Historic Home’s Future on San Juan’s Docket

A historic house that has been threatened by a proposed Ortega Highway development project may be saved by the City Council under a relocation proposal by City Manager Stephen B. Julian.

A plan to save the house is scheduled for discussion at Tuesday’s council meeting. It offers the option of moving the home to a nearby park or hauling it to a lot owned by Melvin Rosenbaum, who grew up in the single-story, redwood farmhouse.

Jennifer Williams, an assistant to Julian, said she believes that city officials will favor moving the farmhouse to Russell C. Cook Park, in an area near the city- owned Mission Trails Stables. Julian could not be reached for comment.

The park along the San Juan Creek is one-half mile from the 2 1/2-acre home site at the corner of Avenida Siega and Ortega Highway. It would cost the city about $30,000 to move it there, Julian’s report said.

Moving the rickety home to Rosenbaum’s property, at the corner of Rancho Viejo Road and Trabuco Creek Road, would cost about $50,000. The lot is four miles from the original home site, and the 40-foot-wide house would have to be split in half to fit across a narrow bridge on Rancho Viejo Road, the report said.

Rosenbaum’s lot “isn’t the favored option,” Williams said. “Public benefit is the main consideration.”

Local historian Ilse Byrnes, a 30-year South Orange County resident who has lobbied the council to preserve the home, said: “The whole community would really benefit to have this old house refurbished and restored. It would really give the park a feeling of what San Juan Capistrano was like in its agricultural years. It could be sort of a glimpse back.”

The council may opt to demolish the house, Julian’s report said, based on a June decision giving permission to a developer to build seven homes on the site. In June, officials said that if the developer made a “good faith” effort to relocate the home and was unsuccessful, he could destroy it.

An Oct. 30 letter to the city from Gerald F. Zigrossi, president of the Hillside Terrace Development Corp., showed several fruitless solicitations from numerous historical groups.

In studies completed last year on the planned widening of a two-lane, blind curve in front of the home, state officials determined that the former Rosenbaum family house was an obstacle to the road improvements.

State officials also said the home is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. It is the last remaining home on Ortega Highway that is built in the cottage-like, California Vernacular architectural style. The house was originally built on the Rancho Mission Viejo property for a ranchman and his family.

Byrnes speculated that the home could have been built as early as the 1890s, when documents show that a large shipment of redwood came into town via the train depot.