{"id":249228,"date":"2015-10-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-09T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/small-in-size-big-in-character\/"},"modified":"2015-10-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-10-09T07:00:00","slug":"small-in-size-big-in-character","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/small-in-size-big-in-character\/","title":{"rendered":"Small in size, big in character"},"content":{"rendered":"

The modest bungalow is often overlooked by historic house hunters<\/strong><\/p>\n

Por Michael Bueno | Visitas a domicilio<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a familiar refrain, repeated by house hunters as they scour the former streetcar suburbs of San Diego: All the good houses are gone! The classic Craftsman. The spectacular Spanish. The completely intact, perfectly preserved Arts and Crafts masterpiece. Snapped up! Off the market!<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t even get them started on the flippers.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of gutted, flipped, bowdlerized houses available. But there are also a lot of amazing, well-preserved vintage houses on the market. I know because readers of this column show them to me pretty regularly, seeking my (as-long-as-it\u2019s-free) advice.<\/p>\n

So where are these glass-half-empty people going wrong?<\/p>\n

For starters, they\u2019re looking in the wrong place \u2014 exclusive neighborhoods, rather than quirky, transitional areas. And when they do look in the right place, they don\u2019t see what they\u2019re looking at. They get distracted by the grit and the grime, the gloppy paint and the mutilated millwork, and they miss the diamond in the rough. All they see is the rough.<\/p>\n

That certainly wasn\u2019t the case with Ron Benefiel, a minister-turned-college-dean who has owned a few old houses in his day and knew a jewel when he saw one. Benefiel\u2019s ministry was to the poor and disenfranchised; the houses he lived in had experienced their own bumps and bruises. When asked to describe his former residences, he says, in his concise way, \u201cIn downtown Los Angeles, a 1908 Craftsman two-story. In Kansas City, a 1912 Georgian Colonial.\u201d Then he adds with a fond smile, \u201cGrand old lady.\u201d<\/p>\n

In spring 2014, when he was house hunting in North Park, Benefiel was looking for something a little less grand than his former Georgian Colonial. His wife had recently passed away. And the kids had moved out and bought houses of their own in nearby Webster and Stockton. There wasn\u2019t a lot on the market, but fortunately, he\u2019d employed a network of scouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the philosophy professors, who works just down the hall from me, was driving by on the day the seller\u2019s agent was showing the house to other real estate agents. She stopped in, had a look around and called me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benefiel grabbed another professor for backup, and drove up the hill from Point Loma Nazarene to Redwood Street. \u201cI looked at it and said, \u2018I think this is it.\u2019 And I put in a bid and bought it. It happened fast. I really lucked into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"(Photo<\/a>
Despite being barely 1,000 square feet on an undersized lot, this North Park bungalow is rich in details, especially Gumwood built-ins. (Photo by Michael Good)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He also lucked into a real estate agent who was experienced with old houses \u2014 Ron Rooney of Ascent Real Estate, who happens to live around the corner in an historic Spanish Revival house across from Bird Park. Rooney felt obliged to point out where the place needed some attention, such as the mangled paneling in the dining room.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously there was some damage to the wood,\u201d Benefiel said. \u201cRon Rooney pointed that out. He said, \u2018You\u2019re probably going to need to do some work here. Call Michael Good, he\u2019s the wood guru.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where I entered the picture. After stripping the white paint from where it had been ground into the panels\u2019 wood grain, Benefiel and I turned our attention to the question of stain color, typically a 15-week, nervous-breakdown-inducing experience, involving medical professionals, yoga instructors and life coaches. Benefiel is accustomed to making quick decisions of great spiritual import, so it took about a minute and a half. Here\u2019s my recollection of the conversation, presented in the form of a (very) short play.<\/p>\n

(Stage directions: Two men stand face-to-face in a barren room festooned with blue tape and green masking paper. Late afternoon light streams in through the room\u2019s many windows. Classic \u201850s jazz plays in the background. The two men look around, admiring the freshly stripped wood.)<\/p>\n

Ron: It kind of reminds me of a men\u2019s club.<\/p>\n

Michael: Well, you are a man. Men like wood.<\/p>\n

Ron: Exactly.<\/p>\n

Michael: Deal with it, people. (Laughs.)<\/p>\n

Ron: (Laughs.)<\/p>\n

Michael: (Pause.) There is a lot of wood in here, Ron. It needs \u2026 presence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ron: Don\u2019t want to go too light.<\/p>\n

Michael: Don\u2019t want to go too dark. Nice rich, medium brown. With a little red in it. After all, it\u2019s red gum.\u201d (He holds up a small piece of stained wood. They both examine it in silence.)<\/p>\n

Ron: Looks good. I like it. Let\u2019s do it. (End of scene.)<\/p>\n

\"(Photo<\/a>
Gumwood built-ins of a North Park bungalow (Photo by Michael Good)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Having selected the stain, we next turned to the question of wall color. When choosing colors, it\u2019s sometimes helpful to limit the possibilities, stand on the shoulders of giants, so to speak. So I took out my putty knife, shaved off some layers of paint and plaster, and brought the two oldest chips \u2014 a deep brown and a rich caramel \u2014 to Sherwin Williams on Morena Boulevard, where they did a computer color match. I painted the two sample colors they provided on a couple of sheets of two-by-two drywall and held them up for Benefiel\u2019s appraisal.<\/p>\n

