Kraemer House: a Milestone or a Millstone?

It’s not a pretty fate for a grand dame.

Placentia’s historical Kraemer house sits abandoned with a broken balcony, boarded-up windows, a weed- and trash-choked lawn and broken glass strewn across the cracked driveway. The once-elegant 5,872-square-foot house, still flanked by birds-of-paradise bushes, is now a rotting shell.

It used to be luxurious: five bedrooms, a guest house over the garage, a swimming pool, a hot tub and cabana, a lighted tennis court and a covered barbecue.

Built in 1918, the house now waits in a state of dire disrepair on its 1.5-acre Angelina Avenue lot while its owners and city officials wrangle over the next turn in its fortunes.

The City Council has declared the house a public nuisance, and the city Planning Commission voted this month for abatement. The City Council will consider that option at its Dec. 19 meeting, said Joyce Rosenthal, director of development services for Placentia.

An abatement order would require the house’s owners to repair, rebuild or demolish the house. But the city has vetoed the owner’s previous proposals for the site, said Jeffrey Lee, spokesman for the group that owns the house.

“At first, he wanted to take down the house,” Rosenthal said. “Then he was going to leave the house and build houses around it. In the meantime, he hasn’t done what we think is the proper maintenance on the site.”

Now the price tag for renovation has reached $300,000.

The house is one of only seven historical homes in the city, according to Donna Bass, chairwoman of Placentia’s historical committee. The house has slid from being a city jewel to a prominent eyesore.

“Our biggest concern was that something of value didn’t turn into a piece of junk,” but the city may be too late in its efforts to save the house, Bass said. “I would love to see that house be taken and refurbished and something decent made there.”

Speaking on behalf of the city, Rosenthal said the best possible scenario is that the house be restored and placed on the state’s list of historical homes.

“A private party could restore the Kraemer house as a residence, or someone could restore it and use it for some low-key use, like a bed-and-breakfast,” she said.

But the overriding question remains: Who should pay for the renovation? The city says the owners should. The owners say the city should, particularly if officials are so set on preserving the home.

According to Lee, the owners have lost a substantial amount of money on the property, which cost $750,000 in 1988.

Lee said that when they bought the property, they believed that the city would let them clear the site and build condominiums. But the city balked because of the home’s historical significance, he said.

The owners then tried to sell the house in 1990 but couldn’t get anywhere close to the price they paid, Lee said. In the 10 years that the property has been on the market, Lee said, there have been no offers.

Fraternity Years

The last tenants were 12 members of Cal State Fullerton’s Sigma Nu fraternity, who got a conditional-use permit from the city to live there from 1991 to 1997. They paid $2,800 a month for rent. According to Lee, the owners continued to lose money on the property even when it was occupied because the monthly mortgage and taxes are about $4,500.

Lee said the group of owners would like nothing better than to cut ties to the property. They have been trying either to find a builder who would buy and clean up the site or pursue some other option that would make city officials happy while unloading the property.

In March, the landowners had preliminary talks with the Placentia-Yorba Linda Art Assn. to turn the house into a permanent gallery for local artists. Under that plan, new homes would have been built around the Kraemer house for a colony of resident artists.

Lee said that proposal is on hold because talks are underway to sell the property to a builder who will renovate and move the Kraemer house to another spot on the parcel. That would allow the developer to build a road and more homes on the site without razing the historical structure.

“It was hard to get a configuration that looks nice,” said Lee, adding that the proposal has been drafted but not yet officially submitted to the city. “The plans we submitted before had up to 10 to 14 homes, which was higher density. The city felt that was too crowded.”

The property is highly problematic now, said Lee, because the owners lost their liability insurance in 1998. The owners say they’ve asked the city for demolition permits in the past, but all those requests were denied. Rosenthal said, however, that the requests were stalled because the city was waiting for acceptable renovation proposals from the owners.

Meanwhile, the abandoned home has been plagued by graffiti, vandalism and arson. In July, a fire damaged the property’s garage, according to Placentia police.

The owners say they’ve grown deeply frustrated because they want to be rid of the property but can’t seem to get an acceptable proposal past city officials.

As they see it, there are only two options left: Sell the property to a builder for development or allow the city to take over the site and pay for the restoration.

“We have boarded and reboarded that house 15 times in the last two years,” Lee said. “We asked the city to condemn the property, but they refused to do that. They don’t want to pay for the property.”

Bass, the Placentia historian, said city officials balk at taking over the renovation because it will be so expensive. “There are many other important things that need to be taken care of financially in Placentia,” she said.

Members of the Kraemer family, for their part, apparently have distanced themselves from the dilapidated house that bears their name. Indeed, several structures--including Placentia’s historical water tower, a school and a major county thoroughfare--already bear the Kraemer name in honor of one of the early families to settle the county.

The family, according to Lee and Bass, is not interested in paying to restore the home. Family members could not be reached for comment.

“I think the Kraemer house has tremendous possibilities,” Bass said. “But the bottom line is that something has to be settled with that property.”