Antique Auction Sets Off Piru-Mania

Who owns a town’s history?

It’s hard to say anymore in this farming enclave in eastern Ventura County. For 57 years, the undisputed keeper has been Harry Lechler, a lifelong resident and retired hardware store owner who built the Lechler Museum in his own backyard in 1943.

But this weekend, the museum’s 1,000-piece collection is up on the auction block. And residents are in a last-minute frenzy to try to keep the town’s history intact. The county’s Cultural Heritage Board is calling on local museums and history buffs to bring their checkbooks and buy as many items as they can. A strategy session to decide who will bid on what is scheduled for today.

“It takes years for museums to acquire these kinds of artifacts that tell about a community,” said Gary Blum, chairman of the Cultural Heritage Board. “To have them auctioned off in one afternoon would be a tragedy.”

Since 1943, Lechler has collected his own finds and objects donated by others. The stash--encompassing artifacts of early Chumash inhabitants, settlers who came with the railroad and even movie stars who have filmed on location since the early 1900s--spilled into two sheds and the yard.

After years of hinting and months of outright begging for one of the younger residents to take over the collection and house it safely, Lechler--who is 88 and recently suffered a heart attack after the death of his son--had it all packed up and sent off to auction.

The sale is set for Saturday and Sunday at California Auctioneers and Appraisers in Casitas Springs north of Ventura. A public preview is scheduled for today and Friday. Altogether, the collection has an estimated worth of well over $100,000, appraisers say, enough to provide nursing home care if Lechler or his wife, Peggie, should need it.

The firm, online at https://www.californiauctioneers.com, already has fielded several inquiries from across the country, according to owner John Eubanks.

Of widespread interest are such items as a vintage tractor, Victrolas and Italian stained-glass windows from the town’s first Catholic church. Other items may not draw as much money but have perhaps greater interest to Piru residents.

Those include several Indian tools, as well as woven baskets that may be made of a reed early Indians called “pee-ru,” the town’s namesake.

There’s the guest register from the town’s now-defunct hotel, where Lechler was born and where Mary Pickford and other stars of the 1900s stayed when they came here to make films.

Some of Piru’s 1,800 residents admit they initially were miffed at Lechler for his decision to sell. But it’s hard to stay mad at a man who voluntarily ran a museum for six decades, let thousands of people into his home and never charged admission or accepted donations in return, said Steve Alcocer of the Piru Neighborhood Council.

“I think Mr. Lechler did exactly what he felt he had to do,” Alcocer said. “I knew Harry was going to give up the museum. He’s getting up in age. I just wish something else could have happened.”

Some questioned whether Lechler really thought through the sale, suggesting that Eubanks tricked him into it or twisted his arm. That’s a rumor Peggie Lechler, who turned 90 on Wednesday, put to rest quickly.

“We pressured him, if anything,” she said of Eubanks.

Harry Lechler was too frail to be interviewed, his wife said.

Some Piru enthusiasts say the whole thing is sad.

“It’s well known as the best collection of Piru artifacts and history,” said Tony Newhall, 59, whose late father bought the spectacular Piru Mansion in 1964 and who is a descendant of pioneer land baron Henry Mayo Newhall. “It’s unfortunate it can’t be sold to someone who would keep it intact.”

That someone won’t be Newhall, who has put the 1886 mansion on the market. But he may purchase pieces that came from the mansion to keep at least that part of the collection intact.

Some members of the Ventura County Cultural Heritage Board briefly contemplated picketing the auction, but decided that would be pointless.

Board members also considered trying to tell Lechler he couldn’t sell his collection because the county had designated the museum a historical landmark. But county attorneys advised the board that the designation applied not to the collection but only to the museum structure. The Italian windows, which were installed in the museum, are probably protected as part of the structure, attorneys advised board members. But after Lechler’s heart attack, nobody wanted to press the point.

Instead, this younger generation of Piru’s keepers will do its best to buy back what it can, and figure out later what to do with the material.

In a 1995 interview, Lechler told The Times that he often worried that when he died people would “come and take what they think are the most valuable things and leave unattended the little things that mean so much to me.”

Blum said he will try to make sure that doesn’t happen.

“Mr. Lechler was really the landmark in a lot of people’s eyes,” he said. “If we can’t keep him, the collection is the next best thing.”