Victorian Restoration : Developer Plans Street of Houses From 1900s

Architect John Kasperowicz is planning a new housing development, but don’t expect identical rows of drab tract houses or stucco-encased condominiums.

The homes that will occupy the architect’s new neighborhood are four turn-of-the-century Victorians that are standing in the path of progress but soon will occupy an unusual development called Heritage Park.

Kasperowicz, owner of JK Architects in Pomona, has moved and restored old homes in the past, but this is the first time he has tried to recreate an entire San Gabriel Valley street, circa 1910.

Usually, he can obtain the homes for free because they are considered blighted by cities seeking to redevelop old neighborhoods and would be razed if he didn’t offer to move them. For a devotee of historic architecture like Kasperowicz, the demolition of these homes is unthinkable.

“The old houses had a certain quality of design and craftsmanship about them that you just don’t see anymore,” Kasperowicz said. “I just thought it would be a shame to destroy all that.”

Shortly after the first of the year, the boarded-up houses will be moved from their current locations around Pomona to a vacant lot at the corner of Gibbs Street and San Bernardino Avenue, near the San Bernardino Freeway.

Once the homes are relocated, work crews will begin a thorough renovation, fixing cracked plaster and replacing wiring and plumbing if necessary. Moving and restoring the homes will cost between $60,000 and $80,000 apiece, Kasperowicz said.

When Heritage Park opens next spring, the houses should fetch from $160,000 to $180,000, Kasperowicz said.

“That’s roughly what the homes in that area are going for,” he said.

But the development, the first such historical renovation project in Pomona, will provide an alternative to more contemporary homes.

Potential home buyers should be prepared to do without some modern amenities, such as central air conditioning and a large number of bathrooms. However, the homes also have some features that recall a bygone era in housing construction, such as large bedrooms and kitchens, individualistic floor plans and “walls a foot thick,” Kasperowicz said.

The houses have survived a few major earthquakes and will not require any major structural work to meet seismic safety standards, Kasperowicz said.

“These homes have been standing almost 100 years, and they’ve developed their own balance and stability,” he said. “You don’t want to go messing with that. . . . I really try to maintain the integrity of the houses.”

Besides repairing the ravages of time, Kasperowicz and his employees will also seek to undo any remodeling work and return the homes to authentic period condition. In some cases, previous owners’ efforts at “modernizing” homes has kept them from being saved for historical renovation.

“A lot of the old homes have been drastically remodeled, like taking a beautiful Victorian and stuccoing the exterior,” Kasperowicz said with disgust.

With the burgeoning interest in restoring old homes in recent years, it is possible to buy new lighting and plumbing fixtures that are replicas of those that originally came with the house. “You can essentially build a Victorian home from scratch now,” Kasperowicz said.

Neighborhood Gazebo

The replication of turn-of-the- century style will extend beyond the houses and into the street, which will be paved with cobblestones and lined with old-fashioned street lamps scavenged from the city’s salvage yard. A neighborhood gazebo will be built at the end of the street.

If Kasperowicz’ vision of a quaint, ersatz historical neighborhood resembles Disneyland’s Main Street U.S.A., perhaps his background might be responsible. After he graduated from Cal Poly Pomona in 1975, his first job was designing renovations for attractions at the Anaheim theme park.

Kasperowicz later joined the staff of Walt Disney Imagineering, working on such projects as the World Showcase at EPCOT Center in Orlando, Fla., and Disneyland in Tokyo. Since establishing his own firm, he was consulted as an architect for Knott’s Berry Farm and Euro Disneyland in Paris.

Although he gained much of his experience in historical renovation and replication through his work at the theme parks, Kasperowicz said his interest in Pomona’s period architecture began soon after he arrived in the city after immigrating with his family from Poland at age 10.

“I remember sitting in church as a little kid and being really interested in the Gothic architecture and not really listening to what was said,” Kasperowicz recalled.

Kasperowicz’s interest in transforming vacant lots into Memory Lane will continue. He said he hopes to design a larger development in Pomona, mixing 80-year-old Victorians with newly built historical replicas.

“It doesn’t make a great deal of money,” Kasperowicz said of his renovation work, “but I get personal satisfaction out of doing it.”