His Tower Is His Castle
Living in a 90-foot water tower is great for ocean views, but lousy if you want to buy furniture. Whenever Jerry Wallace decides to replace his sofa--or, heaven forbid, his refrigerator--he will have to haul the thing up nearly 60 feet by means of an I-beam and pulley built onto the side of the tower.
The job will require 120 feet of rope, a pickup truck to pull the loose end of it, and nerves--oh, man, the nerves of a safecracker. That couch, or fridge, will dangle like a wrecking ball until he can wrest it onto the water tank’s narrow outdoor deck and drag it inside through a sliding glass window.
“You buy quality,” says Wallace, who acquired his light floral couch three years ago, “because you want it to last a long time.”
Wallace is 57, white-haired and gruff. He masks his humor in biting one-liners. Ask about his home, an oddity no less bizarre than Babe the Blue Ox, and the former Lynwood fire chief is apt to grouse about the upkeep and remark on the tourists who come by to gawk. They treat it as some “giant ball of twine,” when, in fact, it is just Wallace’s big beach house.
But truth be told, Wallace is proud of the tower, the only home like it in the whole neighborhood--and maybe in all of America. Maybe in all the world.
“In ’91 or ‘92, it was voted the most unique house in the United States,” he says, but confesses, “I don’t know who bestowed that honor.”
An elevator carries people from the street to the den of the cylindrical three-story house, constructed atop the heavy trusses of the tower to exactly the size, color and dimensions of the massive wooden water tank that once served Orange County’s Sunset Beach and Surfside Colony.
The home contains 2,450 square feet, including two bedrooms, a Jacuzzi and a top-floor party room with a fire pit and 360-degree views. A 500-square-foot maid’s quarters sits at ground level.
Wallace pays a price for the home’s distinctiveness: Maintenance costs, he says, run about $25,000 a year. Should the elevator ever break down, he would have to climb 55 feet of stairs to enter his own home.
Damp sea breezes forever assault the all-wood structure, a landmark on Pacific Coast Highway. The tower must be painted every two years. Termites regard the place as one humongous hors d’oeuvre; twice since the home was built in the mid-1980s, it has been tented, military-scale operations that cost $15,000 a pop.
During earthquakes, and even when the wind shifts, you can feel the tower sway. No one wants to insure it. Wallace figures his homeowner’s rates are four times those for a comparable-size house down below.
As if all that isn’t troublesome enough, there are the tourists--harmless when they only look, but some have the gall to ring the doorbell. A few mistakenly think the tank is now a restaurant; others just want to peek at the view, or to see how it’s furnished. Mostly, Wallace ignores them, unless it’s a friend bringing by other friends, invading the quiet life he has created in his not-so-ivory tower.
“There’s a lot of Japanese tourists,” Wallace says. “It’s been featured on a lot of television shows in Japan.”
Wallace has lived here since buying the tower in 1995 from the two men who created the unusual home, business partners George Armstrong and Robert Odell Jr. Wallace says terms of the transaction were more complex than would be indicated by the property records, which put the official cost at $800,000.
Wallace, who trades in real estate, declines to elaborate on the deal, but he is happy to discuss the history of the tower, and even the one before it.
The first tower built on the site was constructed in the 1890s to supply water for steam trains traveling between Los Angeles and San Diego. That one was replaced in 1947 by a larger tower, which served the surrounding communities until it was declared obsolete in 1978. The fight to preserve it resulted in the effort by Armstrong and Odell to turn it into a home, a battle that played out during 3 1/2 years of government hearings.
The Coastal Commission granted its approval on the condition that the home perfectly replicate the existing water tank. The 50-ton house--35 feet high and 35 feet in diameter--was constructed in the adjoining parking lot and lifted to the top of the stanchions with a giant crane.
To people who live along the coast, the tower is both a conversation piece and navigational aid. Visitors to Sunset Beach or the gated Surfside Colony are invariably instructed to turn off Pacific Coast Highway near the water tower.
“When you’re out in the ocean, you always look for the tower to find the entrance to Huntington Harbour,” says Jim Myers, a local contractor.
Chuck Lillie, a painter from nearby Belmont Shore, says you can tell the out-of-towners by how they crane their necks to stare.
“I’ve never heard anything bad about it,” he says of the tower. “Mostly just people oohing and aahing.”
A lot of people have actually been inside as part of fund-raising tours of local homes run by the Sunset Beach Women’s Club.
Mo Benson, a retired board member of Arco, has taken the tour and says, “We like the idea of the tower here. You do get a heck of a view from up there, but I don’t think a lot of people would want to live up there, frankly. I’d feel kind of isolated up there.”
That is fine with Wallace, who lives there alone. He works out every morning and devotes hours to riding his bike up and down Coast Highway. He eats at the cafe down below. He enjoys his fantastic view--the summer crowds at the beach, the winter storms over the ocean. A lot of nights he just watches television in the bottom-floor room, an elegantly lit enclosure with black granite flooring and the TV tucked beneath the spiral staircase leading to the upper levels.
“I enjoy a very quiet, boring life at the beach,” Wallace says. “The greatest thing here are unsurpassed ocean views and sunsets. Certain times of year, when we have the big surf, I really enjoy watching the ocean churning.
“I like the winters and summers. I wish the seasons were only six weeks long. I’m ready for summer now. Halfway through the summer, I’ll be ready for a good storm. Sometimes I just sit here and look at the lightning over the ocean.”