The San Diego Union once called it “The Perfect Home,” and the new owners wanted a restoration process to match

By Michael Good | HouseCalls

Experts say you should live in a house for at least a year before remodeling. DeLayne and Devin Harmon did just that — in a manner of speaking.

The big white house with the red tile roof on the double lot at the end of Marlborough Drive was DeLayne’s grandparents’. Dr. Anthony Mogavero and his wife Ella bought the house in 1949. It was DeLayne’s mother’s childhood home, and DeLayne grew up just a few blocks away, on Terrace Drive. When her parents were remodeling their house, she lived with her grandparents on Marlborough. As for Devin, he first set foot in the house when he and DeLayne were attending Hoover High, back in the ’80s when they were “just friends.” Through marriage and kids, the passing of DeLayne’s grandparents and her Aunt Patricia (the last family member to live in the house), Devin, DeLayne and the house on Marlborough just kept getting to know each other better and better.

“Architects, contractors, historians — they all gave us that advice,” Devin said. “Live in it first, before you start changing anything.”

“We would say, ‘No, you don’t understand, we have lived in it,’” DeLayne said with a laugh.

In 2013, the house passed into DeLayne and Devin’s hands and they began to assemble a dream team of experienced professionals to fix what was broken, restore what had been lost, and take care of all the deferred maintenance that had accumulated over the years.

“That’s what’s so hard,” DeLayne said, “figuring out who to trust initially. Someone could come in and say, ‘This isn’t an original architectural feature. Get rid of it.’”

“We started off with Ron and Bruce, and they gave us a good basis to begin,” Devin said. Bruce is Bruce Coons, president of Save Our Heritage Organisation and a historic house detective. Ron is Ron May, principal investigator for Legacy 106, a company that does historic reports and Mills Act applications. Ron and Bruce gave Devin and DeLayne a list of contractors and craftsman. (Full disclosure: that list included me.)

The couple threw themselves into researching the era, including architectural styles, construction techniques, lighting fixtures, tile, hardware, plaster textures and other details that spell the difference between an authentic restoration and a crime against history.

“We investigated all that, then we consulted what I call our ‘conscience police’,” Devin said. These voices of caution, defenders of authenticity, champions of all things original included John Eisenhart and Eva Thorn (architects), Drew Johnson (general contractor), Michael Good (wood refinisher), William Van Dusen (finish carpenter) and Celia Conover (designer). “Plus a few neighbors and friends.”

Those friends included Devin’s buddy Howard, a high school auto shop teacher, who played the role of everyman in this production.

“Howard would laugh at us,” Devin said. “At first he’d say, ‘Why aren’t you just making a decision?’ But then, later on, he realized how the project was so special and each element needed an associated expert to fulfill it.”

Though not big by modern standards — it’s about the size of your average Carmel Valley tract house — the place has a lot of detail. More than 60 window sashes, an equal number of wooden window screens, and more than 30 doors, all needing replacing, restoring or refinishing. The roof tile was not original. The stucco texture was not original. The kitchen cabinets were not original — but the original cabinets were in the garage.

A lot of period details had gone missing over the years. There was missing shoe molding, missing picture rail, missing sections of wide-plank, pegged flooring. Lighting fixtures were missing, shelves in the library and living room had disappeared, tile was broken, damaged and destroyed. The design esthetic of the day was for rusticated finishes and detail. So everything — doorknobs, lighting fixtures, sconces, doors, plaster and flooring — had to look old. But not actually old (which they now were). Not worn out or broken. Just old in a really cool, circa 1929, way.

These aged effects are meant to be subtle. The lighting in the living room, for example, looks handmade by a craftsman who didn’t have access to modern tools. The doors and floors are intentionally unrefined. The plaster is rough and executed with bold strokes. Other parts of the house are more sophisticated: the sweep of the staircase, the curvaceous upstairs hallway, the fireplace tile design, (patterned after the Temple of the Cross at Palenque, Mexico).

While the public rooms are subtle, the bathrooms are bold and intense. They reflect an individual perspective, a particular taste. Maybe the tile was selected by a homeowner, maybe the builder or architect felt a need to express himself. But because it’s original, the house documents the diversity of design that existed in early-20th century San Diego. It demonstrates the many different interpretations of what we today simply refer to as Spanish.

