City Agrees to Lift Simi Home’s Historic Status

A Simi Valley couple who restored a 74-year-old house built by a prominent family has persuaded city officials to remove its landmark status, claiming the honor made it too tough to sell the house.

Members of the Ventura County Cultural Heritage Board, which recommends that historic status be awarded to various sites, said the Montgomery House is the first in the county to be stripped of its historic designation at the request of its owners.

“We didn’t like to set a precedent,” said Madeline Miedema, chairwoman of the panel.

But she said the board considered the financial hardship cited by James and Luanne Bromley, who bought the Montgomery House in 1984 and obtained landmark status for it two years later.

Now, under pressure to sell the house, the Bromleys say that some buyers have been scared away because they believe there are too many bureaucratic strings attached to this distinction.

Under county rules, a landmark’s owner must consult with the Cultural Heritage Board before making significant structural changes. The panel can stop such a project for six months if it believes the work will harm the historic character.

“A number of people have refused to have their houses declared landmarks because of this,” said Miedema, a history buff who lives in Oxnard.

Patricia Havens, Simi Valley’s city historian and a member of the county board, said the panel tries to cooperate with landmark owners.

“I hate the word restriction ,” she said. The landmark law provides “a grace period. It’s meant to protect landmarks, not tie landowners’ hands.”

Yet Havens acknowledged that some homeowners “fear it as another layer of government.”

Others welcome the designation.

Ojai real estate agent David M. Mason, who also serves on the Cultural Heritage Board, said that in his city, landmark status often adds to the value of a house.

Yet the Bromleys firmly believe it is the reason they haven’t been able to sell their 5,000-square-foot, five-bedroom, five-bathroom house over the past three years, even after dropping the price from $785,000 to $479,000.

“People who have been interested in the house have concerns over the restrictions and the time involved” in getting county approval to alter it, Luanne Bromley said. “Most of the interested people wanted to do renovations and add-ons.”

Bromley said she is now anxious to get rid of the designation because a woman recently expressed interest in buying the house--only if it first lost its landmark status.

“She’s called several times to ask if we’ve removed it yet,” Bromley said.

The Cultural Heritage Board heard no opposition to the Bromleys’ request at a Jan. 25 hearing. On Monday the Simi Valley City Council unanimously approved the panel’s recommendation to erase the landmark designation.

Since it was founded in 1966, the Cultural Heritage Board has recognized 145 buildings, parks, roads and other locations as county landmarks, usually with the approval of the cities in which they are located.

Havens said a building can be singled out for its architectural design or its association with an important person.

She said the Montgomery House was significant because it was built by the family of Melville L. Montgomery, who moved to Simi Valley in 1890 and operated a grocery store and farming business. The family helped establish an early local church, an agricultural association and a water company.

The house, which has a high, pitched roof and large bay windows, was built as a four-room cottage in 1919, but the Montgomerys expanded it greatly over the next two decades.

In the late 1960s, it was donated to the United Methodist Church. In 1984, seeking to clear the land for a new sanctuary, the church auctioned the house to buyers willing to move it from its original location at Cochran Street and Erringer Avenue.

The Bromleys bought the house, had it cut into five pieces, then moved it to a vacant half-acre in an upscale section of southwest Simi Valley, where it was reassembled.

City officials required them to install modern rock facing to blend with the surrounding neighborhood. The couple did extensive remodeling inside, but retained a few original furnishings, such as a bathtub with claw feet.

Luanne Bromley said she and her husband obtained a landmark designation for the house in 1986 because they believed it would enhance the value of the house. Later they sought to sell it because of financial setbacks and because James Bromley’s business was relocating.

Gail Kemble, the family’s new real estate agent, said the landmark designation “was the biggest obstacle” that kept them from making a sale.

“The mentality of most buyers is that they don’t want to have any obstacles,” Kemble said. “They want to move in and be able to do whatever they want to a house.”

The agent added: “When I came in today and told my manager that the landmark status had been lifted, she said, ‘Oh, thank goodness!’ ”