Palisades Gas Station a Step Closer to Monument Status

An 80-year-old Pacific Palisades filling station that sits on the last remnant of a Spanish land grant was approved Wednesday as a city monument, to the dismay of the family that has owned the property since 1839.

“It’s bizarre to look at a gas station as a monument. But this is Los Angeles,” said Mary Klaus-Martin, president of the city’s Cultural Heritage Commission.

The monument designation was sought by the Santa Monica Canyon Civic Assn., which is attempting to block the removal of the picturesque, three-pump station at 507 Entrada Drive.

But the commission’s action was condemned by descendants of land grant recipient Francisco Marquez. They are attempting to sell the station’s half-acre site, and contend that the designation could torpedo a $2.1-million purchase agreement.

“This is a hardship to the family. It’s just not fair,” Frances Olivera said.

Members of the family have owned the station since Perfecto Marquez opened it in 1924 as part of a small camping resort he operated in the canyon. They shut down its pumps two months ago after entering escrow to sell the site to the owner of an adjoining property.

Neighbor Chris Hoffmann, an investment banker, said he intended to give the tiny filling station building to the Petersen Automotive Museum and make the lot an extension of his backyard.

Others living in the upscale coastal canyon at the edge of Santa Monica oppose the station’s removal. They argue that it is both a local landmark and Los Angeles’ last link to the start of today’s car culture.

Preservationists said monument status for the station -- which would have to be approved by the City Council before it became official -- would protect the facility until a buyer willing to keep it intact was found.

Real estate agent Frank Langen said canyon residents were prepared to kick in money and form a partnership to buy the station themselves, if necessary.

Former leaseholder Brian Clark said he would reopen the station if residents bought it.

Preservation backers pledged that members of the Marquez family would be paid full market value for the station.

“I think both parties can be served,” longtime resident and canyon historian Randy Young told the commission.

“We don’t see this as an us-versus-them situation,” Los Angeles Conservancy representative Jay Platt agreed. Added canyon civic association leader Mike Deasy: “We admire their history as much as the station’s.”

But members of the family said any delay in the station’s sale would hurt them. Heir Vincent Olivera said the family still owed $80,000 on new underground gasoline tanks installed at the station four years ago and had fallen behind on $1,500-a-month loan payments.

Douglas Queen -- whose great-grandfather built the station and whose mother lives in a cottage behind it -- complained that the city initiated monument-designation proceedings without informing the family.

Pointing to the gradual whittling away of Francisco Marquez’s original 6,656-acre Rancho Boca de Santa Monica grant, Queen said the family had been generous in donating land for the public good.

“We’ve more than paid” to help make Santa Monica Canyon what it is today, Queen said.