His reaction was immediate. \u201cI like the yellow-colored one, \u201c he said. \u201cNot the brown.\u201d Both samples were fairly deep colors, saturated, unlike the usual pastels you find today. The brown was most likely the original, but Benefiel wasn\u2019t so sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interesting,\u201d he said later of the C.S.I.-like process. \u201cI probably would not have gotten those colors. I think it just came out beautifully. Which makes me wonder.\u201d He is back in his completed living room now, looking at the wall. \u201cAnd this is what? The second color? Maybe someone made an adjustment, and they went to this color.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"(Photo<\/a>
The fireplace (prior to restoration) and the refinished inglenook seat and fold-down desk. (Photo by Michael Good)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cCould be,\u201d I said. \u201cPeople changed their minds during the construction process. It happened all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

If someone did change their mind, if someone had painted the walls brown and then thought better of it, that person would likely have been the house\u2019s first owner, Mary F. Gooch. She was born Mary McCarthy in Ireland in 1865. At age 12, she immigrated to the U.S. In 1890, she married Edward F. Gooch in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Edward had been working since age 15, when he took a job sweeping up at the local dye factory. Twenty years later, he was running the place \u2014 the Brooks Dye Works, one of the largest fabric dyers in the country. The building spanned several blocks, in a dense residential area of Bristol, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

Edward and Mary and their daughters moved to San Diego County in 1900, presumably for Edward\u2019s health (he had pulmonary tuberculosis; one \u201ccure\u201d was dry, fresh air). Former city dwellers, the Gooches were part of the \u201cback to the land\u201d movement. They purchased property over the next few years in the Descanso area. Edward served on the school board in Descanso, but in 1906, he succumbed to his illness. Mary continued to manage the ranch, and added to her property holdings in San Diego, where she resided with her four daughters, who all attended Academy of Our Lady of Peace.<\/p>\n

Mary and her daughters moved frequently. Before occupying the newly constructed house on Redwood, in 1922, Mary and her daughters lived around the corner at 3144 Granada; they also lived in South Park, at 1503 29th St. In 1924 Mary\u2019s youngest daughter, Agnes, got her teaching credential and went to work at the one-room schoolhouse in Dulzura. Mary moved back to Descanso, and sold the house on Redwood Street to another rancher, John R. King, and his wife, Mary Eunice. King was a gentleman farmer, splitting his time between his ranch in Missouri, managed by his son, and his home in San Diego. He and Eunice moved out of the house on Redwood in 1927, to another small house on Wilson Avenue.<\/p>\n

Mary Gooch died in 1929, and like her husband Edward, was buried in Calvary Cemetery, the old Catholic cemetery next door to Grant Elementary School in Mission Hills. The cemetery fell into disrepair in the 1940s, and in 1970 the headstones were removed (but not the bodies). The cemetery is now a park.<\/p>\n

While their stories tell us something about the people that lived in the neighborhood in the ’20s (who would have thought they were ranchers?), there\u2019s nothing in the public record to indicate whether Mary or John or Eunice were partial to brown or yellow, or why Mary didn\u2019t stay in the little two bedroom house on Redwood Street, which seems so perfect for a person of faith who has lost a spouse and whose children have moved out. This is the sort of subject Benefiel likes to ponder while basking in the warm glow of his woodwork and walls.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened in this neighborhood back in the day?\u201d he asks. \u201cWho were these people? Why were they building homes like this? Why all this attention to woodwork? To me, the opportunity to restore \u2014 and not just modernize \u2014 is part of what it means to live in a house like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benefiel said \u201cthe value\u201d is what originally attracted him to the house. \u201cI\u2019ve always valued older homes. Charm. Architecture. History. Culture. I\u2019m a sociologist. There\u2019s a sense of place in history. It\u2019s a deep well to drink from.\u201d<\/p>\n

And now that he\u2019s lived there for a while, and finally got the walls the right color?<\/p>\n

\u201cUm, you know, there\u2019s a certain … I don\u2019t want to go too far off the edge, here, but you know how we have a lot to learn from Native Americans and their respect for the land? We need to have a certain respect for the people who lived in a home before us. They lived here in the neighborhood, raised their kids here, died here. It\u2019s more than just a place to hang my hat. It\u2019s sort of the spirit of the place and a sense of respect for everything that\u2019s gone before that\u2019s symbolized in the house. There\u2019s some value in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014P\u00f3ngase en contacto con Michael Good en visitas domiciliariassdun@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The modest bungalow is often overlooked by historic house hunters By Michael Good | HouseCalls It\u2019s a familiar refrain, repeated by house hunters as they scour the former streetcar suburbs of San Diego: All the good houses are gone! The classic Craftsman. The spectacular Spanish. The completely intact, perfectly preserved Arts and Crafts masterpiece. Snapped […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":249229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Small in size, big in character","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249228","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=249228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}