Labor of Love Brings History Home to Manor

This is the story of a woman and a house. A house she never wanted. She lived in only one of its rooms the 12 years she owned it, and spent all those years doing her best to get rid of it.

But what happened in those 12 years is a saga of love, dedication and sense of history that is of lasting benefit to those of us who live in California, or care about preserving our past.

Faire Sax of Cowan Heights, now 87, is a retired Huntington Beach elementary teacher. But before her teaching career here, she lived in Martinez, a small town on the north end of San Francisco Bay. I’ll let the story unfold from that point:

Sax and her husband, Henry Sax, had moved to Martinez from Orange County when he was transferred there by the Shell Oil Co., where he was an engineering supervisor. With Faire’s help, he had planned their new home. Its layout and every room was built to their specifications.

Faire Sax will tell you that it was a great house, and she was very comfortable there. One day she was invited to tea at an old house on a nearby hilltop. It was shabby, in disrepair--Sax says she later counted 28 broken windows. She couldn’t imagine ever living there.

“I spent six months trying to forget about that house,” she said.

But she couldn’t. Because Faire Sax had her own vision of what that old house had once been.

It was a three-story Victorian style redwood house, capped by a majestic bell tower. Wide balconies had been built above all the porches. With 17 rooms, the first floor included two parlors and two living rooms, for entertaining. Surrounding the house were seven circles of conifers planted by a member of the original owner’s family.

That tree planter was John Muir, the famed naturalist who wrote books, had the ear of presidents, and founded the Sierra Club. He’s credited with leading the effort to create the Yosemite and Sequoia national parks.

The house had been built by his father-in-law, Dr. John Strentzel, in 1884. Muir and his family moved into the home in 1890, after Dr. Strentzel’s death. It was known then as Muir Manor.

When Sax visited there in the 1950s, it was owned by two families living together who simply could not afford its upkeep. When one moved out, the house went on the market.

What if we bought it? Sax asked her husband. It was a remarkable question for two reasons. One, the Saxes had put their dreams into the house they lived in. Also, Faire Sax admitted she pretty much despised the rundown Muir Manor. It was difficult for her to explain to her husband why she wanted it. She told me the other day that “it was God’s hand on my shoulder.”

But the house was prized for its six acres of land. Potential buyers wanted to tear down the house and subdivide. And Faire Sax’s sense of history just couldn’t let that happen. Two presidents--Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft--had dined at Muir Manor. (Teddy and Muir were mountain hiking pals.)

“My husband must have asked me a hundred times: ‘Honey, are you sure you want to do this?’ ” she told me. She hadn’t convinced herself; how could she convince him? So Sax and her husband made an agreement: They would put in a bid, and if they didn’t get it, she’d never bring it up again, or anguish over someone else tearing down the house.

We can all be thankful that, in 1955, their bid was accepted.

“I told my husband that I needed at least one room to live in. So he turned a storeroom on the first floor into a bedroom for us. We lived out of that room the whole 12 years we owned it.”

They had another agreement: They would live on just half of Henry Sax’s income from Shell Oil. The other half would go into the house. Henry Sax did the painting and rewiring and wall and floor repairs. Faire Sax spent much of her time combing the West for furniture from John Muir’s day to fill the three stories. She was fortunate enough to find a few pieces Muir himself had owned.

For 12 years they took no vacations and never went out. All of their love and devotion went into Muir Manor.

You see, it was never their intention to make it their own home. They were rehabilitating that house for one reason--to share it with the rest of us.

A small group of friends joined in on the process, and eventually the Saxes and their friends formed the John Muir Assn. Once some of the restoration was completed, Faire Sax began giving house tours, primarily to school groups. But soon people from across the country were stopping in. Muir had quite a following.

A dozen years after they bought it, the Saxes knew they were ready to let go: They’d done all they could do. Congress took an interest, and the Saxes sold it to the federal government for exactly what they’d paid for it--$28,000, plus some of their expenses. Not a penny of profit.

They continued to live in the house--still in their storeroom/bedroom--the next two years, serving as hosts. They returned to Orange County soon after that, and Sax turned to teaching.

Today the John Muir National Historic Site is one of the most endearing tourist attractions of the Bay Area. Henry Sax has since died. But Faire Sax returns to Martinez about every three years to see the old home.

I told her it must be a tremendously uplifting feeling to see visitors walk through and admire what she saved from the bulldozers.

“It is,” she said. “For 12 years we devoted ourselves only to that house. But sir, it was worth it.”

Another Fan: Phyllis Shaw has a passion for the John Muir National Historic Site too. She was once a secretary for management at the site. She eventually went into management training herself, and is now the site’s superintendent.

“We get about 30,000 visitors a year,” she said. “Most in California know John Muir because he’s taught in the schools here.”

Shaw makes a special point of being on hand herself when Faire Sax visits. “It’s just incredible what this lady has done,” Shaw told me. “Without her, the developers were just waiting to tear this place down.”

Wrap-Up: This week I read a biography of John Muir, written just about the time Faire Sax first got interested in Muir Manor. I had to smile at author John Winkley’s closing lines of the last chapter: “The old John Muir house on the hill stands lonely, shabby, ghostly, among its unkept remnants of his world-gathered ornamental trees and shrubs. . . . We may be judged for our neglect. Let us build a fitting memorial to his name.”

That’s exactly what Faire Sax did.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling The Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com