State Won’t Act to Halt Razing of China House

With the wrecking crew due next week, a California preservation officer touring historic sites in Newport Beach said Monday that the state would not prevent demolition of the city’s pagoda-style China House.

Kathryn Gaultieri of the Office of Historic Preservation, a division of the state Department of Parks and Recreation, said her office was powerless to save the landmark that has graced the entrance of China Cove in Corona del Mar for more than half a century. The Parks Department could buy the land, but because of limited funds and the price of land in Newport Beach, Gaultieri said, the state will not get involved.

“This is a local issue,” she said. “There isn’t much the state can do.”

Gaultieri came down from Sacramento to help the Newport Beach Conservancy begin a survey of historical sites throughout the city. Some of those sites will eventually be registered as historic landmarks to prevent them from facing the fate of the China House, said Lucille Kuehn, co-chairman of the group, which was established in response to the China House threat.

Looks to Future

Kuehn said the group is trying to learn from the past mistake of never formally registering the house to protect it.

While pressure will be applied to the owners of the China House site until the wrecking ball falls, she said, the conservancy is looking beyond that issue and toward “saving what we’ve got left.” The conservancy is asking residents to submit their homes, office buildings or boats for consideration if they think the structures are of historical importance.

The China House on Shell Street and an adjoining lot were bought in 1986 for $1.4 million by Jim and Martha Beauchamp and Ernest and Donna Schroeder, all of Corona del Mar. The Beauchamps plan to raze the Oriental architectural novelty to build a Cape Cod-style house.

The Schroeders received permission from Orange County Superior Court last week to go ahead with their plans to build a country French house on the adjoining lot. The two neighbors adjacent to the lots, Gerald Thompson and Tom Tomson, had filed suit last spring to send the Schroeders back to the drawing board, contending that the Newport Beach Planning Commission improperly approved their project.

Resubmit Project

Had the plaintiffs won, the Schroeders would have had to resubmit their project to the Planning Commission and the California Coastal Commission, Thompson said. He then would have insisted to city officials that they had considered and approved the Beauchamps’ and Schroeders’ plans as a package.

Therefore, both homes would have had to go through the mill again, he said, with the possibility that the couples would give up.