SANTA ANA : It’s History in the Remaking in French Park Area

Acknowledging that some of its older neighborhoods need sprucing up, the city is spending as much as $95,000 to landscape, renovate and repaint four private homes in historic French Park.

The Model Block Project, now in progress, has drawn some mild protests. One of the four homeowners objected to the city’s use of latex paint, and a few neighbors objected to the color scheme.

“Some people did not agree with violet,” said Debbie McEwen, president of the French Park neighborhood association. “But these houses are jewels. We wanted them to pop out.”

The violet coating is on a corner house that has already been renovated. A house being painted now will be taupe, and a third will be parchment. The other corner house will be either light apricot or sunset cloud--not vintage-sounding colors but authentic in hue for the period in which the homes were built.

The work is expected to be finished in October. A similar city program in the Heninger Park area in the 1980s helped revitalize the neighborhood, according to a city report.

City officials said they chose French Park for the Model Block Project because its neighborhood association was the quickest to respond to inquiries.

The neighborhood association picked the four homes because they are in a high-profile location across from a small park and are dilapidated, with cracked paint, overgrown yards and crumbling brick.

One of the homes belongs to a nonprofit organization that did not have the money for improvements. One of the homes is for sale and is occupied by an elderly woman. The owner of a third home recently passed away.

Bill Burk, who owns the fourth house, said he had already spent $60,000 on improvements inside the house since acquiring it a year and a half ago.

Burk said he would have preferred high-gloss paint to the latex that the city is using because it would have looked better and lasted longer. But that is a minor point, he said--he is grateful for the free improvements.