1220 E Edgemont: the REAL story

[Pam Racich]

Spoke to Jerry the architect on the FSL remodel and here's what 
happened...


As I had said earlier, the plan, cast in stone, was to remodel that 
house to make it useful to FSL and keep it fitting for the neighborhood 
in case it went back to its residential status.  MANY, MANY hours went 
into the survey, site planning, construction documents, city 
coordination etc.


Several weeks ago, the architect, the general and FSL and others 
involved had a meeting where feedback from the mason revealed that the 
existing masonry walls of the house were crumbling and it was suggested 
by the construction contingent that maybe the house should just be 
demolished completely. The remodel plan was to remove the existing flat 
roof and put a gable roof on to fit in more with the adjacent houses. 
The question became: could the roof be removed without damaging the now 
weakening exterior masonry walls. It was EMPHASIZED to the general that 
the owner was committed to preserving the house and following through 
with the remodel plans that they had heavily invested in.  The roof 
would have to be taken off carefully without damaging the walls. This 
message was carefully passed on to the demolition subcontractor.

Through some internal miscommunications at the demolition sub, one of 
their crew found themselves with an open day and they thought they 
would get started early on the FSL project early. They were not 
supposed to start there until THIS week (July 17). I don't know if you 
all saw the equipment they brought to do the "light" demo but it was 
basically a large crane could lift trees and such over houses.  Jerry 
had no idea that they were there until he got a call and when he went 
to the job site, they were trying to lift the roof as a whole off the 
house with this crane. (I guess they didn't get the memo about being 
careful). Of course it caused a lot of damage to the walls that were 
already crumbling. In Jerry's own words, "I was livid."

So Jerry, the architect, stopped the whole thing and had the city come 
down to look at it to see what they were going to require. The 
inspector said that they would have to do some major repair work to the 
walls or they would have to tear it all down.

The decision was made to take it down.

However, FSL is still committed to having this structure be a real 
residence. They plan to save the foundation, if it passes muster with 
the structural engineer after he examines the damage caused by the demo 
crew. They will rebuild the house to look pretty much like it did, with 
a gabled roof instead of the flat one, and it will be stick 
construction not masonry.

Jerry, who lives in Coronado, was very happy to hear that we (the 
neighborhood) wanted to see the plans as it makes his job easier 
getting it all through the city if we know what it going on and 
approve. He agreed to come to a meeting for us, South Country Club 
Manor, and I'm sure he would come to a GCNA meeting as well if there is 
interest.

We in SCCM have deed restrictions that require us to have all new 
construction approved by an architectural committee so we'll need to 
have him show us the drawings for sure. (If you live in SCCM...we need 
to have a meeting.)

Also, the "vehicular access" noted on the orginal plans is not in 
violation of the stipulations. That referred to the driveway, which in 
city lingo is vehicular access. It was not, as could be inferred, a 
connection from the house to the FSL parking lot. Also, city code 
requires access to the house, particularly ADA access. So there will be 
driveway that goes to a carport or garage. FSL intends that there will 
be minor usage of the driveway and front door entry by their 
handicapped van shuttling handicapped clients to the house. Otherwise, 
all parking is in the FSL parking lot, and pedestrian access,  if my 
memory serves correctly, comes in the rear.

Jerry is very "historic" oriented and we could not ask for a better 
person to be in charge of how this is designed. I have known him for 
more than 10 years and he's lived in Coronado for many more. His own 
addition to his house which IS in a historic district here is one of 
the few seamless ones I 've seen in the 'hood. He is also working on 
the addition to the Sunshine Market which, although the building is not 
historic, comes under historic overlay design requirements.

If you have any questions that I haven't answered, let me know. I'll 
get a hold of Jerry and post them here so everyone knows what is going 
on.

pam
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 4518 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : /pipermail/central-city-discuss_gcna.info/attachments/20060717/b7ec725a/attachment.bin