Historia Googlia Front

So if you've never Googled yourself (why is everyone snickering?) this post isn't for you.  Google added a new 'historical view' feature to it's street view last year, and it came in very handy to document changes in the restoration before I came to own the house, after, and after work was done.

Real Estate Agent's Photo September 2009

 

 

Before we start, I must explain a few things.  I have lived in Ocean Beach, pretty much on and off since mid 2002.  I drove by the house I now own and live in, and I did so with some regularity.  I never... NEVER noted this house.  When I was taken to view it, I was shocked, address was very close to familiar locations, and I had no idea of what it was.  This photograph from Google Streets of 2007 explains why:

June 2007: 

Turns out the previous owner and his brother both cherished privacy from the street, and planted these huge Bougainvillea bushes.  Upside: they don’t need water, and bloom with nice violate flowers.  Down side: huge thorns.  I mean crucifixion sized ones.  Go right through cheap gloves, and scrape your arms and legs as you walk by.  They had been trimmed short by the estate agent when being shown so as to not betray the nightmare these were to maintain when selling the house to would be buyers.  Not a problem for the previous owner.

 

June 2008

 

Notes: turns out my neighbors (when I moved in, not the later ones) must have bought the home next to ours at this time, and there is no double fence between the properties.  I tried to see if I could see the large tool shelter on the east side of the home that the previous owner built, but the plants block the view.

 

Now here is December 2008

Another shot

Notes on this photo, the Power poll in the front yard was removed that year by the city of Dan Diego "Undergrounding Utilities Program", or "A Clear View of San Diego".  Good tax dollars at work.

 

You can also note a problem that exists, and still remains in Ocean Beach: Campers.  The Beach is nice, everyone wants to visit, but can't afford a hotel room.  So, they park and sleep on our street.  "So what?" you think?  Well after you have multiple instances of alcohol induced screaming matches and threats of 'I'll shoot you in the head!' plus the rampant distribution of methamphetamine, the campers get a "No Vacancy" vote from this guy.

 

Last note: there is a Christmas tree pole on the center of the house mounted.  I found a plug under the center triangle that had been installed, and a mystery switch inside the controlled it.   I guess this is why the plug was installed outside:  Christmas lights!

 

2009

Dear GOD that boat.  The Homeowner of our house had passed away at this point, and the house unoccupied for a year.  The signal to everyone in the area was "FREE PARKING".  This boat was parked on the street for years.  Three car accidents later, it finally was demolished and the owner collected insurance on it.  This boat was so hated in our neighborhood because it occupied multiple parking spaces in an area with limited parking, it was unkempt, AND it just KEPT CREAPING AROUND.  You'd wake up and POW!  Parked in front of your house.  Much like a regifted White Elephant, this eye sore would make it's rounds until a drunk driver tried to use it as an off ramp one Saturday Night.  Good riddance.

 

 

See?  Power poll is finally gone from street, only Palms stand on the Boulevard.

Note old crappy metal gate spray-painted white on gate.  It was broken, couldn't lock, the post mountes on the brick had pulled out, and it was dangerous to anyone trying to enter or leave the property.

2012

Note: Death to Bougainvillea !  Be gone you daemon plant!

Notes:  FINALLY you can see the front of the house from the street.  The dirt is unkempt, and the old irrigation system is an eye sore, the Bougainvillea stumps are visible and threat to recolonize, but it is progress, right?

 

2010

 

Notes:  WHOA!  We have a gate?  Yes, there is a gate, the 2 x 6's and heavy wood leters with white paint are gone.  The Front door was replaced with a craftsman style with glass windows  Trim is still a mix of Red (Burgundy) and Flat Blue internal.

Note: the "1916" Historical plaque I installed on the front of the house per the Mills Act signed 2000.

 

2012

Notes:  Post Bougainvillea Genocide.  Killed the stupid bushes in front.  Now you can see the house.  Painted the trim blue at this time in an attempt to 'brighten up the house'  Didn't work.  White remains dingy due to black soot from car exhaust on West Point Loma Boulevard.

 

 

Street views from an Angle

 

There was also soundproofing needed to drown out the traffic noise.  Besides the "Point Loma Pause" caused by departing air traffic, normal car traffic on West Point Loma is loud.  Add to that blasting music, Harley-Davidson engines at 5 A.M. on Sunday morning, and noisy renting neighbors blasting music all night, a solution was needed.  So I searched around for a "Noise Barrier", and behold!  Acoustiblok! 

 

Now we can open the house windows and talk to each other without raising our voices.  A technological miracle.  It isn't foolproof, but it is a hell of a lot better than before.

 

Full "Dress House" for 4th of July 2013

 

 

 

(Mis)Adventures in Period Home Decor

Now I know this blog is supposed to be about the restoration of our 1916 Craftsman Bungalow, but I would be remiss if I didn't relate missteps in restoration too.  While searching for a lamp shade to use on wall sconces we want to install, my wife sent me a link here:

Bungalow Bob's Pet Designs

 

Now, take a second and note your reaction.  Got it?

Here was mine:  I" must find a waste basket to puke in due to crazy cat lady décor made for historical homes”.   This is tongue and cheek humor just for full disclosure.

Upon further reflection I have to give the business owner respect for creating a niche market for a need that exists in the homeowner community.

But $285 for a four peg leash holder… really?

