Station Wins Monument Status

In most beach-side neighborhoods you’d expect to find residents fighting to get rid of a rickety gas station amid their million-dollar homes.

Not in Pacific Palisades. There, homeowners managed Wednesday to persuade a Los Angeles City Council panel to preserve an 80-year-old filling station they consider a local landmark.

The council’s Planning and Land-Use Management Committee approved historic-cultural monument status for the tiny, three-pump station even as a furious bidding battle among homeowners jockeying to preserve the station by buying it ended.

A next-door neighbor of the station at 507 Entrada Drive on Monday beat out rivals by paying descendants of early Santa Monica Canyon settler Francisco Marquez $2.1 million for the station.

Chris Hoffmann, the station’s new owner, said Wednesday that he had no idea what he would do with the station, which dispensed gasoline for 80 years until closing last fall.

Marquez family members built the station in 1924. It was the last land-grant parcel owned by the pioneering family, which at one time controlled 6,656 acres bordered by what is now Santa Monica, Topanga Canyon and Will Rogers State Beach.

Leaders of the Santa Monica Canyon Civic Assn. petitioned for the monument designation, describing the station as a living tribute to the beginnings of Southern California car culture.

In January, the city’s Cultural Heritage Commission recommended preservation.

“It’s bizarre to look at a gas station as a monument. But this is Los Angeles,” commission President Mary Klaus-Martin said at the time.

Marquez family members, some of whom had been living in a wood cottage behind the station, said Wednesday that they were pleased with the sale and were glad to be moving on.

Hoffmann, an investment banker, earlier talked of moving the station to a new location, such as the Petersen Automotive Museum. The monument designation may thwart that plan.

The city’s historic designation prevents the demolition or relocation of the tiny station and its pump island station, and blocks any construction on its site without a lengthy, difficult city review and approval process.

Hoffmann told the council committee that he bought the station to prevent someone else from acquiring it and building “a mega-mansion there.” He has said that he wants to extend his backyard onto the property.

Incredulous panel members quizzed Hoffmann about buying property that he knew was to be considered for landmark status just two days later.

“You wanted to protect the view, right?” Councilman Tony Cardenas asked Hoffmann. “I don’t think you understand what you’re dealing with.”

“I have no idea what I’m going to do with the station,” Hoffmann said.

Civic association leader Mike Deasy was among the locals who sought to purchase the station. He said others in the canyon were willing to work with Hoffmann to preserve the station, which occupies a small portion of its 17,000-square-foot lot.