Dilapidated House Seen as Symbolic of Neglected Codes
Like the biblical child ordered cleaved in two by King Solomon to satisfy conflicting birthright claims, the 98-year-old Decker House stands on moving blocks, two-thirds of its former structure sheared away.
The roof beams are exposed to the sky. Holes dot the outer walls.
Developers of the land where the house sits say the condition is only temporary and the building will be restored to its former glory: one of the city’s 30 historical structures commemorated by a bronze plaque.
But the sight of the wounded house has upset two community groups, the Cultural Heritage Commission and the Ad Hoc Committee.
‘Lack of Follow-Through’
Both claim developers violated a building agreement with the city by letting the house deteriorate during its nine months on the blocks. They view its neglect as symbolic of the city’s neglect of its own building codes and developer agreements.
“The Decker House is a perfect physical example of the lack of follow-through in the city,” said Judy Webb-Martin, vice chairman of the heritage group. “It’s been allowed to be destroyed so that there really isn’t anything to be restored. They’re going to basically build a new house.”
Bill Chilton, Ad Hoc Committee chairman, puts the responsibility squarely on City Administrator Jim McRae.
“When something like this happens, it’s something that Jim McRae should see doesn’t happen,” Chilton said. “But one of our biggest problems is enforcing ordinances.”
Recently, Webb-Martin, Chilton and others gathered outside the chain-link fence surrounding the house. With the Decker House as their backdrop, they ticked off a list of concerns.
Among them: builders who sneak onto lots over the weekend to erect fences and structures without building permits; property owners who have been served with stop-work orders on illegal fences and buildings but which nonetheless are left standing, and more than 200 garages and back-yard guest houses illegally converted to rentals that have been allowed to stay for years despite repeated protests by residents.
“Developers view the city as easy prey because of the lack of code enforcement, availability of land and old structures that they can tear down,” said Bill Garr, Ad Hoc Committee vice chairman.
But City Administrator McRae insists that his building inspectors enforce city codes but must follow legal procedures that can often take time.
“The wheels of government do run slowly,” McRae said.
Dissatisfaction with the city’s action and concern over the fate of the San Gabriel Mountains foothills prompted the creation of the Sierra Madre Hillside Coalition in July. The 3-year-old Sierra Madre Homeowners Assn. also ranks code enforcement as a major goal.
Turned to Lobbying
“Our administrator has never been one to enforce codes,” said Margaret Buckner, one of the founders of the association. “People have complained here through the years about the lack of enforcement but nobody’s pressured him.”
Now, the association has turned to lobbying the City Council, Buckner said.
Three weeks ago, the association asked the council to deal with one code violation: blind corners created by overgrown brush. The group has 22 more violations of increasing seriousness to bring before the council, according to association President Yolanda Malone.
But resolving zoning disputes is a long and complicated process, McRae said. Property owners with illegal buildings can apply for a variance before the City Council to make their buildings exempt from current zoning ordinances and codes.
And often, whatever the outcome, the resolution of property-rights disputes inevitably will not sit well with one side or the other, McRae said.
“It’s like opening a window. It’s a draft to one person or fresh air to another,” he said. “Who am I to decide whether the window should be open or closed?”
McRae also admits he is reluctant to oust tenants from illegal rentals, some of which date back 30 years. “Do you want to go to somebody who’s been renting for 30 years and tell them they have to move?” he said.
The City Council has shown the same reluctance, he said, considering and yet declining to enact an ordinance against illegal rentals for the past four years.
As for the Decker House, McRae said of the Cultural Heritage Commission, “If they don’t like it, I’m very sorry about it, but they approved the plans.”
Those plans include the construction of 14 homes on five acres of land by Azusa-based developers Alexander-Catania. The land was formerly owned by the Jameson Foundation.
The Decker House sat where a proposed road was to be built, and the developers agreed--after pressure was exerted by the Cultural Heritage Commission--to move it, restore it and sell it as the 15th house in a pricey development called Jameson Court. The homes are expected to sell for up to $741,000 apiece.
Because the Decker House contained only 1,200 square feet and the developers wanted to build a 3,050-square-foot house, they reached an agreement with the Heritage Commission to retain the original front part of the house and expand the rear.
“It took us two years to get the project through,” said developer Guy Alexander. “Architecturally it’s not one of the homes you’d find in Pasadena but we went along with the flow rather than fight the system.”
The Decker House, a modest wood-frame structure, derives its importance not from its architecture, but from its original owner, Almarin Decker, an electrical engineer who came to Sierra Madre in 1890, suffering from tuberculosis.
No Maintenance for 45 Years
Highly regarded in his field, Decker was the inventor of a device that enabled electrical current to be carried for miles. Despite his poor health, he worked on the Mt. Lowe Incline Railway. He was carried each morning on a cot up the incline on one of the railway cars, according to local historian Phyllis Chapman.
After his death, the house went though a succession of owners, finally becoming a rental under the Jameson Foundation. The foundation placed so little value on the home that maintenance was ignored for nearly 45 years, said Brian Costa, a spokesman for the developers.
Indeed, one past Jameson Foundation administrator threatened to torch the Decker House with a pocket lighter to end what he considered meddling by the Heritage Commission, Costa said.
But when the developers acquired the land from the foundation, they agreed to restore the house, an undertaking made more difficult by the years of neglect.
“I wish a lot of those people could have gone through the building before we began work on it,” Alexander said. The Decker House porch resembled a lean-to with screens, the add-on kitchen in the rear was separating from the house, floors were rotting inside. Gila monsters had been kept upstairs by the previous tenants and no one had apparently ever cleaned up after the reptiles.
The only salvageable part was the tiny portion that now sits on blocks, he said. But the house will be restored to historic accuracy by December.
To criticize now, Alexander said, is “like going out to Detroit and complaining about a car that’s half-built. . . . When it’s completed, then I consider myself fair game.”
