New Historic District created in Redondo Beach
by Garth Meyer
Low proportions, wood clapboard siding, and exposed beam ends; all signify Craftsman-style houses in a short stretch of Redondo Beach now christened the “Garnet Historic District.”
One of the homeowners, Laura Martinez, moved in after renting two Craftsman houses in Hermosa Beach. She was evicted from both – so the owners could tear them down.
That will not happen in Redondo Beach though, since her house is one of four protected on Garnet Street.
“I’m really happy this happened,” Martinez said.
It was first set in motion in 1989, when the city created a Preservation Ordinance. At the time, the local Preservation Commission determined that the 500 block of Garnet qualified as a Historic District. It never came to be, though, because not enough homeowners wanted to participate.
“Nobody understood what the ramifications were then,” said Ron Maroko, one of today’s Redondo Beach Public Amenities commissioners.
In the decades since the ordinance, ten houses on Garnet Street were designated as Historic Landmarks, and the owners signed Mills Act contracts — a state program which gives tax incentives to invest in a Historic home.
Martinez and neighbor Tessa Bodey represent two of these houses.
Last fall, the process to become the Garnet Historic District finally started, when Martinez and Bodey went to a Public Amenities commission meeting for another matter, and a question came up about why their particular street had never become a Historic District.
“That piqued our interest,” Martinez said.
Maroko later contacted her and Bodey to see if they wanted to apply to be part of a District.
The Public Amenities Commission approved the new entity in February.
One of the common hesitations to allow a home to join a Historic District, or be made a Historic Landmark, is whether the property owner may later alter the house.
“Our ordinance says, ‘we look at curbside,” Maroko said. “If you change the back or inside, it’s not going to be a problem.”
“I’m not concerned. I want to keep my house the way it is,” Bodey said. “There’s always a market and a place in someone’s heart for these old homes.”
So far, the Garnet Historic District consists of only the first four houses up from the stop sign at Francisca Avenue. Applications are pending to extend it to two more houses on this north side of the street.
“Our goal is to have the first eight houses from the corner,” Martinez said.
The original four include a one-story built in 1919, a two-story from 1920, with front gables on the first story and a second-floor, cross-gable roof design.
It has a covered front porch and three double-hung windows at the front, with wide wood surrounds.
Another house is a 1913 California bungalow with Craftsman elements.
A general requirement for a Historic District, or Landmark, is that the structure(s) need to be at least 50 years old.
“Most of the houses north of 190th were built in the ‘40s and ‘50s, so they are eligible,” Maroko said, of what may come next.
Historic Districts in Redondo Beach now add up to four: Garnet, North Catalina Avenue, Gertruda Avenue and the Original Townsite (overlapping with Gertruda Avenue) – with about 40 houses, also a National Historic District.
“There could potentially be six or seven Districts total in the future,” Maroko said.
Now that the Garnet District is official, the owners are required to abide by the rules.
“We can’t rip out the windows and put in Andersen windows,” said Martinez, who bought her house in 2006. “I re-did the kitchen and the bathrooms.”
A previous owner put in a skylight, which remains.
Bodey bought her house in 2011, and her father, then an antiques dealer in Minnesota, brought out furnishings.
“We’re just hoping more homes can join in,” Bodey said. “Just to keep preserving the past for our future.” ER