House Moves On : Historic Cottage Due for Demolition Gets New Lot in Life

A historic cottage that has rested alongside Ortega Highway for 110 years was moved about 100 feet Wednesday, out of the path of progress.

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The sagging blue-gray home, known as the Hankey/Rouse house, is on the city’s list of historic landmarks but was slated for demolition until a local contractor stepped forward last year with an offer to buy an adjacent parcel of land and move the house there.

“It’s history,” said contractor Michael Palmer as he pointed to the steep-roofed Victorian cottage, with dormer windows and a wraparound porch with ornate woodwork.

“We’ve got to preserve our history for our children and our children’s children,” he said.

As Palmer supervised the crew of workers who lifted and then shifted the wooden structure to its new resting place--where it will soon be remodeled and sold--about two dozen Hankey family members and friends looked on.

“I’m pleased that somebody had the love to (remodel) it,” said Thomas Forster, president of the San Juan Historical Society and a longtime friend of the Hankeys. “Somebody will end up with a real treasure here.”

Formerly called the “Rose Cottage,” because of the lush rose bushes that surrounded the dwelling, the house was built by the Rouse family in 1883 in the center of a walnut ranch, according to a history provided by city officials.

In 1909, a French priest came to San Juan Capistrano, bringing a group of 20 or so French immigrants with him, and bought the house. The colony built some additional cottages, grew walnuts and olives and raised ostriches and Belgian draft horses, the city history notes.

In 1921, Carl and Adele Hankey bought the home and 21 acres of land and began to plant orange trees on the property.

On Wednesday, the five Hankey children, ranging in age from 61 to 73, were among those who watched the house being moved to a lot on a corner of Ortega Highway and Via Cristal.

Lorna Hankey Ross, 63, a retired schoolteacher and current citrus rancher, gazed at the home and recalled growing up there.

“We had a marvelous mom and dad who didn’t have a lot of money, but we never knew it,” she said.

Their house had no central heating system, only a wood stove. “But I never woke up to a cold house,” Ross said, explaining that her father always rose by 5 a.m. to stoke the fire.

Despite having five children and only two bedrooms and an unfinished attic in the house, the elder Hankeys also raised a young cousin and often took in young people who needed a place to stay while they looked for a job or finished high school, Ross said.

Over the years, 55 foreign exchange students also lived there. They came from local schools like Chapman College (now Chapman University) mostly on weekends, as a way to get away from the distractions of campus life, said Hankey sibling Eleanor Widolf.

Carl Hankey, a prominent rancher, citrus grower and school board member, later traveled the world with this wife, visiting the people he had once hosted, she said. He was instrumental in urging county supervisors to construct Ortega Highway and has a Mission Viejo elementary school named in his honor.

In recent years, the Hankey children vacated the deteriorating home and last July sought permission from the city to demolish it so they could subdivide their one-acre parcel into four lots, city planner Mary Raskin said.

The city’s Cultural Heritage Commission initially denied the request because of the historic value of the house. But the Hankeys appealed and in August the City Council agreed to let the family demolish the home.

However, Palmer stepped in and stopped the wrecking ball by purchasing part of the land from the Hankeys, and moving the house there.

“I fell in love with that house,” Palmer said. “It’s something that just needs to be done.”