I wanted to know if the house was significant enough to be land-marked (so I could get my plaque if I bought it.) Even though there were no guarantees, the historians who did drive-by’s said they thought it had a good chance of being land-marked. They also said it wasn’t a Craftsman but a “Vernacular Victorian.” That was a term I had never heard and I had to look it up. “Vernacular” is a word conducive of a transitional time between two periods without distinctive decoration or architecture. After several bids, negotiations, taking out a home-equity

loan and a long, complicated escrow, I became the owner of my historic home.

I had already started researching my home, before it was even mine so I could get it land-marked. It is a long and tedious process that few home-owners take on themselves. Most home-owners hire historians, consultants, ar-chitects and lawyers at costs between $5,000-$30,000 to do the research, write the reports and give a full analysis of the entire home and every single person who ever lived in it. I didn’t feel I had the budget to hire anyone to do the research, plus I wanted to take on the challenge myself. (After completing my proj-ect I could understand why it costs so much to get a house designated…it is a huge job.)

I started my report in February, 2006, before escrow ever closed and finished in November, 2007…almost two years later. I had spent hundreds of hours at San Diego libraries, archives, court houses, city administration buildings, and historical societies rummaging

2008In this bottom photos you can see the final result of the repaired and painted rafter tails. Today in South-ern California, having exposed rafter tails is illegal because of fire hazard. However, these were “grandfathered” in as the result of the house being nominated for historical land marking.

through books, magazines, newspapers, the In-ternet, genealogical papers and other reports from land-marked homes. Any time I wasn’t working my normal job, I was researching my home. To research people who lived in my home I scoured old phone books that tradi-tionally not only listed the persons address and phone number but where they worked, what their occupation was, and whether they rented or owned. I then cross-referenced by becoming a member of www.ancestry.com. I travel for a living but could continue my re-search on the road because of the Internet offering old records like Census files where I found a lot of information. It was one of the most time-consuming processes I ever under-took in my life- and one of the most interest-ing! There were nights where my eyes would literally blur and I wouldn’t return to my report for several days.

My report had two revisions and is over 100 pages. In my report, which the members of the Historical Resources Board would ulti-mately read and judge, I stated that I would be willing to change many things on the façade of the house to get my designation. There were aspects that had been altered by differ-ent owners and were not compliant with an old black and white photo from 1905 that was passed down to me from previous own-ers. The owner I purchased the house from was a “pro-development” man who decon-structed many historic aspects of the house. He wanted to make the house attractive to suburban type families so he could sell it fast. In fact, at one point he was considering tear-ing the house down and building condomini-ums which would have been a black scar on a very quaint neighborhood. In the end he instead just decided to change many historical aspects by “modernizing” the home. Unfortu-

2007 on the left2008 on the right

I replaced the Colonial Style porch lamp with a 1904 era porch lamp and reproduction turn-of-the-century address numbers.

nately, he reconstructed the front porch- one of the most historically distinctive parts of the house that had retained Craftsman and Greek Revival elements for over 100 years. He turned it into a suburban landing that wasn’t really a visiting place where people could gather but simply stairs leading to the front door with strange geometric designs which weren’t historically appropriate. (I was informed by the historical board that I would have to change the entire porch back to what it was in 1905 while preserving all original wood.) He built a nondescript stor-age space that blocked part of the house, put up a tall modern day fence and painted the house yellow…not a color that was popular in the early 1900’s. To get rid of his over-sights, I would have to get permits from the San Diego Developmental Services Depart-ment and also submit architectural sketches to the Historical Resources Board for ap-proval. Getting these two offices to agree and expedite anything was a painful process that took several months. Having a histori-

cal photo was considered, “golden” to the HRB but made everything tougher on me because I had to match everything exactly on the house to what was in the photo over 100 years ago. After I finally submitted my report to the HRB in November of 2007 I was put on the docket to be heard in court in February, 2008. I was SO excited! But, just prior to my court day I was visited by three representatives of the HRB so they could get a closer look at my house. After spending one hour looking at every nook and cranny they informed me that I was not going to be land-marked with the house in its cur-rent condition, even if I did make the mandatory changes to the historical porch. My heart sank and I was taken off the court docket. The list of changes they proposed to even be considered for designation was long and there was no guar-antee I would be land-marked: I would need to remove all boxing of eves, reveal all rafter tails, reconfigure and rebuild the historic porch, re-veal decorative Craftsman cornices, remove the rain gutters (thank goodness I live in a city that gets less than 10 inches of rain a year), remove

This photo to the left shows the original door knob and hardware that I recovered in 2008 from a previous owner.

