Historical Society, County, City and Church at Odds Over Future of Santa Ana’s Past : Divided on Whether a House Will Stand

The grand dame of Civic Center Drive has been through all this before, the pulling up stakes, the search for a new home, the adjusting to new digs.

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And now, at age 106, she may have to do it again.

The Howe-Waffle house, a lovingly restored Victorian-era home poised amid the clatter of downtown, is once again under siege by the forces of change. The land beneath the home is owned by Orange County, which in its bankruptcy has tired of giving the old dowager a cheap lease.

Sometime soon, the county will sell to the highest bidder.

People are nervous.

“We’re worried it will be torn down,” said Nathan Reed, president of the Santa Ana Historical Preservation Society. “Some of the things here are just priceless.”

The historical society, which uses the house as its headquarters, is trying to scrape together $140,000 to buy the parcel. Reed and his wife, Roberta, are readying a mass of fund-raising letters for just that purpose.

They have competition. The First Presbyterian Church of Santa Ana, which stands next door, is eyeing the land too. The pastor says the church wants only the land and not the mansion--but doesn’t want to pay to move the house either.

“We’re not interested in the house,” the Rev. Leslie Atkinson said.

And that worries Reed and others at the historical society.

They say the society doesn’t have nearly enough money to buy another piece of land and move the house. They fear that if the First Presbyterian Church buys the parcel, and the historical society doesn’t move the mansion, the church will ultimately decide to tear down the Howe-Waffle.

Atkinson said the church has no intention of razing the relic even if the church leadership isn’t sure what it wants to do with the parcel.

“We are not bringing in the wrecking ball and bulldozer,” Atkinson said.

Still, when asked what the church would do if it bought the land and no one moved the house, Atkinson replied: “That’s a good question.”

The home is owned by the City of Santa Ana. Mayor Miguel A. Pulido Jr. said Friday he wanted to help preserve the mansion, but the city does not yet have a plan.

This is not the first time the earth has moved beneath the Howe-Waffle house. Until 1975, the house stood at Bush Street and Civic Center Drive, serving as a boarding house. When the widening of Civic Center Drive threatened, a group of Santa Ana residents moved it to Civic Center Drive and Sycamore Street.

Since then, the Historical Preservation Society has leased the land at no cost from the city (the group pays insurance), which has leased it at no cost from the county.

Since its bankruptcy nearly a year ago, the county has sold many of its assets. The lease underneath Howe-Waffle runs out in February. The county wants to sell.

The Howe-Waffle house is named for the woman who built it, Willella Howe-Waffle, Orange County’s first doctor. Completed in 1889, the two-story mansion is a showcase of the Queen Anne Victorian style, with stained-glass windows, fish-scale shingles, bay windows and high turrets.

The interior evokes the period as well, with hearty tables and chairs, grainy photographs, 19th-Century knickknacks. Dr. Howe-Waffle’s obstetric certificate, dated 1881, hangs on the wall. In the doctor’s office, a brown leather chair recalls the site where the babies were delivered; close at hand is a forceps.

On the shelves stand a bizarre array of bygone drugs and potions: swamp root, chloroform, Spanish bark.

Reed worries it will all be lost. But he has not given up hope. The civic-minded have come through before, and he is hoping they will again.

“If we have to,” Reed said, “we’ll hold a lot of fund-raisers.”