Featured as a Cover Story in GoodTimes
Weekly, Home & Garden Issueby Chris J. MagyarRenovation is a disrupting, painful process that’s only worth going through because the results are so fulfilling. Imagine, then, going through the biggest and most complicated renovation project in the county—one that will have taken decades before it’s entirely through—and, here’s the kicker, it’s not even your house.
A group of dedicated people has banded together to do just that for the dilapidated Redman House, which sits forlorn and lonesome just off Highway 1 in the midst of Watsonville. The two-story Victorian was built in 1897, is on the National Register of Historical Places, and has been a persistent yet intriguing eyesore since the late 1980s.
The Redman House Committee (now called the Redman Foundation) formed in 1998 when talks of development had stalled between the county and the house’s then-owner, Green Farms. As the structure fell into disrepair, the commercial agriculture-zoned plot of about 14 acres became a strawberry field. Last year, the Redman Foundation managed to purchase the house and land for $1.9 million, and has unleashed an ambitious plan to restore the home, develop sustainable structures and landscaping around it, and bequeath 10 acres of prime farmland for experimental organic agriculture in perpetuity.
Chairperson Geoff Scurfield is spearheading the effort. A tall man with a boisterous personality and boyish enthusiasm, Scurfield has been working to save the house for nine straight years, and still hasn’t let go of his initial gusto. “When I first started working on this house, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it and start working on physically saving it,” he says. “I was a bit naive then about what a politically difficult process this is.”
While most homeowners can spend all their time worrying about logistics and decisions (and let’s face it, that’s hard enough), the Redman Foundation also has to worry about getting permission to do everything it would like to do for the property. Purchasing the house cleared many hurdles, but there are still plenty of major ones ahead involving both Santa Cruz County and the California Coastal Commission. (While within Watsonville city limits, the Redman plot remains unincorporated and under county control due to its historical significance.) “We’re hoping to prove [to the government] with our best efforts that this is a wonderful project, and that this development will sustain the house,” says Scurfield. “We’re not doing this like a Knott’s Berry Farm.”
The full $5 million vision includes a few additional period structures such as a grain silo (which will actually serve as a mask for public restrooms) and a gazebo for music events and presentations. The courtyard will be sunken and surrounded by rock walls with fountains built in. A basement is being dug into the refurbished foundation to provide a wine cellar and caterer’s kitchen. But to build this, the house has to move.
This is where the project really exceeds the wildest demands of the typical home renovation. The biggest danger Redman House faces is collapse from an earthquake. The Foundation recently received permits to pick the house up, move it to the side, and reinforce it with steel beams while digging an earthquake-proof substructure in which to place a basement. This dramatic project will do more than simply protect the house from the vagaries of tectonic shifts. “The house has been sitting there so long, I think people don’t believe there’s really momentum behind fixing it up yet,” Scurfield says. “If we lift this house up, move it over and stabilize it, we’ve done one very important thing: People will see it.” To capitalize on this opportunity to get the community involved, an old-fashioned tractor pull is in the planning stages.
While the move will be dramatic, and the bringing of the home up to code substantial (there’s wiring and plumbing to fix in addition to reinforcing the timbers), co-vice chairperson and architectural coordinator Dean Coley insists that the final result will appear 100 percent authentic. “All the modernization will be invisible,” he says. “There are representations of all the moldings and features, and the ones that we won’t be able to rehabilitate we will reproduce exactly.”
Coley knows something about reproduction. As the owner of Architectural Millwork & Design (whose offices currently serve as the Redman Foundation’s ad hoc headquarters), Coley has engaged in high-end woodworking design and restoration his entire life, and has the necessary equipment on-site to not only recreate the vintage detailwork, but to mill replications of the tools that carpenters would have used to make the originals 110 years ago. While some aspects of the interior, such as the fireplace and staircase, have suffered badly from neglect and vandalism, “there’s enough there that we should be able to take this thing exactly back in time,” he says.
The furnishings will also, for the most part, be recreated. “We aren’t always going to get the actual antiques,” Coley says, “but we will try to do replication of all the built-ins and bookcases at least.” The floor plan, with its typically small Victorian rooms, will be completely preserved. The only wholly new creation in the house will be the wine cellar, which itself will hew as close to era-appropriate design as possible.
Of course, you can’t fix up the house without caving into the temptation of sprucing up the garden at the same time. In the case of the Redman House, the landscape is 10 fertile acres. The plan is to put the undeveloped part of the 14-acre parcel into a land trust that will preserve it for organic farming and education in perpetuity, through an endowment partnership with the Pajaro Valley Water Management Authority. “Basically this thing will be maintained as an educational and working farm,” says Coley.
“We want sustainability after Dean and I are long gone,” Scurfield says. “The 501(c)3 organization and its board members will always be here to make sure that this land stays out of the hands of a big box store, let’s put it that way.
“This valley hasn’t always been strawberries,” he adds. “It started out with sugar cane, and then wheat, and apples when the Croatians came here. So we’re going to include all that history in our farmed area, but it’s not just going to be history. We want to focus on the evolution and what the future is. We’ll have that big barn there for classes, and it will bring people from all over the Salinas area and the Central Coast for discussions, ‘What are you doing? How are you making things better?’”
Scurfield, who is a contractor by trade, presides over a board that reads like an idealized small town economy unto itself: a carpenter, an organic farmer, an accountant, a city councilman, a historian, a newspaper editor, an architect, an engineer, a lawyer, and a banker. That diversity is part of what gives Scurfield so much confidence that the project will not only get off the ground, but thrive once it’s operational. “We’re really sincere about not wanting to promote mediocrity with this project,” he says. “You don’t get off in Hoboken when you’re going to New York.”
Coley adds, “And the house at this location—let’s face it, 20 million people drive by this every year—we expect to do everything first class, because it is the gateway to Monterey County and the gateway to Santa Cruz County. It will be the perfect place for people to stop off and get information about the community, and the wetlands, and so there will be a strong emphasis on education and cultural information.”
“The first person to ever write a check for our coffers was a lady from the Bay Area,” Scurfield chimes in, nearly jumping out of his chair, as he always does when mentioning someone who has joined the effort. “She had seen the house all her life, driven by it to visit family in Carmel, and wanted to see it restored. The whole Bay Area wants to see this house restored, and now it’s really just about winning the hearts and minds of the people who live here.”
After a decade of agonizing behind-the-scenes work filling out papers, applying for grants, enlisting support, and watching the house sit there every day without any new work happening on it, Scurfield remains an incorrigible optimist. “Everybody who comes to this project brings an incredible amount of passion,” he says. Although there are severe financial pressures—the Foundation has a $75,000 interest-only loan coming due, and the bulk of its purchasing loan is currently through the previous owner instead of a traditional bank—there’s a palpable feeling that the wheels are driving forward.
“We’ve got everything ready to go,” Coley says. “It’s all about funding and permits now.”
“And people,” Scurfield adds. “This project isn’t being driven by the government or a big company or anything like that. It’s just people who want to see this house alive again. And the more, the merrier.”
