Pair renovate rat-infested Spanish Revival

By Michael Good | Columnista SDUN

On May 23, Save Our Heritage Organisation presented Elizabeth Scalice and Fred Carson with a “People in Preservation” Award for their efforts in restoring their home—an apparently abandoned two-story Spanish Revival on Pringle Street in Mission Hills.

A serial renovator’s dream, the house had been sealed up for decades, untouched by human hands or hammers. The couple had been eyeing it for some time before they finally talked their way inside.

“The place was unreal,” says Elizabeth. “It hadn’t been lived in for over 20 years. But the previous owners were real hoarders. It was stacked to the ceiling with stuff. It was unlike anything I’ve seen. There were rooms we couldn’t even get into. To go from room to room we had to walk a narrow path between piles of boxes and newspapers. It was crazy.”

Although the owners hadn’t lived there for decades, the house wasn’t exactly unoccupied.

“It was full of rats,” says Elizabeth. “There were rat droppings everywhere. There had even been a family of foxes living there. The house had gone through serious, serious neglect. There was an ivy vine that must have been six inches thick that was growing in one of the rooms.”

If you’re an inveterate estate-sale shopper, you might be thinking some of that stuff was valuable. Think again.

“We originally made the offer for the house with the stuff in it. But the rat infestation was so intense; there were rat nests everywhere—in the boxes, in the organ, in the piano. An old Corvette was stored in the garage. It had just been eaten through.” Anything that might have once been worth something had been rendered worthless by the unsanitary habits of rattus Norvigicus. At least the rats had the good manners not to chew through the walls. After all, there was no need to: Without people to get in the way, they could move freely through the house. And they had all those boxes and musical instruments to build their nests in. It was a rat Disneyland.

Despite the years of neglect, or maybe because of it, the bones of the house were intact. “Fortunately, it was built like a tank,” says Elizabeth. And since no one had done any remodeling, it still had many of the original features: the hardwood trim, Batchelder tile fireplace and original doors, which were stored in the garage.

There was just one problem (other than the unwanted pets, the leaking roof and the piles of garbage): It wasn’t for sale. The house belonged to an old San Diego family. They owned real estate all over San Diego, and the patriarch had told his children, “Never sell any real estate!” So they hadn’t.

“People had been trying to buy it for years,” says Elizabeth. “My husband took the initiative and knocked on all the doors in the neighborhood, and he was able to charm one of the neighbors into giving him the owner’s personal phone number.”

Negotiations ensued, and Elizabeth and Fred closed escrow in October of 2007. Being experienced renovators, they kept to a tight schedule. “In January of ’08 we finished the little guest house and moved in there. We moved into the main house Fourth of July weekend.” To put some pressure on themselves, they scheduled a party for December of ’08, finishing the kitchen just in time. “A friend put together a slide show.” There were lots of horrific “before” pictures and an animated rat. They called the production, “What were we thinking?”

Along with the humor, there was some irony involved—such as the discovery that the former owner, now deceased, was Max Heimburge, a German immigrant who founded the Universal Boot Shop chain of stores in San Diego. After moving into the house in 1936, Heimburge began acquiring property around San Diego, including some land on Coast Boulevard in La Jolla, which he eventually developed into La Jolla Cove Suites. Unfortunately for Heimburge, two beach cottages on his La Jolla property were designated historic, and he was unable to demolish them to expand his hotel. His solution to the problem—no surprise here—was to ignore it. Since he couldn’t tear down the cottages, he just let them fall into disrepair, apparently in the hope that they would eventually crumble into the sea (or get condemned). But Red Roost and Red Rest (as the cottages are known) outlived Heimburge. “He’s gone now,” says Elizabeth, “so he’s probably turning over in his grave knowing what we’ve done to his house.” (Not only did she and Fred restore the house, they had it designated historic.) To add insult to injury, SOHO has awarded the couple for their efforts.

Scalice probably also deserves an award for her other contribution to historical preservation—Architectural Salvage—her business on Kettner in Little Italy that has been rescuing and recycling house parts for as long as the rats were chewing up Max’s Corvette. There’s some irony here, too—those windows, doors, light fixtures and hardware you find in her shop often come from houses that are slated for the wrecking ball. It’s a business built on the reality that some people will tear down old houses and others will restore them.

If you count yourself among the latter, she has this advice: “The first thing I would say is this—count to 10 before you do anything (She doesn’t mean the “one-two-three-four-five—pick up the sledgehammer—six-seven-eight-nine-10—swing!) “The common thing is to rush into a project. Don’t knock out any walls before you know what you want to do. Don’t’ rush into any changes. Get some help from organizations like SOHO.” Scalice said the people in SOHO’s resource directory were particularly helpful, and she relied a lot on the advice of architect Kim Grant. “It’s a learning curve,” she says. “There are only so many of these old houses. We’re really stewards, rather than owners.” And if you’re not a conscientious steward—remember, the rats are waiting.

SOHO’s annual People in Presentation awards also recognized other winners throughout San Diego County. For more information on this year’s People in Preservation winners, visit: sohosandiego.org.