Saving a Treasure
To the passerby, it resembles a haunted house. Holes dot its unusually steep roof and windows are broken or boarded. Frontyard vegetation is so overgrown that it hides much of the first floor. Graffiti marks a side wall.
But to Michele McDonough and other activists, the exotic structure in the West Adams district, known as the “South Seas House” for its Polynesian-flavored design, is close to becoming a dream come true.
Those preservationists have won a campaign to save and restore the nearly century-old house after more than a decade of vacancy and vandalism.
The goal is to transform the city-owned house, on the corner of 24th Street and Arlington Avenue, into a community and youth center over the next couple of years. Next month, area residents will be mailed a questionnaire asking for their ideas for the house’s ultimate use.
Their input will be important in bringing back to life a long-troubled piece of the neighborhood.
“I think we see it in two ways simultaneously,” said McDonough, 51, a local architect who recently signed a contract with the city to design and oversee the restoration of the house, which was built about 1902.
“As it is, in its dilapidated state. And at the same time, we can see it as it should be and as it can be.”
*
Her imagination is powerful. The day she received a copy of the keys from the city, she stepped inside the house to find cascading lines of spiders’ webs and crumbling chunks of plaster covering every inch of the floor.
Yet McDonough and the other preservationists in the historic West Adams district are not the sort to be easily disheartened by appearances. She and many of the others have restored their own houses. And if it weren’t for their efforts, the city would have already demolished this eclectic mix of Tahitian and Craftsman architectural styles.
Through the dust and damage, they can see the beautiful and intricate wooden moldings throughout the two-story, eight-room house. Although the bay windows are boarded up, they know some of the glass features a diamond pane pattern. And the huge opening in the living room’s hardwood floor? Yes, it looks bad, but the scar--left long ago by a fire built by vagrants--can be repaired.
For the next six months, McDonough will be preparing architectural plans for the restoration, which is expected to cost about $900,000 and take two years. So far, the city has set aside about $600,000 from Proposition A2 bond funds. Some work may start next summer.
First, immediate steps are being taken to prevent further decay. Tarps soon will be placed over the roof, and most of the vegetation in front will be cut down.
The structural safety of the house will be studied, and it will undergo a retrofit to meet seismic regulations. Asbestos, lead paint and hazardous materials will be dealt with, along with the replastering, plumbing, heating and woodwork repairs.
“There’s plenty of work to do,” said Michael Munsch, an architectural project manager for the city who is overseeing the work. He said working under the watchful eye of the city’s Cultural Heritage Commission “will add a little complexity, but it will give everything everybody wants.”
Ken Bernstein, director of preservation issues for the Los Angeles Conservancy, said the South Seas House is a symbol of a larger movement to create havens for old homes. An increase in applications for historical districts in the city indicates that a “quiet revolution” is occurring.
“This project is a great example of grass-roots preservation doggedness,” Bernstein said. “Sticking with a complex project and steering it through the city bureaucracy.”
McDonough agreed that attitudes have changed. “If we tried to do this in the 1960s or ‘70s, people would say, ‘Hey, that icky old thing.’ It’s just lucky that in the time we’re trying to do it, it’s not considered such an oddball thing to do. The neighborhood loves it. It’s kind of a love story,” she said.
The city has owned the house for almost 30 years, and its last renters moved out in 1989. Until recently, the house was caught in a tug-of-war between nearby residents and the city.
“I wanted to demolish it,” said Al Carmichael, a planning officer with the Recreation and Parks Department, which now manages the property. Plans called for razing the South Seas House and the house next door to expand 2nd Avenue Park to Arlington Avenue.
“We need every bit of park space that we can find, and the house, as far as I’m concerned, does not serve any purpose,” Carmichael said. “It’s so badly beat up. I feel it should be torn down.”
*
But residents argued that a park expansion would increase problems with narcotics and put the park too close to a busy street. About 10 years ago, they circulated petitions asking for the city to auction the house, and some residents even offered to buy the house themselves and restore it. They later recruited Councilman Nate Holden to support their preservation efforts.
For a while, the city allowed area residents to clean up the property. A garden was planted, the exterior was painted and more than a hundred bags of trash were taken out.
When the original classic white columns were stolen from the porch, Karen Haas, a neighbor, tracked them down to an antique shop and retrieved them. The columns, with the house numbers still on them, are safely stored in her basement.
David Raposa, who works in real estate in the area and is a member of the West Adams Historical Assn.,, said it is not surprising that people feel strongly about the house. “Its lines are so unusual,” he said. “It’s a wind-swept property that captures everyone’s imagination. . . . Everyone wants to see it saved.”
*
In 1995, a group of architecture students from USC studied the South Seas House and detailed plans for its restoration. Although the information they obtained was substantial, they, and local historians, were not able to pinpoint who actually designed it.
Before it became known as the South Seas House, it was the Dupuy House, named after musician Joseph Dupuy, one of the founders of the Los Angeles Symphonic Orchestra. He had the house built and lived there with his wife and two sons until 1922.
Dupuy’s granddaughter, Barbara Dupuy Hammer, 75, of Manhattan Beach recently toured her father’s childhood home with McDonough. Hammer had never been inside before, but had kept track of its deterioration for years.
“It sure is a wreck from the outside,” she observed. “It looks like it’s about ready to fall down, and thinking of the pictures that I have of it, it’s quite different. It’s really too bad the city . . . didn’t realize the value of the house.”
Once inside, she and other curious visitors cautiously navigated in the dark. Despite the degree of disrepair, Hammer said she hopes it can be restored to its former charms.
“Even though it looks pretty scary right now, the siding is quite sound,” McDonough said. “A good power wash and a paint job, and it will look wonderful.”