1905 and the Beginning

Where to begin?  What came first the chicken or the egg?  The place to start, I suppose, is the purchase of land on a newly parceled group of properties between the shores of the Pacific Ocean and the banks of Mission Bay (known as False Bay back then, but that is another story) on top of the Point Loma Formation.  The town of Ocean Beach California had been founded in 1887, and developers wanted to expand further as the population grew following “the Great Boom” in San Diego.

John W. Rankin and his wife Emma E Rankin (Pogue) and their daughter Miss Margaret Rankin moved to San Diego from Red Oak, Montgomery, Iowa.  John was a Veteran of the Civil War, who retired as an “Ice Cream Confectioner” at age 57, moved to Ocean Beach and decided to buy a lot of land just offered for sale by “Charlie” Collier in a neighborhood he dubbed “Ocean Beach Park” on the northern end of Ocean Beach.  D.C. Collier built a new trolley line you see, and it connected the ‘remote’ town of O.B. to downtown ‘New Town’ San Diego.  Luckily for me, the house lasted longer than the trolley line did.

John and his extended relatives likely ordered a home kit to build a ‘modern’ bungalow, like those offered by the Pacific Bungalow company of Los Angeles California, or Sears.

 It took him from 1910 to 1916 to build it.  He and his 2^nd wife enjoyed an unobstructed view of modern day La Jolla’s Mount Soledad and sunsets from their living room over the Pacific Ocean.  Luckily the home was well built, because 1916-1918 saw a string of weather disasters in San Diego.  Coincidently, the First World War was being fought, and arguably destroying the world that John Rankin was familiar with.  As the house was completed, the world that it had been started in was completely changed.   Entire countries destroyed and birthed new and terrible weapons and diseases spread across the world, and new technology like home electricity and refrigeration spread.  More on that later.  Luckily for us, one invention grew in popularity: the aero plane.  In 1917 The US Army sent a photographer up in an airplane to photograph the California coastline, and captured the earliest photo I have of the house and the area:

You can see the canvas wing of the aircraft on the right hand side of the photo.  Here is a closer view of the area in the square.

One more note:  Charles Lindburg flew the “Spirit of Saint Lious” out of the Ryan Aircraft factory in the far background of the top photo, and likely it was witnessed by John and Emma.

 

My first thought when I discovered this photo was: Wow!  My house was at a dead end, and what a view they must have had.  The bay was across the street, the home you see on the bottom left was built and owned by John’s Nephew who became Ocean Beach’s first Postmaster.  That home also has a boat dock on the back of the house, and it had a fish sink in the middle of the kitchen to clean fresh catches for dinner.  I also noticed, but still wonder why there was a fence around the property already, as most homes of that time in this area did not.  I can only chalk it up to a cantankerous old man, who John must have been in his late 60s when this photo was taken.  There are trees on the Boulevard, and the sidewalks are fresh poured concrete.  There was a bit of mystery on the dark spot on the setting sun side of the house, but that got solved with the next photograph.

John didn’t leave much information behind.  I uncovered a citation here, a eulogy there.  When I pulled original trim boards off the wall during home renovation, I found his initials preserved in pencil written on the back side of the wood.  I did find one photograph of him in the early 1920s, thanks to an extended member and a stroke of fortune:

By the way, this photo solved a mystery from the aerial photo from 1917, the dark splotch on the window to the West was an Awning that has disappeared before I bought the house.

 

Here is another mystery:  When I was poking inside one of the built ins, I also found a photograph that is likely older, but there is no date, and no way to ID the people in it.  Still, I like to believe that the people in this photo may be John and Emma.

Anyhow, time went on, and the area grew.  World War 2 came and went.  Sadly, Both John and Emma died before wars end, in 1943.  Their only daughter Margaret had likely moved out of the house during the 1920s announced their deaths in the paper, but kept the house as a rental property to supplement her income as a Librarian at the Ocean Beach Library.  World War II saw another massive shift in the world, but specifically San Diego.  B-24 Liberators built at Consolidated Aircraft roared out of the production plant over the house on their path to war in the Pacific.  I cannot confirm, but I strongly suspect that the construction and use of Lindbergh field convinced Margaret to move closer to the Library and downtown Ocean Beach because of the noise of aircraft departing from modern day Lindbergh Field.  There was likely a huge increase in air traffic between 1918 and 1944 as you can read about in “Lost Airfields of Southern California”  I can guess that the modern day noise we endure from Jet Airliners was likely the ‘last straw’ for Margaret as she moved to Santa Monica Street in O.B.

Over the next seventy years, more houses grew up, the remaining lots in the area were purchased and houses built to house the returning veterans and their families.  A survivor of Pearl Harbor was listed as living in the house in a 1950s phone book.  People came and people went.  Interestingly, a pair of old ladies who claimed to have lived in the home in the 1950s visited my wife one day when I was at work, and asked to be showed around.  To this day I have never found their names, though I have tried to learn who they were and how to reach them. 

One last photo to note, this is a Sanborn Fire Insurance Map that I found at the San Diego Library online records.  It shows snapshots between 1920 and 1950 of what the area looked like as it developed.  The progress of housing and the changes in the layout of the city streets can be seen as development sets in, and zoning takes effect.  I always wondered why the builders of the Western house on my street built on such a small triangular lot, effectively blocking view of the ocean from our house in 1955.  Anyhow, it happened.

Last but not least I tried to make a side by side photograph of the oldest photo of the house and the newest photo I could find that was of a similar perspective.  This is the best I could manage with my meager photo skills:

And so that brings us to today.  What a change over 100 years.