Four historic houses up for auction abound in classic features

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES

The city Redevelopment Agency is taking bid proposals through Aug. 11 on four vacant, historic houses in the Willmore City Historic District, three of which it rescued from the West Gateway project.

So, hire a contractor to help, then bid what’s left after you subtract estimated improvement costs from the eventual projected value, and you could own a masterpiece in the making. (It’s more complicated, but that’s the gist of it.)

These houses are architecturally significant, but they need a lot of work. Because three of the four were moved to their present locations, there’s no electricity and no plumbing yet. Plus, when your bid wins, the clock starts ticking. You have a year to fix up the outside—and you must build a garage. The rest is your call.

“As far as internal improvements, we’re not going to require that as part of the sale,” says Long Beach Redevelopment Project Officer David White. But really, the insides of these four houses include some of their most intriguing, salvage-worthy features. Here’s some of what you’ll see:

The house at 734 Maine Ave. is circa 1912: a two-story, Airplane Bungalow—meaning the second story is smaller than the first story and perches atop it, not unlike the cockpit of an airplane. With its large windows, that front upstairs room would make a great office—or one of those man-caves everyone’s talking about. You also get a total of three bedrooms and one-and-a-half baths. 

We didn’t get to see inside, but the exterior has great potential, thanks to a common bungalow feature: exterior siding of varying widths. You get one wide row of siding, then a narrow row, then another wide row, which helps create visual interest. A couple rows of siding are missing upstairs, though; when the city moved this house onto Maine Avenue, workmen temporarily detached the second story to slide it under power lines.

Over at 226 W. Tenth St., you’ll see an American Foursquare-style house: a blocky, very square 1905 two-story home with six—count ’em—bedrooms and just one bath. Fortunately for when you add another bathroom, American Standard has started reissuing some of its vintage fixtures.

Use any color scheme but the one on there now—grayish blue with pinky-maroon trim—and you can add a few thousand dollars in value and curb appeal.

The only house that wasn’t moved to its current location is at 543 Daisy Ave. Built in 1903, it’s also the oldest: a two-bedroom, one-bath with hints in its trim of the Queen Anne style. It has a nice little shaded porch, a bay window in the dining room (and a built-in cabinet)—plus a velvet Jesus painting in the kitchen. (It’s not original.)

This brings us to our favorite: 539 Daisy Ave., a bungalow featuring original wavy glass windows, a pass-through wall-opening from the kitchen to the formal dining room, a window seat in the living room, five-panel pocket doors throughout, and two bedrooms and one bathroom.

Also—and we’ve never seen this before—there are four original mirrored wall panels in the bedrooms, the living room and dining room that open out, revealing enough space inside each for a fold-up Murphy bed. (Next to each is another door that opens to reveal an adjacent closet.) It’s amazing: You could have a house with four Murphy beds, and all that extra space during the day—provided you put the beds away.

For information on submitting a bid proposal, visit LongBeachRDA.org or call 562.570.6615

Tags: home auction, Long Beach, rda, Shelter, willmore city