Fate Takes Historic Home on a Long, Winding Road

The McKinley Mansion, a historic Los Angeles residence whose fate has hung by a thin thread for the past two years, awaits only the city’s final blessing before embarking on a bold journey 50 miles across town to a new location in Chatsworth.

The city’s Department of Building and Safety is expected soon to allow the mansion’s new owners, Rod and Sherry Daniels, to move the grand lady of Lafayette Park Place to Monteria Estates, the domain of 50 other stately San Fernando Valley homes.

For the move from 310 S. Lafayette Park Place, the two-story mansion will be cut into thirds, each with a maximum width of 32 feet, with an additional cut at the back portion of the house.

Its Italian green-glazed tile-roof assembly will be removed to allow for proper clearance, and a gazebo and a 1,300-square-foot carriage house and chauffeur’s quarters will also be disassembled and moved.

“Lafayette Park Place is actually only 20 miles from Monteria Estates,” said Daniels, a real estate investor who buys and sells distressed houses and who has relocated 50 of them.

“But the mansion, which will travel by night, will take a circuitous route through downtown, Glendale and into the Valley. It will cross five freeways, using over- or underpasses, and travel along several narrow streets.”

Daniels, who has hired a professional house mover, will oversee the disassembling of the mansion and its overnight journey.

When it arrives at its destination, he said, the mansion will be placed on a 2-foot-high foundation wall surrounding a new 5,000-square-foot cellar that will house two bowling lanes, a dance floor and recreation area.

Daniels so far has paid only a token $1 for the 13,000-square-foot mansion to bind his purchase option. After the home is removed from its present site, a balance of $14,999 will be due to the house broker, Arnie Corlin.

“But that’s not where the costs end,” Daniels said, happy that the Building and Safety Department has agreed to waive $10,000 in permit fees because of the designation of the mansion as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 326. (It was designed by architects Sumner Hunt and Silas Burns, took three years to build and was completed in 1917.)

Daniels expects moving and renovation to cost $1 million, not counting the $1.9-million price for a 5-acre site in Monteria Estates, 2 acres of which are being reserved for the mansion at the intersection of Winnetka Avenue and Devonshire Street.

“Hopefully, we will be able to build two (houses) . . . on our remaining Monteria Estates acreage, and that should help pay for this dream house,” Daniels said.

The couple has hired a professional team headed by project coordinator Marsha Broderick, interior designer and general contractor, whose firm, the Pink Ladies, did the relocation feasibility studies on the Pepperdine Mansion and performed the restoration and historic designation of the 10,000-square-foot Magnolia Mansion in North Hollywood.

The restoration team includes preservation architect Dan Peterson and his wife, Geraldine Peterson, an architectural historian. Peterson has specialized in the rehabilitation and restoration of historic buildings since 1975 and is working on the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Antique Block and the restoration of 15 historic facades in downtown Oroville, Calif.

Re-Creating Original Grounds

Jonathan Sidy of the Jonathan Co. in Encino has been retained to re-create the original grounds of the McKinley Mansion, its arbor area, circular driveway and rose garden, utilizing some of the existing plants at Lafayette Park Place.

The Petersons will live on the property during the restoration. The Danielses plan to move into the mansion after it has been renovated.

“Our hope is that the mansion . . . will then qualify for the National Register of Historic Places as a significant architectural representation of its period and method of construction,” said Sherry Daniels, who is fascinated by the rich history of the house.

The once-proud example of the Italian Renaissance-style was home to the McKinley family, which owns a chain of mortuaries in Los Angeles, and is the only surviving mansion among the grand old residences of Lafayette Park Place. It has remained vacant since the death of Vari McKinley McCormac in 1986.

Sherry Daniels also anticipates a glittering debut for the mansion as the 1990 Design House of the San Fernando chapter of International Society of Interior Designers, joint sponsors with the Los Angeles chapter of the 1989 Cecil B. De Mille/Charlie Chaplin Design House.

Subjected to Vandalism

As the red tape unwinds to free the McKinley Mansion, Rod Daniels’ main concern is that the longer the mansion remains “on hold” the more vulnerable it becomes.

Alerted by neighbors to vandalism, the city recently took measures to board up the house and install 24-hour security guards, but not before intruders had ripped the place apart, slept there and littered the rooms with liquor bottles.

For those who attended social functions at the 17-room mansion in the 1970s, following the death of Mator McKinley and the marriage of his widow, Vari, to Scott McCormac, a tour of the site today is a painful reminder of its former grandeur.

The once-elegant main parlor is littered with the torn contents of family records that were left in the house and remnants of the rich red fabric torn from its silk-tasseled draperies.

Last New Year’s holiday weekend, the mansion barely survived total destruction when the property’s owners, Dragon Realty, eager to clear the property for development, attempted to demolish it, using a permit issued to a different address. Neighbors alerted police, who intervened, but not before a portion of the ceiling was damaged by a work crew.

Preservationists Involved

In trying to determine the best fate for the mansion, a number of preservationists have become involved. The Los Angeles Conservancy and Los Angeles Heritage Commission have been active in ensuring preservation of the mansion’s historic integrity.

The Conservancy’s preservation officer, Christy McAvoy, said that before the demolition attempt, Dragon Realty had sought to find purchasers for both the lot and the structure.

“We (the Conservancy) made every effort to find a . . . buyer with a good adaptive reuse proposal. . . .” she said. “Our preference would have been to have it remain on the site, but since a buyer for the whole property was not found, we believe the relocation of the structure by the Daniels family is a suitable option.”