Lawsuit over fair price of house settles

Kenneth Ma

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- A family who has lived in the same home since 1939

will hand it over to the city in September, following the end of a

long-standing eminent domain case.

The four-bedroom house holds many memories for Elizabeth Rohrig Benge

Pickelsimer and her family, who spent generations in the California

Craftsman-style home at Yorktown Avenue and Delaware Street.

The home’s future fell into question in 1996, when the city decided it

needed to buy it and other property to widen Yorktown. At first, the

family refused to sell the home because of its sentimental value. But

later that year, the family acquiesced, citing a need for retirement

money, and affirmed the city’s right of eminent domain -- meaning the

city could force people to sell for fair market value..

After a city-funded appraisal, $275,000 was offered for the house. The

offer was far below the home’s market value, said Diane Lenning,

Pickelsimer’s daughter and a possible candidate for City Council.

The family asked an Orange County court to decide on a fair price for

the home. State eminent domain law allows the property owner to have a

court decide on the property’s value if the owner believes an offer is

unfair.

In July, an Orange County Superior Court judge awarded the family

$59,700 for legal fees in addition to the $135,000 the judge added to the

original offer of $275,000 in January. That made the final selling price

$410,000.

The city is set to take over the property Sept. 21.

“I think it is terrible because I planned to live my life out in that

home,” said Pickelsimer, 76. “The house has been my whole life. I raised

my family there.”

But Pickelsimer’s plans took a detour in 1999, when she married Ernest

Pickelsimer, 80, and moved to Buhle, Idaho.

Lenning, who grew up in the house, said she would like to see the city

preserve the 7,500-square-foot house -- built in 1912 -- instead of demolishing it.

“I would like to see them keep it a historical house,” she said.

But City Historian Alicia Wentworth disagrees, saying the house has

been a nuisance for motorists rather than a historical treasure for the

city.

The home “is a visual impairment for driving because you cannot see

contra flow [traffic] on Yorktown when making right-hand turns from

Delaware onto Yorktown,” Wentworth said.

The city began its Yorktown widening project without buying the home,

creating incomplete improvements.

Wentworth said the home is not unique to the city because there are

other homes from the same era in the city, but she said she understands

its importance to the family.

The city plans to demolish the house to make way for road and gutter

improvements to complete the Yorktown widening project, city spokesman

Rich Barnard said.

“The goal is to provide [better] traffic and pedestrian circulation

there,” he said.