Homelessness in a High Place

Back in 1967, within days after moving into California’s official executive residence, a stately three-story Victorian bought by the state in 1903, Ronald and Nancy Reagan fled. It was a firetrap, Mrs. Reagan declared. Truck traffic made it dangerous for the children to play outside. The noise was intolerable.

Friends of the Reagans bought a house in a fashionable neighborhood and rented it to the governor for the balance of his two terms. The old mansion became a historic state park.

Since then, California has been without a governor’s mansion, one of only a few states not providing an official residence that can also serve as a place to entertain visiting dignitaries.

As Times columnist George Skelton wrote Thursday, the situation is an embarrassment. Everyone agrees that a state the size and importance of California should have a governor’s mansion. But the issue has been fraught with controversy and politics since even before the Reagans left the old Steffens mansion, at 16th and H streets in Sacramento.

Today, Gray Davis is living in a suburban house originally bought by friends of George Deukmejian and leased to that two-term governor after he took office in 1983. Pete Wilson rented the same home, which is comfortable but not suitable for the type of entertaining a governor is expected to do. Davis has promised he will raise the private funds needed so that finally, by the time his successor takes office, California will have an executive residence worthy of its name.

But that should not be necessary. There already is $3 million in a state fund to build or buy a mansion. The state owns land near the Capitol that would be suitable. Davis should appoint a commission to recommend a site and select a design, and the Legislature should appropriate however much is necessary to finish the job. California governors should have a permanent home, and they shouldn’t have to go out hat in hand to fix the problem.