Costa Mesans on a mission to restore mural that reveals rich history of city’s Fairview Park

On a nondescript exterior wall outside a public works yard on Costa Mesa’s Placentia Avenue a mural that tells a story about local history could be lost unless someone can restore it.

Commissioned by the city’s Historic Preservation Committee and completed in 2005, “Home on the Range” takes viewers on a tour, in pictures, through the history and development of the Fairview Park area, beginning with the movement of indigenous people, who in 1500 B.C. settled along the Santa Ana River in a village called Lukup.

The 35-foot painting depicts scenes of Spanish settlement and the Diego Sepúlveda Adobe, a way station built in 1820 for ranchers on long cattle drives from Mission San Juan Capistrano.

It describes the area as a fertile landscape preferred by farmers and agriculturalists for its grassy hillsides.

In the same way the city’s early agrarian lifestyle slowly gave way to modern landscapes, so too the mural segues from farmsteads to roads, bicyclists and a foot bridge spanning Placentia Avenue near Fairview’s Goathill Junction train depot.

Mary Ellen Goddard, left, and Charlene Ashendorf unroll the original drawing for “Home on the Range,” a mural by Costa Mesa artist Peggy Gardner completed in 2005. A working group hopes to hire an artist to restore the faded work.

(Kevin Chang / Staff Photographer)

“This takes a part of town and gives you a time scan of what was happening here,” said Mary Ellen Goddard, who oversees collections of the Costa Mesa Historical Society. “It’s important for people to learn about where they live — it gives them a connectedness.”

“Home on the Range” was originally created by Peggy Gardner, an artist and longtime city resident who’d worked with design firms and been commissioned for several interior murals before her passing in 2013, according to Charlene Ashendorf, who sits on Costa Mesa’s Cultural Arts Committee.

“She really wanted to show the history of our city from its earliest stages and take us all the way to the evolution of where we were at the time,” Ashendorf said of the artist’s intent. “This wall was a perfect opportunity because it’s really about the beginning of the Fairview Park story.”

Direct sunlight and erosion have taken a toll on the mural, which has faded and needs to be repainted if its images are to remain for future generations.

To help bring the painting back to life, the Cultural Arts Committee, Historical Preservation Committee and the Costa Mesa Historical Society in May formed a working group and have raised $7,500 to hire an artist who can restore Gardner’s original design.

“It’s really our responsibility to protect this and keep it alive,” Ashendorf said, adding the importance of selecting just the right restorer. “It’s one thing to find someone to paint a mural, but to restore or renovate someone’s existing artwork really takes a certain skill level.”

Salina Mendoza, a local artist who also sits on the Cultural Arts Committee, said those leading the preservation effort are using the project as a means of expanding upon Costa Mesa’s nonwhite history by learning more from local indigenous tribes with roots in the area.

“We’ve learned there is a version that is closer to the indigenous viewpoint and are still seeking more details here,” Mendoza wrote in an email. “We hope to learn more and provide more history beyond the current story.”

Support our coverage by becoming a digital subscriber.