Restoration Dreams

Featured as a Cover Story in GoodTimes
Weekly, Home & Garden Issue

by Chris J. Magyar
Renovation is a disrupting, painful process that’s only worth going through because the results are so fulfilling. Imagine, then, going through the biggest and most complicated renovation project in the county—one that will have taken decades before it’s entirely through—and, here’s the kicker, it’s not even your house.

A group of dedicated people has banded together to do just that for the dilapidated Redman House, which sits forlorn and lonesome just off Highway 1 in the midst of Watsonville. The two-story Victorian was built in 1897, is on the National Register of Historical Places, and has been a persistent yet intriguing eyesore since the late 1980s.

The Redman House Committee (now called the Redman Foundation) formed in 1998 when talks of development had stalled between the county and the house’s then-owner, Green Farms. As the structure fell into disrepair, the commercial agriculture-zoned plot of about 14 acres became a strawberry field. Last year, the Redman Foundation managed to purchase the house and land for $1.9 million, and has unleashed an ambitious plan to restore the home, develop sustainable structures and landscaping around it, and bequeath 10 acres of prime farmland for experimental organic agriculture in perpetuity.

Chairperson Geoff Scurfield is spearheading the effort. A tall man with a boisterous personality and boyish enthusiasm, Scurfield has been working to save the house for nine straight years, and still hasn’t let go of his initial gusto. “When I first started working on this house, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it and start working on physically saving it,” he says. “I was a bit naive then about what a politically difficult process this is.”

While most homeowners can spend all their time worrying about logistics and decisions (and let’s face it, that’s hard enough), the Redman Foundation also has to worry about getting permission to do everything it would like to do for the property. Purchasing the house cleared many hurdles, but there are still plenty of major ones ahead involving both Santa Cruz County and the California Coastal Commission. (While within Watsonville city limits, the Redman plot remains unincorporated and under county control due to its historical significance.) “We’re hoping to prove [to the government] with our best efforts that this is a wonderful project, and that this development will sustain the house,” says Scurfield. “We’re not doing this like a Knott’s Berry Farm.”

The full $5 million vision includes a few additional period structures such as a grain silo (which will actually serve as a mask for public restrooms) and a gazebo for music events and presentations. The courtyard will be sunken and surrounded by rock walls with fountains built in. A basement is being dug into the refurbished foundation to provide a wine cellar and caterer’s kitchen. But to build this, the house has to move.

This is where the project really exceeds the wildest demands of the typical home renovation. The biggest danger Redman House faces is collapse from an earthquake. The Foundation recently received permits to pick the house up, move it to the side, and reinforce it with steel beams while digging an earthquake-proof substructure in which to place a basement. This dramatic project will do more than simply protect the house from the vagaries of tectonic shifts. “The house has been sitting there so long, I think people don’t believe there’s really momentum behind fixing it up yet,” Scurfield says. “If we lift this house up, move it over and stabilize it, we’ve done one very important thing: People will see it.” To capitalize on this opportunity to get the community involved, an old-fashioned tractor pull is in the planning stages.

While the move will be dramatic, and the bringing of the home up to code substantial (there’s wiring and plumbing to fix in addition to reinforcing the timbers), co-vice chairperson and architectural coordinator Dean Coley insists that the final result will appear 100 percent authentic. “All the modernization will be invisible,” he says. “There are representations of all the moldings and features, and the ones that we won’t be able to rehabilitate we will reproduce exactly.”

Coley knows something about reproduction. As the owner of Architectural Millwork & Design (whose offices currently serve as the Redman Foundation’s ad hoc headquarters), Coley has engaged in high-end woodworking design and restoration his entire life, and has the necessary equipment on-site to not only recreate the vintage detailwork, but to mill replications of the tools that carpenters would have used to make the originals 110 years ago. While some aspects of the interior, such as the fireplace and staircase, have suffered badly from neglect and vandalism, “there’s enough there that we should be able to take this thing exactly back in time,” he says.

The furnishings will also, for the most part, be recreated. “We aren’t always going to get the actual antiques,” Coley says, “but we will try to do replication of all the built-ins and bookcases at least.” The floor plan, with its typically small Victorian rooms, will be completely preserved. The only wholly new creation in the house will be the wine cellar, which itself will hew as close to era-appropriate design as possible.

Of course, you can’t fix up the house without caving into the temptation of sprucing up the garden at the same time. In the case of the Redman House, the landscape is 10 fertile acres. The plan is to put the undeveloped part of the 14-acre parcel into a land trust that will preserve it for organic farming and education in perpetuity, through an endowment partnership with the Pajaro Valley Water Management Authority. “Basically this thing will be maintained as an educational and working farm,” says Coley.

“We want sustainability after Dean and I are long gone,” Scurfield says. “The 501(c)3 organization and its board members will always be here to make sure that this land stays out of the hands of a big box store, let’s put it that way.

“This valley hasn’t always been strawberries,” he adds. “It started out with sugar cane, and then wheat, and apples when the Croatians came here. So we’re going to include all that history in our farmed area, but it’s not just going to be history. We want to focus on the evolution and what the future is. We’ll have that big barn there for classes, and it will bring people from all over the Salinas area and the Central Coast for discussions, ‘What are you doing? How are you making things better?’”

