ORANGE : Old House to Live On in New Home

After three years and countless negotiations, the historic Queen Anne House will finally get a home. The late-19th-Century Victorian cottage, with its pitched gable roof and bay window, has been “a hot potato, a political football and a thorn in everyone’s side,” said its former owner, Michael Alvarez.

The house has been moved, boarded up, proposed as a home for drug-addicted babies and threatened with demolition.

Now the structure, one of the last of its kind in Orange, will become another historic jewel on a street filled with Victorian homes in Old Tustin.

Tustin Planning Commissioner Don A. LeJeune, an avid preservationist, has agreed to purchase the home from the city for $1 and move it to his lot at 440 W. Main St. in Tustin, Orange city officials said.

LeJeune did not return several phone calls for comment. Orange City Manager Ron Thompson said the city Redevelopment Agency is expected to approve the deal July 21, and the house is scheduled to be moved Aug. 14.

The house’s history is “an unbelievable saga,” Thompson said. Built about 1895, when Orange had a population of about 1,000, the house once was home to the foreman of a fruit packinghouse.

By the 1980s, it belonged to the Alvarez family, and by 1988, when its ancient plumbing and wiring seemed too expensive to replace, Michael Alvarez planned to demolish the building. Local preservationists pleaded with him to save the historic structure.

“We didn’t know what we had until someone told us,” Alvarez said.

In 1989, Alvarez sold the Queen Anne to the city for $1. Months later, it was hauled from 154 S. Cypress St. to a city lot at the corner of Pixley Street and Almond Avenue.

As the city searched unsuccessfully for a private buyer, the house sat abandoned on cinder blocks. Its original lead glass windows were smashed, then boarded up. A nonprofit organization offered to renovate the building and turn it into a home for drug-addicted babies, but the deal fell through.

Then the Old Towne Preservation Assn., a community preservation group, offered to buy the house. The offer was rejected when the city determined that the lot planned for the house was too small, and demolition seemed all but certain.

But when the city opened up bids one last time, LeJeune made his offer. “I’m glad the saga is over,” Thompson said. “I’d like to see the house saved. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a site suitable in Orange in the near future.”

“I’m sure some people would have preferred to see it remain in Orange, but preserving it in Tustin hopefully will also be acceptable,” he said.