Posing in front of the recently restored Esrock Residence are, from left, owners Bernie and Jill Esrock, with builder Lorton Mitchell of Lorton Mitchell Custom Homes. Photo by Joe Ditler.
EXTRAORDINARY HOME RESTORATION
REVEALS PREHISTORIC CORONADO SEASHORE
CORONADO Restoration of the Esrock Residence on the corner of 10th Street and Adella Avenue has revealed one historic page of information after another. The project was completed last month by Lorton Mitchell Custom Homes and has recently been occupied by new owners, Bernie and Jill Esrock.
The 1902 home was moved from its original location on Ocean Boulevard in 1905 after enormous storms battered the shoreline, destroying the boulevard and throwing seas of water into the front yards of the oceanfront homes. Originally known as the Kneedler Home, it was owned by Dr. William L. Kneedler, a retired Army doctor and personal physician to President William H. Taft.
The Kneedler Home along Ocean Boulevard, as it looked in 1905.
To move the home, multiple teams of horses had to be brought in, as well as large logs and a small army of men. They slowly raised the home, placed it on logs, and pulled it, one-foot at a time, across Orange Avenue and the trolley tracks, towards its new destination on high ground at Tenth and Adella.
As one log popped out the rear, it was painstakingly replaced in the front, and so on. The entire operation took the better part of five days, Friday-Tuesday. It was moved fast for a reason. On Sunday, record tides were expected to hit our shores. That, combined with the stormy seas, might just have proved fatal for the Kneedler Home.
It took five days to move the Kneedler Home across town to it’s new location. Multiple teams of horses, like the ones in this photograph, were brought in for the job.
Being a wooden structure, the Kneedler Home could be moved, unlike the brick and stone residences along Ocean Blvd, which had to stay on their original foundations. Within a year, however, workers were able to build a large, rock seawall, which saved the homes and allowed for a reconstruction of Ocean Blvd. The rock seawall, paid for by the homeowners, is still in place today.
In the 1950s the Kneedler Home became known as the Morton Home, owned by Dr. Paul Morton a fondly remembered Coronado physician. A new historical chapter for this home had begun. Last year, Lorton Mitchell and his team began to excavate the site after receiving an endorsement from Coronado’s Historic Resource Commission to restore the home to its original 1902 exterior.
Contractors are use to finding sand, and even water from the aquifer (the underground river coursing underneath Coronado) when digging on a site. Often they find old bottles from a time gone by. What Mitchell found was what he believes to be the ancient seashore of Coronado at the edge of Tenth and Adella, dating back millions of years, to a time before streets, homes, or even people.
Lorton Mitchell, of Lorton Mitchell Custom Homes, examines plans during restoration of the Esrock Residence. Photo by Joe Ditler.
“The site was dry,” said Mitchell. “We drilled down 30 feet and never hit water. What we did hit, however, were pre-limestone formations dating back millions of years. I’ve never seen this in the more than 100 homes we’ve built in Coronado. We hit the brown sand, and we hit the white sand, but what we saw next was like nothing we had encountered before.”
Mitchell brought in a geologist to confirm their findings. There were no fossils, but lots and lots of seashells. The pre-limestone foundation was created by pressure and time, fusing together into stone over the centuries.
The conclusion was that, at one time, Coronado’s shoreline ended at the area near Tenth and Adella, where Tenth drops down into what early residents called the Coronado Flats (the Pomona/Glorietta area). That, indicated the geologist, was all water.
This is a piece of pre-limestone foundation discovered by the team at Lorton Mitchell Custom Homes. It was created by pressure and time, fusing together seashells into stone over the centuries and providing evidence of a former seashore at Tenth and Adella dating back to a time before man. Photo by Joe Ditler.
In the move from Ocean to Adella, the Kneedler Home was placed on a loose foundation of brick and mortar. It literally slid around during earthquakes and tremblers at the current location. When the Esrocks began looking for a home in Coronado, this one, despite the poor foundation and worn condition of the structure, captured their hearts. They would, however, need to find a contractor with the imagination and ability needed to do a major transformation; a restoration like no other.
