The fate of the endangered, turn-of-the-century Red Roost and Red Rest historic cottages continues to hang in the balance with the recent sale of La Jolla Cove Suites hotel on Coast Boulevard along with two blocks of commercial frontage above the cliffs on Prospect Street.
The buyer of the property, at an undisclosed price and terms, was Aimco, a real estate investment trust headquartered in Denver. The sale included Carlton Gallery art venue and Haagen Daz ice cream but did not include Starbucks and Pomegranate, all on Prospect.
“Aimco is very pleased to own this iconic property in a beautiful location in La Jolla,” said Aimco representative Cindy Lempke Duffy. “San Diego is a key market for Aimco, and we look forward to being part of the community.”
The Aimco spokeswoman said Pacifica Hotel Management has been engaged to run the hotel.
“It will continue to operate as a hotel for the foreseeable future,” she said, adding, “Retail frontage on Prospect will continue to operate for the foreseeable future as well.
“We are going to undertake a design review for the property, based on current zoning and permitted uses, that will involve a typical and complete governmental and public review once concepts are developed,” Lempke added. “The design concepts produced will take into account the historic sensitivities of the site.”
Krista Heron Baroudi, former CEO of La Jolla Cove Suites and current secretary of La Jolla Village Merchants Association, the community’s business improvement district in media partnership with San Diego Community Newspaper Group, confirmed she is no longer associated with the oceanfront hotel. Baroudi said she is legally barred from discussing the particulars of the sale, adding only that it was a “complicated” situation involving a longstanding family dispute.
San Diego’s Save Our Heritage Organisation (SOHO), the oldest continually operating historic preservation organization in California, has been involved for decades in trying to protect the Red Roost and Red Rest cottages. Built in 1894, the cottages are rare surviving examples of late 19th-century beach architecture that proliferated in the Jewel during its early history. Both deteriorating structures have been placed on SOHO’s “Most Endangered List.”
SOHO has noted that the cottages “tell the story of the history and origin of La Jolla like nothing else,” adding that the design of the cottages was a “precursor to the California bungalow popularized after the turn of the 20tth century.”
Noting there is a San Diego ordinance that prohibits “demolition by neglect” of historically designated properties, SOHO has brought pressure to bear previously on the Red Rest and Red Roost’s owners to “maintain the cottages and prevent their continued decline” as well as to “take action to prevent the loss of these landmarks.”
Of the latest development with the sale of the historic La Jolla beach cottages, SOHO executive director Bruce Coons said, “We’ve been trying to get the owners to comply with the (city) ordinance that requires them to be put in occupiable shape. Hopefully, this will allow them to be finally restored and put into some productive new uses.”
Numerous plans for redeveloping the cottages as a museum, or even as a bed and breakfast operation, have been proposed over the years but never materialized. In 2008, a proposed deal that would have reconfigured the two California bungalow-style cottages at 1179 and 1187 Coast Blvd. along with a large chunk of La Jolla’s downtown Village, including La Valencia Hotel, fell through due to the world economic downturn.
The redevelopment deal that “almost was” involved Cove Properties, La Valencia Hotel and Emar Development of Dubai. The real estate proposal called for building a new hotel on the La Jolla Cove Suite site and putting in high-end residential condos that would have been tied in with the hotel with an entrance off Prospect with new retail.
Under that proposed deal, La Jolla Cove Suites would have become condominium homes tied in with amenities associated with La Valencia, which then would have been turned into a five-star hotel.
As part of the deal, the Red Rest and Red Roost would have been preserved by shifting them slightly down on the property so the backside of the lot could be developed with additional units or timeshares.