6/26 Crew felled by padlocks at Watsonville’s Redman House

By NANCY PASTERNACK
Sentinel staff writer

WATSONVILLE — With a deed to the property now bearing the name of the Redman House Foundation, nothing could stop its members from beginning work on the 1897 Queen Anne mansion.

Except two industrial-strength padlocks.

An enthusiastic volunteer clean-up party arrived Saturday morning at the old mansion, which sits off Highway 1 at the Riverside Drive exit. The volunteers were to ready the grounds for a renovation crew and get their first peek inside the dilapidated building.

But the magic moment never arrived.

Foundation president and Watsonville City Councilman Dale Skillicorn stood outside the door on a platform of rotted wood, and lamented that a pair of heavy bolt cutters would be needed to remove locks left by previous owners.

The house’s many windows were boarded up.

It took nearly seven years for Skillicorn and his nonprofit group to acquire the 14-acres of land and the house.

Current renovation plans have the house slated to become a place to showcase the area’s agricultural heritage to the public — specifically tourists.

"It will be a kind of museum," said Skillicorn, "to let people see how things were" during the sugar-beet farmer days of original owner James Redman, and subsequent owners, the Hirahara family.

The house, which was an original design by famed California architect William Weeks, is scheduled to be removed from its foundation later this summer.

A room will be dug below ground, and a new foundation built. The original foundation was damaged during the Loma Prieta earthquake.

Standing in the tall weeds outside the locked house, the faded fish-scale shingles and ornate Victorian detail appeared to hold up the building.

Skillicorn says the appearance is deceiving.

"The inside is, structurally, in pretty good shape," he said.