Michael Good | HouseCalls

This Navy couple’s military training came in handy when turning a haunted house into a family home

The Old House Fair started out as something of a meet-and-greet in the middle of the street for contractors and their potential clients. But the fair has evolved over the years. It’s now one part street fair, one part neighborhood block party and one part public relations stunt for the now-vibrant community of South Park, which probably doesn’t need any more publicity. For the two or three San Diegans that still require an introduction to this once-again exclusive and popular neighborhood, the Old House Fair takes place on Saturday, June 21. You might even meet a certain contractor there.

Aaron and Mary Robinson didn’t need an introduction to South Park when they attended the Old House Fair two years ago. They’d already been sold on the place, having made an offer on a 1911 Craftsman just a block or so away from the neighborhood nexus, at Beech and 30th streets.

“We were looking for a walkable neighborhood,” Mary explained. The couple, both Naval helicopter pilots, had lived in Japan before being stationed in San Diego. “We lived in Tokyo before this, and we really fell in love with being able to walk to your local sushi joint, your local sake bar, your local grocery store. Having all the amenities. In South Park or North Park, public transport is available, too. We could still take the bus downtown. Or car2go.”

Two years ago, the local real estate market wasn’t as crazy as it is today, but they still had a hard time finding a house that fit their requirements. They were looking for a “family home,” something that could accommodate a young couple now, and children later. Mary and Aaron had met at the Naval Academy, and chose helicopter training because the places where they would be stationed — San Diego, Jacksonville or Tokyo — sounded better than Lemoore, California (where jet pilots live). Now they were finally stationed together in San Diego, but many of the houses they looked at had already been remodeled — badly. What they were looking for was an undiscovered treasure, a diamond in the rough. What they found was just a little rougher than they’d imagined.

“It was like it was haunted,” Mary said with a laugh. “There was no working kitchen, or working bathrooms.”

“So we couldn’t get a conventional loan,” added Aaron, because the house wasn’t habitable. They had to get a loan that essentially advanced the money in dribbles and drabs to the contractor, who made improvements to the bank’s specifications.

“It was a really weird situation,” Mary said. Not only was the house haunted, but the deal was sort of shady, too. “It was like a daughter-in-law of the family who was selling it. It was very bizarre.”

Stranger still, the house was listed in L.A. rather than San Diego, Mary said. It took them four months just to get a look at it and make an offer. But with the negatives came some positives.

“It had so many original features,” Mary said. “All the original doors. The original floors. All the hardware.”

But the former owners had sort of run amok, making half-finished “improvements.” The china cabinet had been replaced, and the bookcases and other pieces of trim were missing. There was an attempt to “open up” the kitchen by knocking a hole in the wall.

“It was completely ghetto,” Mary said.

In the kitchen, there was an industrial-sized sink, but little else.

“And seven sheds in the backyard,” added Aaron.

But amid the chaos they saw potential.

“We were able to see it would make a really good family home,” said Mary.

So by the time they arrived at the Old House Fair, Aaron and Mary had already gotten to know the neighborhood, found a house to buy, decided most of the changes to do to it (such as a master suite) and hired a contractor that fit the bank’s requirements. But as they talked with the various craftsmen at the fair, they realized even though their contractor met the bank’s requirements, he didn’t quite fit the house’s—or theirs.

“That’s where we first met you,” Mary reminds me. As usual, I had a booth at the Fair that year. “And one of the houses we toured, you’d just finished.”

Once they saw what a Craftsman house is supposed to look like, the wheels began to turn. In short order, they had a landscape designer (Raymond Shaw), a chimney expert (Jim Crawford of Authentic Fireplaces) and a wood refinisher (that would be me). “And we were like, ‘Yeah this is great, because our contractor was going to paint all the wood brown.’”

As she says this, we are sitting in their now-restored living room, three veterans of the Old House Wars. I’m reminded how remarkably calm the couple was throughout the process. Calm, yet focused — no doubt characteristics helpful when landing a helicopter on a ship at sea. Today, they have plenty to get excited about — a new baby crawling over the refinished hardwood floor, and a few hundred guests on the way (their house is on the Old House Fair Home Tour this year). As we look at the woodwork (the entire living and dining rooms are paneled in Old Growth fir), Mary reminds me of the trouble I had recreating the picture rail, which had gone missing over the years. I, in turn, remind them of the mysterious black goo that began oozing from the wall by the china cabinet one hot summer day.

“The honeycomb,” Aaron said. “I’d forgotten all about that.”

“Well, we were real grateful it happened when it did,” Mary recounted. “Because it got super hot that day.” (It was over 100 degrees.) “The heat melted the wax. Otherwise it would have come pouring out later.”

As it was, I had to clean goo from the freshly stripped paneling. There were bee parts, dirt, wax — it looked like motor oil but smelled like honey. Waxing your wood — a good idea. Using a real honeycomb — not a good idea. I ask Aaron and Mary if there was a nadir during the renovation, a point where they just lost it.

“We actually had more frustrations with the bank,” Aaron said. “Because of the loan. And all the bureaucracy. “

“We have really neat rafter tails,” Mary said. The bank wanted to cover them up with rain gutters. “It ruins a lot of the historical value of the house. You try to explain it, and they say, it’s ‘code.’”

“Code for the bank,” Aaron said.

“They’re not really set up to do historic houses,” followed Mary.

Not only did they find themselves needing to educate the bank, they also had to educate the workers about the level of detail they expected. Let’s say some of the work wasn’t exactly shipshape.

“Maybe it’s because we’re in the Navy,” Mary said. “We manage the maintenance of the helicopters. We expect attention to detail.”

“If I’m going to change an engine, I expect my guy to follow instructions,” Aaron said.

In addition to maintenance, the helicopter pilots have to schedule who’s flying when, and where.

“It’s a lot of time management,” Mary said.

Those skills were brought to bear during the arduous process of turning the haunted house into an historic house.

“We ended up doing a lot more than we expected,” Mary said. “And a lot of people say, looking around here, I can’t believe you didn’t do some of that yourself. We figured we could have painted the house ourselves, but we’d already spent a lot of time here. We had the loan to deal with. We figured, yeah, we could have painted, but we wanted to be married at the end of this.”

“We always had the goal, the end goal in mind, and we were going to get there,” Aaron added.

This year’s Old House Fair is June 21, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the intersection of Beech and 30th streets in South Park. For information, go to oldhousefair.weebly.com.