There is a plan to move an altered house, that has had its historic wood siding covered with stucco and the historic windows and frames replaced by aluminum sliders, into the Garvanza area -- an then restore it back to its 1870s appearance.
As Garvanza works to establish a Historic Preservation Overlay Zone, events come together to add new dimensions to the area. One of these is the moving of historic buildings to the area to help ensure their preservation.
Highland Park Heritage Trust member Brad Chambers already has a strong preservation track record in Garvanza. Several years ago he purchased several properties on Avenue 64, across the street from the Church of the Angeles. The first thing he did was to restore the historic buildings, including his own which was one of the first houses in the area from which stucco was removed in order to restore an early Craftsman house, resulting in a HPHT award.
In 2004, Chambers moved a 2-story house that was constructed in 1884 from Chinatown to his large lot in Garvanza. That house has been restored and now stands as a shining asset to the community.
An earlier attempt to move another historic home to the property was thwarted when the developer at Sunset and Figueroa illegally demolished the Victorian house before it could be move. That action resulted in the developer setting up a substantial historic trust fund to aid in future preservation efforts, as a settlement, in order to avoid a five-year moratorium on building that would have been imposed by the City's "Scorched Earth" ordinance.
The Donnelly House is located just a block from where that ill-fated Victorian stood. It first appeared on the site in 1886 when Jophn A. Donnelly and his family lived in it. At the time, the land was owned by former Los Angeles Mayor, Prudent Beaudry, who had subdivided the land in 1882. Donnelly bought the property from Beaudry in 1889 and lived in the house until the 1920s. Only two other owners have lived there since.
The Donnelly house is of an extremely rare Gothic Revival style that indicates it most probably dates from the 1870s, making it one of a handful of surviving houses tha predate the great land boom of 1885-1888. Both Garvanza and Highland Park were established during this period.
The house was probably moved on to its current location in 1886, possibly from land that Prudent Beaudry has acquired for subdivision purposes. The move to Garvanza will still allow it to remain on former Beaudry land, as Prudent Beaudry owned that portion of the Rancho San Rafael until he sold it to Augustine Campbell-Johnston.
The house was documented in a 1982 survey by Roger Hathaway but covered with stucco two years later. Originally viewed as a tear-down, a historic resources report was required by the Community Redevelopment Agency because of the earlier documentation.
The report revealed the true rarity and hidden significance of the house, which then made it more problematic to tear down. This issue could have forced the land owner to have an environmental impact report before undertaking a new small apartment project. Moving the house will produce enough mitigation to avoid the EIR and will ensure that the house will be restored and protected as a part of the Garvanza HPOZ.
Republished from Highland Park Heritage Trust, by Charles J. Fisher
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