EARTHWATCH : Saving Grace : Reusing old structures not only saves energy, it preserves the styles and sentiment of the past.

Who thought we’d ever see those gorgeous Victorian farmhouses again after the orange ranches were leveled for subdivisions? And who ever thought you could turn a gas station corner into a beauty spot--and leave the gas station standing? I don’t suppose any of us thought this sort of thing would be happening, until recently. A combination of congestion, water limits and energy prices mixed with local ingenuity and historical sentiment has resulted in--voila--recycled houses.

It seems we are entering the age of recycled buildings in Ventura County. And you can get a glimpse of the coming era in a rather unlikely place--Oxnard.

Until recently, “progress” meant they tore down the corner gas station and replaced it with a ghastly strip center. Ojai architect Zelma Wilson said phooey to that idea and got the same bang for the buck by “adaptive reuse” of the station, which now forms the center element of a nest of Ojai shops called Friends Market.

Of course, such carryings on are nothing new in Ojai. Wilson formulated what should be the city motto when she characterized the recycling of buildings thus: “Nothing is anything without sentiment.” The other day I discovered that this idea had floated over to Oxnard. And settled on a whole city block there.

Heritage Square is a dream come true. This is not advertising copy, folks, because it’s my own dream. I mean I’ve always wanted to see something like this come true, and the good burghers of Oxnard have actually done it--gathered a bunch of neat old buildings together from here and there and started the town over again.

Zelma Wilson isn’t the only architect in the county with a touch of the poet. Says Nick Deitch of his assignment in Oxnard: “We are in a decade of redevelopment, but people don’t realize it yet. It’s a period of growth without growing, of recycling existing development and not pulling down orchards.”

What Oxnard has done and what I dreamed about is a downtown where real people go to do real things--get their eyes examined, eat with the family or file an insurance claim. Nowadays shopping centers have snared these activities, and everything is cars and paving. I want greenery, benches, eaves, turrets and bay windows again. And I’m going to get it at the corner of 70 and B in Oxnard when they cut the ribbon in May.

You can go by and look at the work under way this weekend. It’s very interesting to see the process. Old buildings have been moved to town from the country to be arranged like things were when our parents were kids (my parents at least). Oxnard redevelopment chief Dennis Matthews, who spearheaded the effort to “turn around downtown” told me, “It’s good that our urban core was not torn down. But it took an effort to demonstrate that something of the past could be used today and doesn’t have to be thrown away and replaced with new.”

By the way, the trend is starting up again in the cities of Ventura and Fillmore. Both are in the midst of civic deliberations to strengthen the “preservation ethic” in building codes, tax policies, etc. The water problem has resulted in a virtual halt to new building and made “rehabs’ more popular.

And nowadays another kind of pressure is on us. By recycling buildings, we save gasoline. Demolition of a house uses 2,000 gallons of gasoline. Building a new one takes 7,000. According to the National Trust for Historical Preservation, recycling can cut these figures by up to 50%.

Apropos historical preservation, there’s always that intangible benefit--sentiment. That attracts people like no shopping mall advertisement ever will. And here’s a sentimental tidbit about Heritage Square. The Pfeiler family were Oxnard mainstays before World War II. Their Italianate farmhouse was a leading example of 1870s architecture in the area. Another Oxnard figure, Lucy Hicks, owned a few cottages in the red light district where she and her colleagues entertained sailors during the war. Here I quote the Heritage Square brochure: “By some quirk of events the Pfeiler house (now) rests almost on the exact location where the houses of Lucy Hicks once stood.”

* FYI

* Oxnard Redevelopment Agency (general information), 984-4624.

* Daum Commercial Real Estate (Heritage Square rentals), 987-8866.