Neighborhood jewels celebrated at 10th GEM awards dinner
By Martina Schimitschek
This year, Coronado is sparkling with GEMs. Last week, four homes earned the Coronado Historical Association’s “Going the Extra Mile” (GEM) award. Usually, there’s a single winner, but there were so many worthy nominees this year, multiple awards were given during CHA’s GEM Award dinner April 3, which celebrated the awards’ 10th anniversary.
“The purpose of the GEM is that someone is going the extra mile to preserve a potential teardown — a historic home that is a gem or diamond in the rough,” said Christine Stokes, executive director for the Coronado Historical Association.
The awards began in 2013, but because there were no awards in 2020 during the pandemic, the 10th anniversary was celebrated this year. The event was the brainchild of Russ Haley, vice president of the real estate development company CityMark, who was a Coronado Historical Association board member at the time.
“To me, it’s always been important to foster the preservation of historic homes, to celebrate homeowners that have been making a difference in Coronado,” he said.
That first year, Haley put together a committee that selected 10 homes. Three became finalists, and from that batch, a winner was announced — a Craftsman home on Adella Avenue built in 1912.
Haley said the awards, which are based on the appearance of the front of the home, were designed to recognize small, do-it-yourself projects as well as the big renovations.
“Some people just put in elbow grease to make something special. Sometimes it’s just giving the home the right type of care with a coat of paint,” he said.
“A lot of times people say there’s no reason to fix up a tiny cottage. But when you talk to a homeowner, they will tell you of the love of the process and the value to restore,” Stokes said.
The public nomination process allows residents the chance to look around and see the value in restoring an old home. For the historical association, the GEM program is all part of the mission to preserve and appreciate Coronado’s past and to keep the city’s character for the future.
This year, CHA gave out one award for a home more than 3,000 square feet, one award for a home less than 3,000 square feet and two Diamond awards. The Diamond award are special one-time awards for the 10th anniversary. The homes were selected by vote of the GEM Committee, which is made up of former GEM nominees and winners.
The winning homes are:
• Over 3,000 square feet: 275 J. St. A rare example of a two-story home built by architect Cliff May, this house has some of May’s signature features such as window grilles and a floor plan centered around a courtyard. What’s missing is the look of an early California Spanish-style hacienda, a design May made popular in the 1930s. This ranch-style home was built in 1936, a few years before May moved to Los Angeles where he achieved wealth and fame as the “father of the ranch house,” designing the mid-century homes that epitomized casual California living. The first occupants were Matthias Gardner and his wife, Helen, who commissioned the house for $9,500. He was an aviator whose naval career included serving as chief of staff for Adm. John Sydney McCain, the late Senator John McCain’s father. He retired as a four-star admiral. The current homeowners restored everything they could, from the original front door to the distinctive window grilles, honoring the spirit and design of Cliff May’s vision as they updated their home for their family of six.
• Under 3,000 square feet: 874 A Ave. This Spanish bungalow was built in 1922 and was the home to dozens of military officers who owned or rented the house. The first owner was Robert Barrows who contracted J.R. Allen to build the home for $6,000. Less than two years later Barrows moved to Beverly Hills and sold the house to Lt. Col. Russell Davis. He, too, only lived there for two years. Davis sold the house to Lt. Cmdr. Harry Rusk, who during his Navy career commanded the USS Rigel, the USS Nevada and the USS Arizona. The current owners relandscaped the grounds expanding the outdoor entertainment area. They remodeled the interior and updated the exterior with cream colored paint and black trim.
• Diamond Award: 1045 Loma Ave. Built by architect Richard Requa, this sprawling Spanish-style mansion was painstakingly restored with the help of the original blueprints. The home was built in 1926 for Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Mann for $29,600. Requa had recently returned from a trip to Spain and Morocco and the home’s design and details reflect the influence the sun-splashed Mediterranean had on the architect. The current owners reversed decades of nonconforming alterations that took away from Requa’s design — a long shallow floor plan, punctuated by a central tower. They also purchased the neighboring lot, which was part of the original estate, removing the 1960s house to provide their home with the spacious grounds Requa and landscape designer Milton Sessions envisioned. Everything was restored or reconstructed with period-appropriate styling, down to the hand-troweled plaster and original sage trim color.
• Diamond Award: 519 Ocean Blvd. When businessman Howard Baker decided he wanted to have a home in Coronado in 1915, he wanted something grand with an East Coast feel where his friends would feel welcome. He turned to his Cornell University classmate architect William Sterling Hebbard to design the oceanfront estate, which is part brick, part shingles. To ensure a proper view from all the main rooms in the house, he first had a wall built around the property and then filled it with three feet of dirt to raise the elevation of the home he called Las Olas, meaning the waves in Spanish. Baker had spent about $40,000 by the time the property was finished, but he was able to enjoy his home for only a few years. Baker died of pneumonia in 1919. Over the years, the house was owned by a number of wealthy families who often only lived there part time. By the time the current owners bought the home, it needed a lot of work. Their five-year labor of love completely restored the exterior, which now has a new set of cedar shingles and new roof. Inside, the owners reversed the floor plan, moving the living areas and kitchen to the second floor and the bedrooms downstairs to continue enjoying the view that drew Baker to the property more than 100 years ago.
For a full description of this year’s winners and nominees, go to the Coronado Historical Association website.
Martina Schimitschek is editor and co-founder of Coronado 365.