Larkspur Home Keeps Its Historic Identity, Staves Off Demolition

A "folk-style" house that has seen more than a century of change in Larkspur will continue to stand as part of the city's history, it seems.

The Larkspur City Council at its Sept. 19 meeting sided with the Heritage Preservation Board to keep 219 Hawthorne Ave. on a list of historically significant houses. The vote was 4-1, with Mayor Len Rifkind the lone dissenting voice.

The 113-year old house sits on the hillside at the corner of Hawthorne Avenue and Ajax Street overlooking Larkspur's historic downtown district. The brown jerkinhead-style roof rises above the tree tops and a few missing tiles are visible from the street, revealing some of the damage done over the years.

Dennis Gilardi, owner of the house at 219 Hawthorne Ave., last year submitted an application for a demolition permit, sparking a debate over whether or not the house should be demolished or rehabilitated.

"The house is not a textbook house. It's a reminder of Larkspur's early neighborhoods when modest folk homes were built," said the Heritage Preservation Board's Helen Heitkamp "and they were built across the street from turreted mansions. And we had a lumberyard, so any homeowner could go to the lumberyard and design a jerkinhead roof if he wanted or add anything he wanted. ... A decision to de-list the house would ... set a precedent for future tear-downs."

When the matter came before the City Council on April 18, Structural Design Engineers stated that less than 50 percent of the home "would have to be replaced or reconstructed" in order to save the house, which is listed on Larkspur's Historic Resources Inventory. The same engineers returned June 6 with a revised estimate that up to 75 percent of the building would have to be replaced.

The roof needs to be repaired, windows have to be replaced, the basement, foundation and the supporting walls all need repairs to make the house structurally safe, according to engineering reports. After all that, would there be enough of the home's architectural history left to keep it on the inventory? Is there enough of its history left now to warrant saving it?

"The entire historic rating process could be put on trial," warned attorney Riley Hurd, who represented Gilardi in front of the City Council.

One question that arose was what should qualify a building as "historic?"

In the case of 219 Hawthorne Ave., the key factors were age, style and historic significance. About the only thing the two sides could agree upon was the age of the home.

Research showed the house was built between 1896-1899 and owned by Edwin L. Chesney, a noted carpenter. Chesney and his wife moved from San Francisco to Larkspur in 1896, but then returned to San Francisco in 1899. The two sides debated over whether or not there was evidence Chesney actually built the house, though.

The house features one of the last, if not only remaining example of jerkinhead-style roof in Larkspur. The same style roof is featured on the Harriet Beacher Stowe House in Hartford, Conn.

The style of the 1.5 story house was described during the City Council meeting as "common" or "folk." Representatives from Pacific Design Group claimed any historic significance to the style had been lost during remodeling over the years.

"It's never been treated according to historic standards," argued Hurd. "It's never been treated as historic."

The property was reportedly sold to the Anderson family in 1899 for $500 to $1,000. It changed hands again in 1904, when it was sold to the Barnes family, and again in 1947, when it was acquired by former Larkspur Mayor Lesly A. Daveler, who died in 1993. Sarah Daveler, a librarian at Henry C. Hall School, died in 2007. During that time, a porch was added and details of the house were altered.

Heitkamp argued that the city's heritage preservation ordinance was mostly concerned with the parts of the building in public view and that the facade within public view was basically the same as it was originally. She also said heritage laws could allow for replication of the original architectural designs and certain exemptions to building codes when rehabilitating the interior of the house.

In the end, the City Council recognized a citizen's right to buy a home and repair or remodel it, but decided this example of "early 19th Century Larkspur architecture" was worth preserving.

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