This Old House : After a Battle Between Owner and City, the Historic Cobb Cottage Is No More

The house was never much to look at, with its red paint and sloping chimney, but the people who decide such matters had deemed it historic. And that presented a problem for both Margaret Cobb and the city of Escondido.

The Cobb House, built in 1892, was dismantled last week by a theme-park developer who may reconstruct it in Murietta Hot Springs. In the meantime, it seemed to ignite more bad feelings than many think it’s worth.

Cobb, who won’t give her age but says she’s a senior citizen, argued that, at the expense of preserving what she calls an aging, decaying edifice, her peace of mind was compromised.

“I’m very depressed,” she said Friday. “I’m under medication, because of all the anxiety it’s put me under.”

City Councilman Kris Murphy, who wanted the house preserved, isn’t happy either.

“Escondido celebrated its centennial in 1988, and this was one of our oldest houses still standing,” Murphy said. “To some, it was a little red shack, but to others, it was a prime example of early Escondido history.

“The battle continues. Some see history as blight to be removed; others see it as a prime example of what we have to preserve. All in the eye of the beholder, I guess.”

Cobb bought the house, one of two on a patch of commercial property in the 1100 block of South Escondido Boulevard, in 1971. She had lived next door to the house briefly in 1962 and saw its virtue strictly in monetary terms.

She was in escrow to sell the commercial lot, and on the last day of that process, in September of 1990, she was informed that the house was historic. For her to demolish it, she was told, would require a fee of about $11,000.

Cobb said a series of meetings ensued, with Escondido’s Historical Preservation Commission and the City Council, with the latter giving her a waiver early this year, thus freeing her from paying the demolition fee.

In her mind, it was small solace.

“I lost a year of time, a year of my life,” she said. “I lost the sale--I still own the land--because the buyer backed out. I also lost any rental money, because the tenant I had in there moved out in July of last year, with escrow set to close in August.

“And, of course, with it being historic and all, I couldn’t rent it after that. Its fate was in limbo, no longer mine to decide.”

To make matters worse, Cobb said, the house that remains on a lot that still hasn’t sold, has also been deemed historic.

“I may have to go through all of this again,” she said with a sigh.

Harris Evans, a member of the city’s Historical Preservation Commission, said the Cobb House earned its historic status in 1983. As part of a federal mandate by the Department of the Interior, the city was asked to list every historic structure within its boundaries.

An outside consultant was hired, and 988 structures of all types and sizes were designated as “ones Escondido ought to preserve,” Harris said.

Battles have since been waged between property owners and preservationists about what ought to be preserved and how.

Councilman Murphy says the Cobb House is symbolic of the battle between property owners who may happen to own such homes and the need of a young city to preserve such structures for its future, since its past is so limited.

Murphy said that, against his wishes, the council has agreed to offer incentives to such homeowners, hoping they cling to historic properties. In the past, he said, the method has been “disincentives,” such as imposing demolition fees when owners try to sell or tear down existing properties.

Murphy said the Cobb House should have been preserved and rebuilt somewhere in Escondido. The fact that it’s gone for good is, he said, a tragedy.

“I got into it because I admired its unique construction,” he said. “It’s single-walled, meaning the outside wall is also the inside wall. That’s extremely rare--there’s only two examples of it you can currently find in Escondido.

“My idea of the duty of preservationists, or of the city to preserve history, is to try to retain examples of styles, of the types of houses tied to the city’s history. We specified this example--the Cobb House--as the type the working man would have lived in around the turn of the century. It really was a unique house.”

Cobb said that, because of its common structure and appearance--the house is not a mansion or a rich man’s haven--that it failed to merit serious consideration for historical preservation.

And, like many property owners, she believes that, by owning the land, the fate of the house should have been hers to control.

Councilman Murphy said the house was constructed in a “unique, ornamental way.” It was small--only three rooms--and with a steep, pitched roof and firetruck-red paint, it looked exactly like the 1890s cottage it was.

Said Evans, of the Historical Preservation Commission: “100-year-old houses are not readily replaceable. We’re losing our links to the past by tearing down the old just to make way for the new.

“This house should have at least remained somewhere in Escondido. How will young people today ever get a feel for how their grandfathers lived? They fail to understand ‘no indoor plumbing.’ This place even lacked an indoor kitchen.

“Just seeing a photograph isn’t enough. You have to get inside a place and touch the walls, to see how people lived. When you do, you’re face to face with history, even in a house this small or so seemingly insignificant. I really hated to see it go.”