LAGUNA BEACH : Walls May <i> Have</i> Ears, Owner Says

It was the middle of the night about six years ago when Yvonne Tomblin heard the clicking of heels on the hardwood floor. The sound--akin to someone dancing--was coming from Tomblin’s cavernous living room. Her family awoke at the same time.

“My son was upstairs and he yelled downstairs and said, ‘Mom, is that you?’ ” Tomblin recalled with a smile. “I said, ‘No.’ ”

Tomblin said she doesn’t believe in ghosts, but she does believe that anything is possible in a house with 90 years of memories.

“It’s sort of funny, you just let your mind play games,” she said. “I swear there was a woman in that house in high heels. There was no question in my mind. Somebody was there.”

The house that Ralph and Yvonne Tomblin now call home was constructed at the turn of the century, and since then thousands of people have danced, performed, played and prayed there. It is the history of their house--described in an old newspaper article as the city’s most famous building--that sets it apart, Yvonne Tomblin said.

“People walk by and say, ‘Oh, I remember, I took dancing lessons here as a young girl,’ or ‘I took piano lessons,’ ” she said. “A lot of people who are original Laguna people who grew up (here) have been in the house for all kinds of reasons.”

The stately home, now inconspicuously tucked in a crowded neighborhood on Graceland Drive, was originally on Coast Highway, next to the current site of the Hotel Laguna. Visitors to Laguna Beach at the turn of the century donated the money to build the house for use as a community center.

The community’s first artists began to hang their paintings on its walls, and the building became the city’s first art gallery. Visitors to the gallery included President Woodrow Wilson and Polish-born actress Helena Modjeska.

“So many people have had such a good time here,” Tomblin said. “If this house could talk. . . .”

After it was moved to Graceland Drive in 1928, the building was used as a playhouse. What was once the stage is now the Tomblins’ dining room.

The Tomblins, who bought the house in 1984, have spent years restoring and remodeling it to fit day-to-day living. What once was an actors’ dressing room now serves as a bedroom closet. Their son inhabits a lower-floor apartment that once was a stable.

The exterior of the house changed most significantly when the Tomblins added a garage at the front. Some neighbors complained, but “there wasn’t anyplace else to put it,” Tomblin said.

Despite the garage, Tomblin said she has devoted herself to caring for a piece of Laguna Beach’s history now in her charge. “My entire salary goes to the house, renovating it,” she said. “So our lifestyle has changed. We used to travel but we don’t do that anymore.”

The sacrifice is worth it, she said.

“I’ve never been sorry,” she said. “I think this house is unique because it was so many things to the community. It’s gone through a transition, like Laguna has.”