Oceanside Votes to Raze Ancient Ullman Cottage
Time has run out for a weather-beaten 80-year-old summer cottage built here near the turn of the century by a Dr. Billings but known as the Ullman House, in honor of his wife, Louise Ullman Billings.
The modest wooden structure, which once served as Oceanside’s first Elks Lodge, was ordered razed by the Oceanside City Council, sitting as the Community Development Commission, last week.
The commission also voted to allot $1,500 for demolition costs.
The cottage was built by Billings, one of the city’s first physicians, in 1905 along the ocean bluffs at 130 S. Pacific St. and, in recent years, has been moved from place to place by residents with plans to preserve it.
In 1983, the City Council designated the Ullman House as a historic site and its owners offered it for $1 to anyone who would move it.
It was moved but then abandoned by the new entrepreneurs.
City fire marshals requested that the old building be torn down, citing the recent arson fire that razed another old wooden structure, a former livery stable.
The house is expected to be demolished within a month.
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