Builder Lorton Mitchell, designer Stephanie Davis, and the Esrocks looked at two or three different properties before deciding on this location and home. They wanted to be close to town, close to the Del and the beach because they like to walk. They also wanted to be on the corner lot to take advantage of Coronado’s cool summer breezes. The home also had to be built as fully accessible as possible to help compensate for Bernie’s increasing difficulties in getting around due to his Multiple Sclerosis.
Like a cat with nine lives, the Kneedler Home grew to become the Morton Home. Now it is the Esrock Residence. Recent restoration by Lorton Mitchell Custom Homes insures this old mansion will survive for another century.
“The house was situated on unreinforced and loose brick,” said Mitchell. “It would have gone down like a house of cards in a big earthquake.” As a result, Mitchell and his team invented a system of shoring the home with 28 soldier beams that were set, like fence posts, 20 feet into the ground, all the way around the house. The soldiers were extended another ten feet up, to reach the second floor level. Then beams were added atop the soldiers to suspend the first floor.
When they were done, the first floor literally dangled from the second floor beams. A basement was created underneath, and then the home was lowered and leveled as it dropped on to the new foundation. The unusual construction sequence went smoothly, and the home is now fully restored to the 1902 façade, it has a new foundation, and the owners got a full basement out of it in the process. Bernie is a design engineer and quickly set up a large machine workshop in the new basement.
This 112-year-old home is poised to see another century of use. In restorations of this magnitude, Mitchell carefully scrapes away layers of the surface to reveal as much of the original home as possible. In this case, he found an architectural treasure – a lovely, turn-of-the-century Craftsman that had been modified and added to over the decades.
Another look at the Kneedler Home on Ocean Boulevard prior to the 1905 move across town.
He examined old photos, researched early documents, and then, along with principal architect on the project, Dorothy Howard, decided the path they would take. Once that decision was made, and they received a blessing from the Historical Resource Commission (and the homeowners), Mitchell and his team began the process of this very unusual restoration.
Everyone was pleased. “I am amazed at the number of people who have stopped us and thanked us for saving this house,” said Bernie Esrock. “Hardly anything was wasted during the process. We are very happy with our new home. And I’m delighted to say that we were able to save the old brick foundation and use it in new construction. We were also able to save many of the existing elements from the original house things like cornices and floor joists; and the eaves, which were in perfect shape.”
On a recent afternoon, retired Senator James R. Mills, author of the Mills Act, stopped by to look at the restoration of the Esrock Residence. The Esrocks had wondered to themselves what the iconic preservationist would think of their project. “They did a beautiful job in bringing back this house to what it looked like in the early 1900s,” Mills said. “It’s very pleasing to the eye to see how they’ve succeeded in creating the original, 1902 look.”
This panoramic shot shows Ocean Boulevard before the century storms of 1905 had washed away the road. Only two homes were able to move, and then only because they were made of wood. The stone and brick homes had to ride out the storms. Eventually a rock seawall was built. Then, Mother Nature gave up the beach and today there is no longer any threat to the homes of Ocean Boulevard.
To further endorse the project, Mitchell recently received Mills Act status for the Esrock Residence from Coronado’s Historic Resource Commission, adding an additional badge of honor to a most unusual and creative restoration. The Esrock Residence is now on a waiting list with other Mills Act beneficiaries.
Mitchell, who is known for building homes to last a century, had the last word on the project. “We feel really good about this restoration,” he said. “I’m sure the home will live for another century and continue to make generations of occupants proud.”
For more information on Lorton Mitchell Construction, call (619) 435-3446, or visit http://www.lortonmitchellhomes.com.
This story was produced by Joe Ditler and Part-Time PR, serving all of Coronado’s public relations needs. To find out how your company or product can make a louder noise in the community, call or write Joe Ditler at (619) 435-0767 or [email protected].
