SAN CLEMENTE : Casa Romantica to House Memorabilia

For two years, members of the San Clemente Historical Society have stored dozens of battered cardboard boxes filled with vintage pictures, documents and other memorabilia in rooms at the Casa Romantica, waiting for the day when the precious items could go on display.

That day has finally come.

Starting Tuesday, the Spanish Village Historical Center will open to the public every Tuesday and Thursday from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Casa Romantica, the palatial mansion built in 1927 by Ole Hanson, a former Seattle mayor who founded San Clemente 68 years ago.

The center will include the “President Richard Nixon Room,” in honor of the years Nixon spent at his Western White House here, and the “Founder, Ole Hanson Room.”

“Our group has been working night and day on this for several weeks,” local historian Dorothy Fuller said. “It’s so exciting. We hope this is going to be the most positive activity in San Clemente for many years. It will be a real cultural center.”

Among the items to be displayed are tableware from the Western White House, campaign buttons and bronze busts of Richard and Pat Nixon, which were removed from public view inside City Hall during the height of the Watergate scandal.

The Ole Hanson exhibit will include fire hats from the city’s original firefighters, a ring Ole Hanson gave to a member of his sales and promotion team and the original aerial photographs Hanson used to plan the layout of San Clemente.

Since the city Redevelopment Agency bought the Casa Romantica for $2.5 million in 1989, local historians have been talking of making the estate a cultural centerpiece and tourism attraction by illustrating San Clemente’s rich and colorful history.

While the estate was listed in 1991 on the National Register of Historic Places, city budget problems have delayed any specific plans for the mansion, which is leased for $108,000 a year by Maureen Capielo Gates and rented out for weddings and other events.

To help get things moving, Gates said, she was only too happy to turn over the two rooms in the mansion to the Historical Society for the exhibits, free of charge.

“Here I was housing their memorabilia anyway,” she said. “I thought it was so silly to have the boxes here but no exhibit here.”

About the only thing holding up the exhibit was figuring a way to keep the bathrooms in the two rooms available for the weekend weddings and other events, Gates said. To solve the dilemma, the group installed wrought-iron gates to protect the exhibits and allow visitors to get to the bathrooms.

Admission to the exhibits will be free, although donations are requested. All proceeds will go to preserve and restore Casa Romantica, which is in need of many repairs that the city can not afford at this time, Fuller said.

Casa Romantica is at 415 Avenida Granada. Group tours can be arranged starting in April by calling Fuller at (714) 498-0381.