Watsonville-The destination of the Casa Redman-Hirahara, once an Agriculture Center in Watsonville, now rests in the hands of the Santa Cruz County Supervisors Board.
The Board will vote next month about whether it will approve a recommendation from the Historical Resources Commission of Santa Cruz County to expel the property of the National Registry of Historical Places and demolish it. Located in Lee Road, on highway 1, near the departure of Riverside Drive, the house has been vacant since the 80s and has fallen into poor condition, which makes the county condemn the county to his demolition.
Historian Sandy Lydon was saddened by the situation, but she felt that it would be difficult to be full of restoring the property in her current condition and that federal and state subsidies would be unlikely in the current climate.
“I would love to see him saved, but it will be a great boost,” he said.
A historical story
The Redman-Hirahara house was built in 1897 for the Redman family that had moved to the Pajaro Valley in 1865 and directed a farm that cultivated potatoes and sugar beet. Wanting to live in a house that looks more to the life of the city, the Redmans took advantage of William Weeks, an architect who built hundreds of buildings through California, including the current campus of the High School of Santa Cruz and the Cruz Beach It. To the beach of Santa Cruz. To Santa Cruz It. Sitting in 14 acres of farmland, the mansion was built in a Queen Anne style with decorative wood and a rounded scheme turret on the Venetian windows. Patriarch Kendrick Redman lived in the house with his wife, Louise, and his son, James.
The Redmans grew a variety of crops, starting with sugar beet after Claus Spreckels built its processing mill in 1887 and then berries after Ed Reiter and Richard Driscoll introduced the fruit in the bird valley. Among the many agricultural workers were Japanese migrants.
After the death of James’s wife, she, in 1937, the farm was sold to J. Katsumi Tao and again to Fumio Hirahara, a minor who won the title in 1940 for a transfer of $ 10.
However, the signing of the 9066 Executive Order, which forcible relocated the American Japanese to the internment fields in retaliation for the bombing of Pearl Harbor of the Japanese military, turned out that the Hirahara family moved to a camp in Arkansas. The property was monitored by the lawyer John L. McCarthy, who acted as a guardian for fumio in exchange for a sum of no more than $ 50,000 to lease the land for crops, maintenance and expenses.
Upon his return, the Hiraharas housed four other Japanese families displaced in a carriage bar of a floor on the property.
“The scarce housing because the war had used everything,” Lydon said. “The Hirahara family made it possible for families to use that building on a floor like shelter, a temporary residence until Japanese families could find homes.”
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The historic Casa Redman-Hirahara, which is located on highway 1 on Riverside Drive in Watsonville. (Dan Coyro – Santa Cruz Sentinel)
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The historic Casa Redman-Hirahara, which is located on highway 1 on Riverside Drive in Watsonville. (Dan Coyro – Santa Cruz Sentinel)
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The Hirahara family continued to operate the farm until it was sold in 1982 to the real estate developer of Palo Alto, Ryland Kelley, who had also developed the close Dunas of Pajaro. Lydon said Kelley intended to use the house as a real estate office to announce Pajaro Dunes.
“The building is horrible visible from the highway, and he could the house as an attraction: put some signs and fix it, and there that the trampoline traffic would say, it will attract people to go there, turn left in Beach Road and Gojjajo -YEAH.
Lydon said Kelley gave a possession for life to the Matriarca Tayo, the only member of the Hirahara family who lived there full time for then. He remained at home until he died in 1986, and the property was vacant.
Subsequent problems and restoration efforts
The Redman-Hirahara house was labeled with red after the Foundation was damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. Approximately time, the house became more in ruins, but in 1998, a non-profit organization called Redman Foundation formed to preserve and property. A few years later, Lydon said the name of the Hirahara family was added, and the organization became the Redman-Hirahara Foundation.
Lydon, who served as the historical consultant of the Foundation, said that the objective was to convert the property and the surrounding country into something or an educational and cultural center that would do it as a focal point of the Agricultural History Project of History of Resuxultural History of the Pajaro Valley in the Fairgrounds of the County of Santa Cruz.
“The visibility of the house was so surprising of the highway that we have developed ideas that we changed over time to use the house as a centerpiece to interpret the history of the region,” he said.
Lydon said this story would have focused on the Pajaro Valley as a agricultural center and that he would have had information about the Redman and Hirahara families. He said there were many stories that are worth telling, from the state of the week as an important player in local architecture to the Redmans earning enough money in the cultivation of sugar beets to build the house, in the midst of a greater depression, nothing less.
“It’s a blow place to interpret the history of the valley,” he said. “It has a wonderful and positive feeling.”
In 2004, the house was added to the National Registry of Historical Places, which preserves buildings with historical importance.
The members of the Redman-Hirahara Foundation were able to lift the two-story structure from their base to allow the damaged bases to be replaced. However, no more progress was achieved, since the organization declared bankruptcy in 2009 in the middle of the great recession, and the property entered into mortgage execution. The Elite Agriculture company, based in Watsonville, bought the property in 2015.
Current demolition efforts
According to the Santa Cruz County Code, complete demolitions of historical reference points are required to go to the Historical Resources Commission for a Public Hearing and then contacted Furore to the Board of Supervisors for Final Action. The commission voted in his February. 10 Meeting to recommend the Board demolish the property and delete it from the National Registry.
A Jan. 5 Letter from Historical Consultant Kent L. Seavey to Santa Cruz County Senior Policy Planner Matthew Sindt That Was Incuded in the Commissions Staff Report Detailed Sub of the Issues With The Property, Including to Loss Of Decoration and Messions and Messions and Messions and Messions and Messions and Messions and Messions and Messions and Messions Messions and Messions and Messions and Messions and Messions and Messions and Messions and Messions and Mesion, HELENTENS AND THE WALLENDENS AND THE WALLENS IN A PAPANDENS AND THE WALLEDENS AND THE WALLENS IN APONDENS AND THE WALLENSSE AND THE WALLENSSE AND THE WALLENS AND THE WALLENS Sanitary or septic, electricity and public services.
Seavey wrote that the property has been the subject of Vandalm over the years, represents a danger of fire and has declared uninhabitable by the building inspector of Santa Cruz County. In addition, he wrote that the agricultural environment of the areas has been compromised by the construction of commercial properties, including a Chevron station in the future and a complex on the other side of the street with a Hampton Inn, Starbucks and Arco station.
“The designated property of the National Registry should no longer be considered as a historical resource, because it has lost its historical integrity, both physically and environmentally and built in 1897,” Seavey wrote.
While Lydon is sad for the pending demolition of the property, he felt that he could be too far to save.
“I think we could have done it, say, in 2000 when there was federal money available,” he said. “We simply have the son of traction.”
Lydon said the situation is a reminder of the importance of preserving history.
“Perhaps the current conditions have made history a luxury, which is a pity,” he said.
The date for the article Gofore to the Board of Supervisors has not yet been determined.