Rose Park Neighborhood Association holds its first-ever Restoration Trade Fair

PHOTO by SARAH G. VINCI

When you buy a historically significant house—be it bungalow, Spanish style or miscellaneous—your signature on the mortgage (initial here, here and here) just opens the floodgates.

Cast-iron drainpipe rusted out after 70 years? Get busy and run a new one, unless you’d rather . . . call a plumber. Water somehow drip-drip-dripping in at 3 a.m. through redwood window frames and double-hung wooden windows? You’re the boss of that water. Get tough!

And what color were you planning to repaint your house? And where do you find those vintage glass cabinet knobs? Those are all bad problems and good questions, and all—probably—can be answered Sunday, at the inaugural Rose Park Neighborhood Association’s Restoration Trade Fair.

“This is to meet the homeowners’ needs,” says fair organizer Gretchen Swanson, a homeowner in Rose Park—so-named because its original area radiates out from Orizaba Avenue and Eighth Street, and a circular park with a rose garden. “If they live in a historic district and want to modify anything on the outside or from the street-side, they need to go through a process.”

Process is a polite name for getting your expansion or renovation signed off by the city’s Cultural Heritage Commission, which rides herd on this kind of historicality—but theoretically, you could begin it Sunday.

The city’s Historic Preservation Officer, Jan Ostashay, who works closely with the commission, will be on hand to tell you “What It Means to Live in a Historic District”—after which she’ll probably take questions and hear your version of it.

Later, Cultural Heritage Commissioner Karen Highberger—owner of a historic Storybook Tudor in California Heights—will talk about “Choosing Appropriate Historic Design,” a situation she and Lou Gaudio faced several times when sprucing up their own 1928 home.

And you can’t get away without a panel discussion on interior design. This one will feature folks like B&B Hardware’s Tom Barnes holding forth on what they know best.

Then there’s the materials. Everyone who does a historic renovation needs color samples, a linoleum consultation or fencing at some point. Gretchen Swanson can empathize.

“It was just hard to find a metal refinisher or someone who restored wrought iron or did stucco surfaces,” Swanson says, recalling her own struggles and other horror stories she’s heard. “It seemed as though there were resources available, but not all in one place. So, people were left to search online for hours, or to go to Lowe’s or Home Depot.” Home Depot? But what if you don’t like Corian?

There’s always California tile. The fair will be packed with vendors and other owners of historic homes, offering everything from stucco know-how, to double-hung window advice, to retro linoleum swatches, to gate-building ability and tile tips.

Because everyone with a house usually has something they’d like to do—or have done—to it. The only real question is why it took this long for the folks in Rose Park to put on a fair.

“Just time,” Swansons says. “It sort of took time for us, being in a historic district, to realize that the city has resources, and all these historic groups have knowledge, so maybe we should provide something from the homeowners’ point of view.”

It’s true. City hall is jammed with useful information on historic homes—from fire insurance maps, to plot plans, to original building permits and building certificates on microfiche—but every homeowner finds them at his or her own pace.

Your journey could start here.

ROSE PARK NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION RESTORATION TRADE FAIR LUTHER BURBANK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL | 501 JUNIPERO AVE | LONG BEACH 90814 | RPNA-TRADEFAIR.ORG | RPNA.ORG | 9AM-4PM | $5; FREE TO RPNA MEMBERS AND CHILDREN UNDER 18

Tags: historic district, Long Beach, restoration trade fair, rose park