Wreckers Gingerly Tackle a Landmark

As his demolition crews whacked perilously close to the inlaid treasures of China House, Sonny Bishop labored to figure a way to safely remove the artifacts for future use.

While Bishop is being paid to demolish the Corona del Mar landmark, his mandate is also to save such unusual handcrafted items as the three-foot wooden dragon signed by the artist, the Oriental roof tiles, lamps, tusks and other adornments on the pagoda-style beach house.

Bulldozers could then roll in and finish off the house that has graced the entrance of China Cove for 58 years.

Monday’s work effectively ended the running yearlong battle that pitted neighbor against neighbor before the Newport Beach City Council, the city’s Planning Commission, the California Coastal Commission and finally Orange County Superior Court.

Bishop, who owns and operates Bishop Demolition of the City of Orange, was hired by Jim and Martha Beauchamp and Ernest and Donna Schroeder to dismantle the Shell Street house to make way for their two new $2 million homes.

The two-phased demolition is costing the owners $4,000 more, but Donna Schroeder said they believed that preserving the roof tiles and curios first, then tearing down the rest of the house later would be “more humane” than razing it all at once. She said she did not know when the second phase would begin.

The Beauchamps and Schroeders bought the house and an adjoining lot in 1986 for $1.4 million. They never made any secret of their plan to raze it. They have had to fight every step of the way.

“We didn’t know it was going to be a year’s struggle,” Martha Beauchamp said Monday, admitting that she is finally allowing herself to be excited about beginning work on her dream house.

Bishop, who said he doesn’t enjoy “normal demolition,” said he is also looking forward to the challenge posed by the project: “If a house is trashed, if it’s ready to go, I’m glad to see it go. That makes me feel good; and this one is ready to go.”

Bishop’s credits include razing such other landmarks as San Luis Obispo’s Southern Pacific depot built in 1894 and a World War II barracks in Fullerton.

But as neighbors milled around the vacant house for one last look--and for some, their first good look--their moods matched the gray morning skies.

Kathleen Huston stared in amazement at the silk-and-paper lanterns, the bamboo mantle above the fireplace, the gently swaying willow branches and hand-painted Oriental wall paper. While she has lived in China Cove for eight years, she said she had never really seen the house for which her neighborhood was named.

Gerald Thompson, the next-door neighbor who lost a lawsuit to halt the demolition, quietly watched the crew chipping around intricate woodwork with sledgehammers, standard-sized hammers and picks. Slabs of salmon-colored plaster and pieces of red roof tiles crashed to the ground as his family silently sat around their kitchen table.

A tearful house guest, Claude Stauderman from Denver, hurled abuse at Dave Yates as he carried away a piece of China House, unaware that Yates had been hired by neighbor John Hamilton to keep track of the ornaments as they were removed.

“I never believed this would happen,” Stauderman said. “I always said they can’t do that, they just can’t do that. It’s a tragedy.”

Hamilton said he plans to put the curios in a warehouse somewhere in Orange County, adding that “someday, somewhere, some way,” they will reappear as a reminder of the house that was.

Hamilton, a real estate developer who was raised in Corona del Mar, said he had no specific plans for the remnants, but suggested possibly a gazebo or monument in China Cove to preserve the structure’s memory.

“I’ve been living (near China House) for 15 years,” Hamilton said. “My kids were born and grew up there. I can remember the house from when I was in kindergarten.”

But Hamilton and Ina Thomson, who had joined neighbor Gerald Thompson in the failed lawsuit, said it is time to look ahead and learn to live with the Schroeders and Beauchamps.

“We lost the fight to save the house,” Thomson said. “Now we want to be friends with our new neighbors.”