Porch demolition and walkway construction.

the storage space, remove the fence, remove a large trellis, redirect the flagstone walkway, change the landscaping, and possibly dispose of $8,000 of faux turf. I had installed the turf when I first moved in after spending $2,000 and wasting a lot of water (a precious com-modity in Southern California) in the first few months trying to get grass to grow which had much pet damage and was a pain-staking process. I love my “grass.” Most people think it is real and I was going to fight to the finish to keep it. But, everything else I could com-ply with. I started getting bids, meeting with contractors, builders, historians and architects. I hired “CJ’s Home Improvement” to work with the eves, rafters, rain gutters, fence, car-port, porch and landscaping (we “saved” and replanted all existing shrubs and bushes.) I contacted “Heritage Architecture” one of the best historical architect firms in the city to provide historical sketches of my porch and take a small piece of wood off the bottom of my house to analyze the layers in a laboratory to find the original paint colors. I then had my house painted those colors: Dard Hunter green, burgundy and cream. Every change that was proposed by the HRB I obeyed by (except the grass) and even purchased a turn-of-the-century reproduction porch light, porch numbers and door knocker from “Craftsman Revival” a store that specializes in homes of the Craftsman era. I took out a home equity line, used savings and when I was running low on money hired friends to redirect and rebuild the flagstone walkway.

I was rescheduled for my hearing on July 24, 2008 and spent seven hours there. I was “Item #10” on the docket and was called to the wit-ness stand to defend my house. I was ques-tioned and cross-examined about the turf and had to convince 9 people on the board that it was important that I was saving water in a city with a serious drought and that the artificial

element of the lawn wouldn’t distract from the house. In the end I received a unanimous vote to be land-marked and was told by sev-eral board members that I wrote a “stellar” report. One board member announced that it would behoove the consultants and lawyers in the room to take a look at my report. It was a banner day for me!

I was given the privilege of naming my house! My house is named for the very first owner; a single woman from Detroit named Ida R. Hedges. I ordered my plaque from Mor-rie Wheeler Plaques in New York. Him and his wife are awesome…he hand-poured the brass and in my humble opinion it is the pret-tiest plaque in the city.

In my research I discovered that my house may have been built in the 1800’s and moved to the location it is in now. But, I couldn’t prove it with concrete evidence so I went with the earliest date that I actually found pa-perwork from: 1904. In my extensive studies I also discovered many things with the help of historians Ron and Dale May of Legacy, 106. One of those things is that my house is a “National Folk House” and not a Vernacular Victorian or a Craftsman. It is the only Na-tional Folk house on the register in San Di-ego and I am now historical land-mark, #877.

There are a lot of misunderstandings about land-marked homes. Many people say to me, “Too bad you can’t make any changes on your house now.” This is a false assumption. I can make any changes inside the house, in the back of the house or where someone driving by in a car can’t see the changes. Other people think that I have to open my home to people traipsing through on tours. I will never have to open my home. This rule differs from state to state but in San Diego we never have to give tours of our histori-

2007~ BeforeModern porch with front walk way.

2008~ AfterHistoric porch restored and walkway redirected as in 1905 photograph.

cally designated homes. Although, my home was chosen for a historical home walking tour in April, 2009.Many people designate their homes so they can get a tax break. Under the Mills Act in California, a person can get between 20%-70% off their property taxes for preserving and maintaining their historic home. In the begin-ning, I didn’t know about this. My interest was to save a historic building. My home can never be torn down for a developer to quickly put up condominiums in its place, and that was my motivation. But, when I do get the Mills Act tax break it will help me financially to replace 9 vinyl windows and compensate me for $28,000 in current preservation changes. The HRB gave me my land-mark status with the contingency that I would change my windows back to wood and they gave me eight years to complete this task. The bids I have received are approxi-mately $1,000 per window. That price is a bit

of a shock but after all of the research I have done on the benefits of wood windows and draw-backs of vinyl, I am more than happy to make the change. Recently, I was told by a historian in San Di-ego that home values of homes surrounding a land-marked home go up 17% in their value. When a historic building is maintained, the fi-nancial benefits accrue not only to the owner but to adjacent building owners, nearby busi-nesses and local government…this is called, “The Halo Effect.” Property owners often think that the value of their home is limited to their property line. However, the value of real estate is intensively interrelated with what is beyond the property boundaries to the rest of the neighborhood. After a two-year, sometimes frustrating, many times tedious process, I am the proud owner of the Ida R. Hedges House~ Landmark, #877 in the city of San Diego!

1905 Today