Cottages to custom homes: why Balboa Island’s historic houses are disappearing
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Saying good-bye to a vintage Balboa Island cottage that had once been the family gathering place can be a painful adjustment for anyone involved.
Baret Yahn, 32, said her grandparents’ cottage on Balboa Island’s East Bay Front had been like a second home for her since she was a child. Now that the home has been sold, she has to figure how to cope with the loss.
“It’s hard — the grief of it — to process,” said Yahn, whose recently widowed grandmother, Susie Baron, made the financially driven decision to sell and move on after living there 55 years.
“I feel joy in ‘Grummy’s’ excitement, but it’s strange not having a home base on Balboa Island.”
Baron Cottage, which was featured on the Balboa Island Holiday Home Walking Tour, is a historic 1937 three-bedroom home. According to a 2017 story in the Daily Pilot, it was originally purchased from early local developers who once rented it to classic Hollywood actors Ray Milland and Dorothy Lamour.
Bearing a historical plaque, the beloved original 1.652-square-foot beach cottage with a private dock was also a continuous revolving door for friends and family of the Barons.
Also known as the “Christmas House,” Barron Cottage sold in late May for $8.499 million. Its future is unknown, but for now it has become a fully-furnished coastal rental retreat offered at $14,000 per month.
Garrett Calacci, the owner of Balboa Island’s Waterpointe Custom Homes, has been in the business of replacing older beach cottages with new structures for 19 years. Calacci said he takes into consideration the character and charm of the eclectic composition of the approximately 1,400 lots throughout the 2.5-mile neighborhood.
“We try very hard to build homes with more traditional architecture,” Calacci said about his company’s work. “I personally live in a restored 1937 cottage and I love the house.”
Calacci noted the irony in choosing to live in an older home verses one of his new builds.
“When I first bought the house it actually took a couple of years for the neighbors to believe I wasn’t tearing it down and it was really my house,” he said, with a chuckle. “My interior decorator had been measuring a window when a neighbor asked what she was doing there after they heard I purchased the house and were certain I was going to bulldoze it.”
The island is a mixture of old and new and now a steady stream of construction can be found on just about every block. When new buyers come along they sometimes preserve what they bought, or they demolish and maximize seemingly every inch of the approximate 30 by 85 foot lot. Sometimes, however, there’s little choice which direction to go when issues occur with maintenance and when they consider the risk of flooding.
“It’s my understanding that renovating an old cottage comes with its challenges because of [Federal Emergency Management Agency] requirements,” Calacci said, especially when deferred maintenance occurs.
“Lots have to be raised, per federal FEMA where a new slab has to be to raised [to protect the house from a] flood, where the original cottages are not raised up.”
There are significant requirements that impact the costs under FEMA. The agency’s 50% rule states that if the cost of renovations and repairs exceeds 50% of the structure’s market value, the entire home must comply with current flood codes.
“It’s really, really challenging if it’s just an old cottage that hasn’t been maintained to make it livable,” Calacci said. “For example, if the existing structure is worth $400,000 all that can be spent for renovation is $200,000.”
Adding to the increase of new larger homes is the fact that Balboa Island has also become more of a full-time community rather than a part-time beach vacation spot.
Bob Bakshi, who owned car dealerships in Valencia, first moved to Balboa Island in 1998, when he bought a vacation home that he used on weekends.
“I met my wife in [Newport Beach] many years ago and just love this area. We have friends and love living by the water,” he said.
Bakshi became a full-time resident when he bought his 1990 duplex in 2013. When it was no longer physically feasible for him to remain there he tore it down.
“We refurbished it best we could, but It was getting difficult to navigate going up and down the stairs, so we had two options: renovate the house and put in an elevator, or rebuild it and make it very functional,” he said.
“Now the house is like a dream house for us, where we enjoy some of the comforts as we’re in our 70s,” he said. “It’s a nice place to live and experience our old age in a new home with luxuries and [the] benefits of having a new home.”
Bakshi pointed out that among the 14 homes in the 100 block of Emerald Avenue, the remaining three older one-story cottages are slated for demolition and replacement with custom homes.
“The beach houses aren’t very comfortable the way they’re made in an inexpensive manner and there’s asbestos and some old materials that are now finding [to be] carcinogenic,” he said. “Most of the people are in their 70s and 80s on my street and live in newer homes. Everybody needs an elevator.”