But not everyone can deal with it.

“People react pretty strongly to the tiles in the original master bathroom,” Devin said. “Not everyone likes them. A lot of people say, ‘I would have bashed that out a long time ago.’ Someone came through this weekend and said, ‘Well, there’s some really ugly tile.’ But the beauty of it is its uniqueness.“

When asked if there was a defining moment for the project, Devin brought up the entry hall. In historic pictures he could see that the scored plaster was originally intended to resemble irregular blocks of stone. But it had been painted over, many times, over the years. I stripped the paint in a test area to see if there was something worth saving, and Devin and DeLayne took it from there. They found a paint removal product, developed a process that would strip the paint but not the plaster, and went at it. For two weeks. While work went on around them.

“It definitely changed the intensity of the project,” Devin said.

“That’s when Drew realized how serious we were,” DeLayne added.

“It went from a remodel to a really serious restoration,” says Devin. “It was a turning point.”

The beams in the living room presented a similar challenge. I refinished a section to show what the wood was supposed to look like, without the layers of stain, dirt and cigarette smoke. The Harmons were intrigued. But it was Drew who came up with a practical alternative to stripping the nearly 40-foot-long ceiling, which I won’t reveal here because you, dear reader, will try it at home and ruin your woodwork. But in this case, it worked out. As Devin often said about Drew, “He’s still batting one thousand …”

In a project of this nature, the homeowner can really set the tone. Devin and DeLayne made an extraordinary effort to educate themselves about the restoration process. And they listened, and sometimes even heeded the advice they were given. Devin threw himself into historical research, and the photographs he found made it possible to recreate lighting and metalwork that had been missing for years. The contractors and craftsmen respected that effort, and took particular care in their restoration work.

Devin also uncovered a wealth of information about the first two homeowners, Enrique Aldrete and John A. Greenman. Original owner Aldrete was a mayor of Tijuana, a storeowner both in the U.S. and Mexico (his Cinco de Mayo department store in Tijuana was the Mexican Target of the day, selling everything from groceries to clothing, perfume to hats, lumber to hardware). He was chairman of the Tijuana Chamber of Commerce from 1927 to 1940, and was friend to presidents and brother to the governor of Baja.

The Greenmans were the quintessential Southern California family of the ’30s and ’40s, working hard (they ran a produce business), playing harder (summers at the tent city in Coronado, spring at their cabin in the High Sierras). They were sportsmen: surfing, water skiing, scuba diving, sailing, fishing, traveling and camping throughout California and Mexico. They made for colorful copy in the newspaper — “Greenmans lost at sea!” “Greenmans speedboat explodes and sinks!” “Greenmans keep menagerie at their big white house on Marlborough Drive: Includes chipmunks and alligators!”

The big white house on the double lot on Marlborough has garnered a lot of attention itself over the years—one San Diego Union article from the 1940s called it “The Perfect Home.” During the last two years, it’s certainly inspired many a passerby to ask for a tour, which Devin and DeLayne readily obliged. Many Kensington and Talmadge homeowners have returned the favor. Devin thinks he’s toured at least 80 houses in Kensington. Not surprisingly, he likes his the best. Asked what stands out about the place, he says, “It isn’t one thing. It’s all the separate details working together.”

Said DeLayne: “When you stand in that entry hall and look around, the floor is original, the texture, the banister, the wrought iron. … You stand there, you see the living room through the archway, the original tile, the beams — that’s a unique vantage point.”

Later, after some reflection, Devin added, “It’s the multiple layers of original beauty, the great craftsmanship. It’s everything working together. We were so focused on the details, we didn’t think about the big picture. I never thought it would turn out like this. Never.” He’s sitting down in what will eventually be the media room. The freshly varnished doors to the media cabinet are leaning against the wall, waiting to be installed. “It hit me a few weeks ago, when I was standing in the entry hall. I almost started to cry.” He smiled, disconcerted but not really embarrassed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself when this is done.” He laughed. He’s only sort of kidding.

Any day now the Harmons are going to move in, the construction project will become a private residence again and the impromptu tours will stop. SOHO members, however, will have a chance to see the completed project when the preservation group has its annual Holiday party there on Dec. 13. To become a member, go to sohosandiego.org.

—Contact Michael Good at [email protected].