|
SOHO Celebrates Our Successful Revolving Fund Program
November/December 2022
 The impeccably restored facade with its original signage in black lettering on the cream building beckons to one
and all, 2013. Photo by Sandé Lollis |
When SOHO began the Revolving Fund Program in 2001, our goal was to raise enough funds to be able to buy a threatened resource, likely a fixer upper. We would stabilize it, restore it, designate it, resell it and repeat.
One of the most natural avenues for a historic preservation advocacy and education group is to get involved in real estate. After all, saving buildings is a significant part of our mission. There are fantastically successful programs in other parts of the country, where the real estate is not as valuable and expensive as in Southern California.
Our first venture was the purchase of the 1880s adobe Santa Ysabel store in 2011.
We first learned that the store and later the Hoover Barn were facing potential threats when a community member, Mr. Bob McDaniels, contacted SOHO. An area historian and multigenerational Santa Ysabel resident, and Santa Ysabel store operator in the 1950s, Bob has since passed away. These two buildings and their cultural landscapes remain as a legacy to his love for his community, and the places that embody their essence.
The purchases in Santa Ysabel represent a major investment in SOHO’s mission: to restore our cultural and historic landscape by preserving two rare buildings rooted in a past that is fast disappearing. SOHO remains grateful for all the support we received from members and volunteers to realize our ambitious plans.
The only false-front adobe store left in San Diego County, the Santa Ysabel Store was built by J.S. Brackett c.1889, with its wood-frame addition constructed about ten years later. Restoring the front facade and east wall was the most challenging part of our job. We also had to replicate or replace windows and doors that had been removed or changed over the decades. Using historical photographs and paint ghost lines, we carefully recreated the missing cornice. Paint forensics helped us to match the historic colors while we painstakingly repainted the historic signage and embellishments, guided by historical photos and layers of paint left over from the past century.
In 2015, SOHO purchased our second 19th-century site: the iconic historic Dutch-style barn built behind the store to serve the growing family businesses.Threatened with demolition by the public agency who owned it at the time, the acquisition and restoration of the Hoover Barn was particularly satisfying, bringing the two properties back together (though they still remain separate parcels) was a goal from the start.
“One of very few 19th-century barns remaining in San Diego County,” Bruce Coons, SOHO's executive director, said at the time. “It's an important, increasingly precious cultural resource that speaks of the backcountry's vast ranching and agricultural uses, which are dwindling along with associated buildings in the 21st century.”
The restoration of the barn included rebuilding the cupola, and replicating the doors to the carriage shed portion along with missing structural members. Large sections of wall in the back had to be reframed, its board and batten siding repaired, and exterior elements replaced where needed. The electrical system was upgraded and new lighting installed. The concrete floors and interior wood were sealed, and the entire building was steamed cleaned inside and out. Finally, a new coat of the historic cream-color paint was applied and a new roof installed. It is now in great shape to last another 100 years. Mission accomplished!
We have always envisioned the barn being used as a community venue with a large array of uses: musical performances, dances, rustic barn weddings, and the like. And, it may yet see this. There are some very creative and community-minded local folks interested in carrying forward similar ideas. For us, the restored barn was eminently useful in that it safely stored our reproduction Concord stage coach and other Warner-Carrillo equipment. When a neighbor needed temporary storage, we happily provided space for them. All in all, the barn has been an incredibly utilitarian space for us.
Reuniting the two sites increased SOHO’s holdings in Santa Ysabel to just over two acres. It reinforced SOHO's commitment to protect and preserve urban and rural historic resources and cultural landscapes in communities large and small.
Read about the restoration of the c. 1890 barn, built by David L. Hoover.
The store and the barn will be listed together for sale by November 1, 2022. This will bring the Santa Ysabel store and Hoover Barn to their final phase as our first Revolving Fund Program recipient.
The Hoover Barn received historic designation from San Diego County in 2017, and the store is in the county process now. We expect it will receive its designation soon. The eventual sale and its significant profits will allow SOHO to save another historic resource.
SOHO was honored with a 2016 Governor's Historic Preservation Award for restoring the two buildings, considered “an excellent example of historic preservation efforts on behalf of California's cultural heritage,” the State Office of Historic Preservation wrote.
The formula of our revolving fund is to save, stabilize, restore, designate, sell, and reinvest the funds. Our initial project has been especially successful for preserving the site, showing the benefits of adaptive reuse, and demonstrating to the community how to protect the cultural and historic places that are meaningful to them. And, it is a remarkably gainful venture. SOHO expects to triple our investment and be even better prepared for the next endangered site that may come up.
Many revolving funds will stabilize a site and not fully restore it, leaving that for the next owner, but with SOHO’s in-house expertise in adobe and 19th-century architecture we were able to restore it ourselves with an exacting degree. With hundreds of staff and volunteer hours and experienced local contractors and artists, we dedicated ourselves to a full restoration.
SOHO further decided to operate the store ourselves and show by example just how wonderful stewarding a fabled, crossroads site could be. With varying levels of success, the business ventures we and others tried at the store were not always as financially rewarding, but they did meet another of our original goals: for SOHO to be more widely known in the backcountry as the countywide organization that we are. The relationships we built will be lasting. The Hoover family story is critical to understanding early 20th-century rural San Diego; we have plans to complete oral interviews and publish this important narrative.
We also assisted the local and East County historical groups, Julian Historical Society, the Santa Ysabel Mission, and Native elders and preservationists to protect and maintain their historic resources. These and other leaders and stakeholders now know they can contact SOHO if they need advice on a resource or when a place may be threatened.
We also operated as a backcountry visitor center and from where we could promote and send visitors to the 1850s adobe Warner-Carrillo Ranch House, our museum property only 12 miles away.
As always, photographic records of preservation projects bring our work into focus and help preserve it. One of our favorite photo blogs about the Santa Ysabel store is by Heather Bullard, an acclaimed editorial prop stylist, accomplished entrepreneur, and business mentor to creatives. Her work has been seen in many national magazines, from Elle Décor to House Beautiful. Take a look at our first year of opening and running a general store 21st-century style.
Please also enjoy these galleries of images through the restoration and great times had by all in saving the Santa Ysabel store and Hoover Barn!
Favorite Santa Ysabel programs
|
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
|