Scurfield, who is a contractor by trade, presides over a board that reads like an idealized small town economy unto itself: a carpenter, an organic farmer, an accountant, a city councilman, a historian, a newspaper editor, an architect, an engineer, a lawyer, and a banker. That diversity is part of what gives Scurfield so much confidence that the project will not only get off the ground, but thrive once it’s operational. “We’re really sincere about not wanting to promote mediocrity with this project,” he says. “You don’t get off in Hoboken when you’re going to New York.”

Coley adds, “And the house at this location—let’s face it, 20 million people drive by this every year—we expect to do everything first class, because it is the gateway to Monterey County and the gateway to Santa Cruz County. It will be the perfect place for people to stop off and get information about the community, and the wetlands, and so there will be a strong emphasis on education and cultural information.”

“The first person to ever write a check for our coffers was a lady from the Bay Area,” Scurfield chimes in, nearly jumping out of his chair, as he always does when mentioning someone who has joined the effort. “She had seen the house all her life, driven by it to visit family in Carmel, and wanted to see it restored. The whole Bay Area wants to see this house restored, and now it’s really just about winning the hearts and minds of the people who live here.”

After a decade of agonizing behind-the-scenes work filling out papers, applying for grants, enlisting support, and watching the house sit there every day without any new work happening on it, Scurfield remains an incorrigible optimist. “Everybody who comes to this project brings an incredible amount of passion,” he says. Although there are severe financial pressures—the Foundation has a $75,000 interest-only loan coming due, and the bulk of its purchasing loan is currently through the previous owner instead of a traditional bank—there’s a palpable feeling that the wheels are driving forward.

“We’ve got everything ready to go,” Coley says. “It’s all about funding and permits now.”

“And people,” Scurfield adds. “This project isn’t being driven by the government or a big company or anything like that. It’s just people who want to see this house alive again. And the more, the merrier.”

9/26/06 Ready for Liftoff!

BY J.D. HILLARD

If you’re driving past the Redman House one day soon and it seems to be in a different spot, don’t be surprised.

The Redman House Foundation expected to receive a permit this week to lift the ailing 109-year-old William Weeks-designed Victorian-style home off its foundation and place it on cribbing about 75 feet away, said board member Bob Corbett. The measure is intended to allow for the rebuilding of the foundation.

The foundation has been working toward the restoration of the building, known for beautiful wood- and plater-work and an elegant design, for nine years. The first step in the many phases of rehabilitation planned for the building had foundation members excited, said Dean Coley, a foundation board member.

“We’re finally getting something concrete done,” Coley said. “We’re very excited about it.

”While the foundation woes have occurred in more recent decades, their source came before the Army Corps of Engineers built the Pajaro River Levee. When the river ran free, occasional flooding built up silt in the crawlspace beneath the house, Corbett said. While the flooding was controlled by the levee in the 1950s, the silt has since rotted the supports standing on the foundation. The weight of the house has been crushing the rotten posts, allowing parts of the building to sag, Corbett said.

The move involves jacking up steel beams beneath the structure, then supporting the beams on dollies to roll it off the foundation area, he said. Once it clears the foundation, stacks of wooden posts will be erected under supporting points in the structure to stabilize it. The move was expected to take place around the end of October.

The Redman House was built in 1897 by the firm Lamborn and Uren for James Redman. Architect Weeks was also responsible for a number of well-known buildings in the Pajaro Valley. The Redman family sold the house in the 1930s to the prominent Hirahara family, who left the house during World War II when they were forced into internment camps for Japanese-Americans.

The house was red-tagged after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989.

While the building appears decrepit from a distance, the redwood-frame structure has actually held up well, Corbett said. Still, the list of renovation projects is long.

Prior to moving the building, the chimneys must be removed. While on a typical house this would involve a hauling truck and a sledgehammer, the Redman project will involve more care. Because the project aims to restore the structure rather than rebuild it, the chimneys will actually be disassembled and stored so they can be put back together when the house is back on its foundation, Corbett said.

The house needs a new roof and much of the woodwork is in such bad shape it must be replaced. Following any restoration work, however, surviving windows, woodwork and plaster designs will be put back in their original locations.

“It’ll all be very well documented before anything is removed,” Corbett said. “It’s going to be a very careful and very extensive restoration.”

Corbett called the permit to move the house the first piece of “the permit puzzle.” With the house moved, the group hopes to rebuild the foundation beginning in the spring, which will require another permit. The roof work and other projects would involve additional permits, he said.

Restoring the house was expected to cost roughly $4.5 million and take up to seven years, Coley said. A fund for operations and maintenance and additional development of educational facilities on the 14-acre property would bring the total project to about $12 million. How close is the foundation to that goal? Not very, Coley said.

The foundation hopes to put the funds together from government, foundation and corporate grants along with matching funds from local private donors. The hope is the coming activity on the project will demonstrate that the project is making progress, he said.

“Most people heretofore would not be forthcoming,” Coley said. “They haven’t had something to see.”