House Is Both Fixer and Classic
The other seven houses were certainly more comfortable, what with their deeply polished oak floors, cushiony Arts and Crafts-style furniture and warmly glowing chandeliers.
But it was the eighth house visited by hundreds who toured historic Pasadena homes Sunday that was perhaps the most comforting--the one with the badly stained and warped floors, the rotting door frames and the grungy acoustic tiles nailed to the ceiling.
A last-minute addition to the public tour of lovingly maintained homes was the wreck of a house purchased just three days earlier by Michele Carnes-Ellis and her husband, Todd Ellis.
The couple had barely begun ripping up moldy carpeting and yanking down particleboard wall paneling and office-style ceiling tiles when crowds on the seventh annual Pasadena Heritage Craftsman Weekend showed up at their North Madison Avenue door.
If the tour’s properly decorated, perfectly painted Craftsman-style bungalows were inspiring, the Ellises’ furniture-less, fading house was reassuring.
“This makes me feel better about starting the restoration job we’re facing,” said visitor Craig Mordoh, a lawyer who has embarked on a much less daunting renovation project at his Santa Monica bungalow with his wife, Andrea.
Said Pasadena resident Milt Abel, a stand-up comedian who is about to start restoration of his own house with his wife, Janie Malloy: “I thought we had it bad until we saw this.”
The Ellises closed escrow on their $230,000 house Thursday. Realizing that the home preservation tour was scheduled for the weekend, they called organizers and volunteered their house as an example of what a Craftsman bungalow looks like before restoration.
The tour was so popular Sunday that ticket sales were stopped at 2,500.
The Ellises’ house was built in 1909 by Pasadena designer David M. Renton for Michigan chair factory owner William Crocker. The two-story house was rented until earlier this year to a large family.
“It’s our first house,” said Ellis, a movie prop master who now lives in Glendale. “We plan to move in Dec. 15. Our first child is due in January.
“We’d guesstimated it will cost about $100,000 to renovate,” said Ellis, 34. “But that’s not counting the shingles.”
Restoration experts dispatched by Pasadena Heritage to help lead visitors through the Ellises’ house had the bad news about the shingled exterior walls. They aren’t cedar shingles like the couple thought.
“They’re hand-hewn redwood. Replacement shingles cost $3 each. There could be 16,000 shingles on this house,” Ellis said with a shrug.
More reassuring was the experts’ assessment that the old house is structurally sound.
“It doesn’t need bolting to the foundation,” said preservation carpenter John Benriter of La Canada.
“The windows and doors are in good shape,” said sash-maker Tom Abbott of Canyon Country.
“You can get a good paint job done on this house for $30,000 and it will last 10 or 12 years,” said preservationist painter Elder Vides of Duarte.
Plastering contractor Kevin Guy of Mira Loma said water-damaged ceilings and walls can easily be repaired once the phony wood paneling and acoustic-tile ceilings are removed.
“The first thing people say when they walk in is, ‘Wow, they’ve got a lot of work ahead of them,’ ” said contractor Scott Lightfoot of Pasadena.
But all that work facing the Ellises makes visitors who have much less to do on their own homes feel better, said Lightfoot’s partner, carpenter Robert Clemens.
Carnes-Ellis, an independent film producer, said she and her husband hope to do much of the restoration themselves. She said they will refurbish their bedroom and the baby’s first, then tackle other parts of the house.
“There’s a lot of good energy coming through this house today,” she said.
Visitor Lillian Barker, who traveled from Phoenix for the Craftsman house tour, laughed at the old home’s rear bathroom--the one that currently opens into the backyard.
“It would be a lot of fun to watch them fix this place up,” said Barker, a college English professor. “The magnitude of this is overwhelming. I’d love to come back and see what they do.”
Milt Abel, the comedian, had the final word. Standing on the Ellises’ front porch he offered praise for what could become the couple’s new best friend.
“Just remember the stud finder,” Abel said of the hand-held device that can sense supports beneath plaster. “It’s like having a Ouija board. It’s like channeling a dead contractor.”
