Community building to open

LA CRESCENTA — The newly renovated Dunsmore Park Community Building is a far cry from what it used to be.

Adrine Golnazarian, a city park development project manager, and her construction crew uncovered a high-vaulted ceiling underneath layers of stucco placed on the ceiling possibly more than 60 years ago.

“We were able to restore the ceiling to the original,” she said.

The city began construction on the community building at 4700 Dunsmore Ave. in La Crescenta about a year ago after a hole was discovered in the main room and, later, another hole opened up the kitchen’s roof, she said.

But after installing a new roof, floors, kitchen, bathrooms and a playground, the city is finally opening the community building Saturday to residents.

The new community building will house two rooms that could be rented for events and will be used for yoga and salsa classes.

“It makes a much more pleasant place,” said Dave Ahern, project management administrator for the Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department.

The new playground will give children the opportunity to play on safer equipment, he said.

The building was constructed in a manner to provide more useful space, Ahern said.

“It has a lot of history to it,” he said.

The city had conducted only routine maintenance on the building since 1959, so reconstruction was long overdue, Golnazarian said.

Construction crews discovered that termites had eaten through the building’s roof rafters, mold had grown on the walls, asbestos was in the glue that bound the wood floors, and the building’s side walls were leaning, she said.

“The termites chewed up some of the wood to powder,” Golnazarian said.

The building dates back to the 1940s and wasn’t always used as a community building.

It was known as the Dunsmore Sanitarium for patients with tuberculosis, said Mike Lawler, Crescenta Valley Historical Society president.

The sanitarium was one of several in the area during the 1940s, he said.

The area was a prime location for tuberculosis sanitariums because of its dry climate, Lawler said.

In 1946, a Los Angeles man bought the Dunsmore Sanitarium and built miles of walls out of rocks and other found materials, such as chains or tires.

But the building has now been restored to reflect its original appearance, Lawler said. “It’s kind of the style of architecture popular in the 1940s,” he said.