‘Urban Pioneers’ Alter Face of Willmore City

LONG BEACH —  When Louis Skelton moved into his 81-year-old Victorian home seven months ago, the walls were painted a garish orange, the wood floors were hidden under rotted carpet and the yard was overrun with weeds.

The two-story house, in a deteriorated downtown neighborhood known as Willmore City, had a charm that few could appreciate.

But Skelton, an architect, was confident he could turn the Chestnut Avenue property into a showpiece. After weeks of labor, the wood floors now shine, the clapboard exterior has a fresh coat of teal-blue paint, and flower beds border a neatly trimmed lawn.

Today, it is a house Skelton is proud to own.

Urban Pioneers

Skelton, 34, is one of a burgeoning group of affluent young professionals daring to buy and renovate properties in Willmore City, a shabby stretch of dilapidated, turn-of-the-century houses and squalid tenements.

With a missionary zeal, these urban pioneers are attempting to change the face of Willmore City, an area that in recent years has been a center of gang activity more than a haven for college-educated, upwardly mobile men and women.

“The yuppies are coming,” said Rita Woodbury, president of the Willmore City Heritage Assn., whose 250 members are working to support the revitalization effort. “Every time I see another house painted or another family moving into the neighborhood, I see us taking a step forward.”

The Heritage Assn. in 1982 got the city to designate the neighborhood a “planned development district,” giving the 60-acre area zoning regulations to encourage rehabilitation of historic buildings.

In addition, the association has worked to save several historic houses from demolition by having them moved from other areas of Long Beach to sites in Willmore City. So far, 10 such structures have been relocated in the neighborhood and renovated, Woodbury said.

Now the group is working to have the federal government designate a 10-block section of the neighborhood surrounding Drake Park a national historic district. With that status, property owners in the area would be eligible for a 25% investment tax credit on the cost of restoring buildings for use as offices or rental housing. A decision on the historical certification is expected within a few months.

Despite such strides, however, some of the biggest supporters of the rehabilitation campaign are guarded about the future of the neighborhood.

“The area has a lot of potential, but it’s never going to be a Pasadena,” said Councilman Marc Wilder, whose district includes Willmore City. “Still, with time, it is going to be a nice, moderate-income neighborhood.”

That process of gentrification, or conversion of an aging urban area, could take its toll. As young professionals trickle into the area and property values rise, the low-income residents will likely be displaced.

“There is going to be some pressure on people to relocate, but that is part of the natural resettling process,” said Cyed Rushdy, director of the city’s housing bureau. “It’s a slow process, not something that happens overnight. I don’t think it will become a problem.”

The new arrivals are attracted, in large part, by the relatively low price of housing in the area: a Victorian house that sells for about $75,000 in Willmore City would fetch at least double that in a haughtier section of town, according to Woodbury, a real estate agent.

“If you’re looking for a place to homestead, that area is very hot,” said Sarah Rose Donovan, a preservation consultant working with the Willmore City Heritage Assn. “Home prices there have hit rock bottom, and now people can afford to move in and spend the money to fix the houses up.”

The neighborhood was settled in the 1880s, after William Willmore, an English schoolteacher, struck a deal with a local rancher on the land. Although the area never developed into the “American Colony” seaside resort Willmore envisioned, it was the genesis of what later became Long Beach.

During the early 1900s, Willmore City became the prime residential district of Long Beach. It began to decline, however, in the years after World War II, when the city expanded eastward.

Many of the Victorian houses that lined the neighborhood’s wide boulevards were razed to make way for tenements. As Long Beach developed into a thriving port city, low-income people flooded into Willmore City.

Property Values Off

In recent years, youth gangs have claimed the region as their turf. As crime proliferated and houses began to deteriorate, property values steadily declined.

But those plummeting prices, along with the proximity to the downtown, have begun to draw the young, middle-class professionals.

Although their numbers may not be great, new arrivals such as Woodbury say they have seen changes for the better already.

“It’s the little changes that I notice, like the fact that local supermarkets have begun to carry lines of better wines,” Woodbury said.

Skelton said he appreciates the eclectic quality of the neighborhood. “I can walk a few blocks and find Vietnamese, Guatemalan and Peruvian restaurants,” he said. “There’re shoe shops and barbershops and anything else you would need, all within walking distance.”

But the paradise is not trouble-free. Residential burglaries have been on the rise in recent months, Woodbury said, and gang graffiti has continued to be a problem.

The newcomers have tackled those problems with the same single-minded determination they brought to their new neighborhood. A Neighborhood Watch program has been organized, and members of the Willmore City Heritage Assn. have spent some Saturdays cleaning up the streets and painting over graffiti.

Gang Activity Down

Such efforts may be helping. Norm Sorenson, a detective on the Long Beach police gang detail, said hard-core gang activity has been declining in the neighborhood.

“They seem to be making some steps forward,” Sorenson said. “The fact that the neighborhood is no longer considered a hot spot for gang activity indicates there has been a positive effect.”

Other obstacles remain to be overcome, however. The deteriorated condition of curbs and gutters, the limited availability of parking space and other problems still plague the area, Wilder said.

“The neighborhood needs a lot more than just a few people restoring houses,” he said. “I give those people the utmost credit, but they need some help.”

Woodbury said the Heritage Assn. perhaps could establish an assessment district in the neighborhood to pay for needed improvements. Skelton would like to see the streets have grassy medians and more space for parking.

Despite the drawbacks, new residents like Woodbury say the urban life is for them.

“With some of the problems, it’s not a neighborhood for the timid,” Woodbury said, “but it makes it easy to be a city dweller and still live in Southern California.”