{"id":244315,"date":"2011-05-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-31T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/house-calls-mission-hills-couple-receive-sohos-people-in-preservation-award\/"},"modified":"2011-05-31T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T07:00:00","slug":"house-calls-mission-hills-couple-receive-sohos-people-in-preservation-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/house-calls-mission-hills-couple-receive-sohos-people-in-preservation-award\/","title":{"rendered":"House Calls: Mission Hills couple receive SOHO\u2019s People in Preservation Award"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"House<\/a>
The interior of the Spanish Revival home on Pringle Street in Mission Hills after being restored by Elizabeth Scalice and Fred Carson, who received a Save Our Heritage Organisation People in Preservation Preservation Award, May 24.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pair renovate rat-infested Spanish Revival<\/p>\n

By Michael Good |<\/strong> Columnista SDUN<\/p>\n

On May 23, Save Our Heritage Organisation presented Elizabeth Scalice and Fred Carson with a \u201cPeople in Preservation\u201d Award for their efforts in restoring their home\u2014an apparently abandoned two-story Spanish Revival on Pringle Street in Mission Hills.<\/p>\n

A serial renovator\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe place was unreal,\u201d says Elizabeth. \u201cIt hadn\u2019t 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\u2019ve seen. There were rooms we couldn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the owners hadn\u2019t lived there for decades, the house wasn\u2019t exactly unoccupied.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was full of rats,\u201d says Elizabeth. \u201cThere 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re an inveterate estate-sale shopper, you might be thinking some of that stuff was valuable. Think again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe originally made the offer for the house with the stuff in it. But the rat infestation was so intense; there were rat nests everywhere\u2014in the boxes, in the organ, in the piano. An old Corvette was stored in the garage. It had just been eaten through.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Despite the years of neglect, or maybe because of it, the bones of the house were intact. \u201cFortunately, it was built like a tank,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

There was just one problem (other than the unwanted pets, the leaking roof and the piles of garbage): It wasn\u2019t 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, \u201cNever sell any real estate!\u201d So they hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople had been trying to buy it for years,\u201d says Elizabeth. \u201cMy 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\u2019s personal phone number.\u201d<\/p>\n

Negotiations ensued, and Elizabeth and Fred closed escrow in October of 2007. Being experienced renovators, they kept to a tight schedule. \u201cIn January of \u201908 we finished the little guest house and moved in there. We moved into the main house Fourth of July weekend.\u201d To put some pressure on themselves, they scheduled a party for December of \u201908, finishing the kitchen just in time. \u201cA friend put together a slide show.\u201d There were lots of horrific \u201cbefore\u201d pictures and an animated rat. They called the production, \u201cWhat were we thinking?\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with the humor, there was some irony involved\u2014such 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\u2014no surprise here\u2014was to ignore it. Since he couldn\u2019t 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. \u201cHe\u2019s gone now,\u201d says Elizabeth, \u201cso he\u2019s probably turning over in his grave knowing what we\u2019ve done to his house.\u201d (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.<\/p>\n

Scalice probably also deserves an award for her other contribution to historical preservation\u2014Architectural Salvage\u2014her business on Kettner in Little Italy that has been rescuing and recycling house parts for as long as the rats were chewing up Max\u2019s Corvette. There\u2019s some irony here, too\u2014those windows, doors, light fixtures and hardware you find in her shop often come from houses that are slated for the wrecking ball. It\u2019s a business built on the reality that some people will tear down old houses and others will restore them.<\/p>\n

If you count yourself among the latter, she has this advice: \u201cThe first thing I would say is this\u2014count to 10 before you do anything (She doesn\u2019t mean the \u201cone-two-three-four-five\u2014pick up the sledgehammer\u2014six-seven-eight-nine-10\u2014swing!) \u201cThe common thing is to rush into a project. Don\u2019t knock out any walls before you know what you want to do. Don\u2019t\u2019 rush into any changes. Get some help from organizations like SOHO.\u201d Scalice said the people in SOHO\u2019s resource directory were particularly helpful, and she relied a lot on the advice of architect Kim Grant. \u201cIt\u2019s a learning curve,\u201d she says. \u201cThere are only so many of these old houses. We\u2019re really stewards, rather than owners.\u201d And if you\u2019re not a conscientious steward\u2014remember, the rats are waiting.<\/p>\n

SOHO\u2019s annual People in Presentation awards also recognized other winners throughout San Diego County. For more information on this year\u2019s People in Preservation winners, visit: sohosandiego.org.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pair renovate rat-infested Spanish Revival By Michael Good | SDUN Columnist On May 23, Save Our Heritage Organisation presented Elizabeth Scalice and Fred Carson with a \u201cPeople in Preservation\u201d Award for their efforts in restoring their home\u2014an apparently abandoned two-story Spanish Revival on Pringle Street in Mission Hills. A serial renovator\u2019s dream, the house had […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":244316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"House Calls: Mission Hills couple receive SOHO\u2019s People in Preservation Award","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}