Ready to Begin Again

It looks like we're on the verge of a breakthrough.

After months of inactivity, the City is finally coming to an agreement with us as to how to move this project forward. So assuming we are able to work out the final details, we might - MIGHT - have our permits this week. Which means we might actually move the second floor of the Cheney Cottage to 62nd Street on Sunday.

The house has suffered during this 9 month hiatus in Albany. We have tried to keep it covered with traps, but water has gotten in. We won't know the full extent of the damage until we get the house back to 62nd Street and put it back together, but we may have to replace floors, do a lot of refinishing, and repair plaster that would not have needed it (if the house had not had to spend almost a year in a field).

But hopefully, it's all behind us now, and we will soon be moving. Stay tuned for the fourth move.

Reflections on Taking a Break

Our lavender truck, taking a well deserved break under the Fall colors

We have been away from the houses the last few weeks, taking a bit of a break as we struggled to resolve the issues with the City of Berkeley. Despite the fact that it is painful for us financially, it has been a good break.

For me, it was somewhat enforced. I had to have surgery to repair a hernia - a minor enough procedure, but painful enough to take me out of the running for over a week. I had the surgery on the day before Thanksgiving, and though I was back at work on Monday, it took me longer to heal than I had thought.

The time off has given me time to reflect on where Tom and I are in our lives. I remember reading "Breakfast of Champions" as a teenager, and one line has stayed with me: Kurt Vonnegut wrote the book as a 50th birthday present to himself, and he said something along the lines of "Turning 50 is like crossing the peak of a roof - having ascended one sdie" I always knew that, past 50, the slow slide down the shingles begins, quickens, and ends with a trip over the gutters and a final face plant on the pavement below.

In my mind, I thought this change would be lessened for me than it is for most. By beginning losing my vision at age 23, I felt I had already addressed the decline that we all get to experience. Somehow, I had gotten there earlier than everyone else, and the increasing infirmities of davancing age would be easily taken in my stride.

But I find that I'm as vulnerable to this as everyone else. My vision has prepared me only to recognize that our bodies change over time, but this surgery has made me start to really see the view down the slope of the roof. It's an amaazing, awe inspriing and terrifying view, all at once. I feel more keenly than ever that who I am, and who my body is, are two very dstinct beings, and that my body is going to take a path that my mind cannot greatly control.

We all get to take this trip down, and it is in many ways a wonderful thing. Feeling the aging of my own body, and seeing Tom dealing with aches and pains that, at times, slow his step, continues to be fascinating to observe. How much worse would it be to confront mortality after having a life of no pain, no disabilities, no limitation? This slide helps us all prepare for that final free fall - it's frightening and beautiful.

The hernia surgery has also reminded me of another important life lesson: at 52, I should stop lifting radiators.

So now we are getting back into the swing of work. Our bond application is moving forward, and we hope to be back moving the Cheney Cottage very soon. As I type, Tom is on 62nd Street, finishing the laborious process of scraping the paint on the front of the Delaney house. I'll go over in an hour or so and put up all the colors we've chosen, so we can see how the house will look.

Soon we hope to have the two houses on the same lot, and electricity and running water restored. Then the real work can begin - the restoration of the Cheney Cottage, and the building of the new first floor for the Delaney House. This blog should go from being my railing against the City of Berkeley's draconian policies to being what I hadhoped it would be: an interesting tale of restoration of these two beautiful houses.

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

The Second Owners

Been a while, hasn't it? Things have not been moving much, so I haven't had a lot to post - but there is progress being made.

Basically, we've had to cave if we're going to get this project done. The City of Berkeley screwed us over - had we known they would be so implacable on the bond issue, we would never have moved the Delaney House back, and simply sold it. But now that we've moved it, we're kind of stuck - we HAVE TO finish this project. So we're proceeding, following the City's rules. But rest assured: the City of Berkeley Permit Center is an evil entity. The Death Star. Darth MacQuarrie rules.

Okay, so enough of that....

We have done a lot of research about the Delaney Family, the first family we know of who owned the house on 62nd Street. The house was probably built in the 1880s, but the first records we have found have been from 1901. So we can only assume the Delaneys owned the house before that - there's no way of being sure.

The Delaneys sold the house in 1947 - but to who?

In our work fixing up the house, stuck behind the wainscoting in the kitchen, we found a negative for an old photograph. We had it developed, and it showed a strong, somewhat stern looking african american woman, sitting on a porch that, although it resembled the Delaney House, was not our house.

Doris Anderson, from whom we bought the house, was really nice to us - waiting while we dealt with all our odd financing, and trusting that we would be successful in purchasing the house. So we wanted to do something nice for her - the negative presented us with the perfect opportunity, and we had it printed and sent her the photograph. We assumed the woman in the photo was her mother.

After receiving the photo, Mrs. Anderson called us, and Tom had a delightful conversation with her - from which he learned a lot of the Thomas family history. Here are his notes on his conversation with Doris:

Belle Dixon

The woman in the picture was not Doris' mother, but was her grandmother, Belle Dixon, at her house in Hearn Texas. She died at the age of 50 not long after the picture was taken in the 50's.

Doris was born in the early 1930's in Galveston. Doris's dad, George Thomas, came west from Texas to join his brother and cousin during the war to work in the Vallejo shipyards. Doris' mother Essie said she'd come west to join her husband if God gave her a sign that she should go. She said, "God, if I wake up at 2 am this morning, I'll take that as a sign I should move west." That night, she woke up at 2 am, and so she packed up Doris and her sister onto a train headed to Oakland. On the way west, Doris was impressed with all the soldiers and sailors, fearing that her sister would be snatched up, but her sister appreciated all the attention.

Doris lived with her folks during the war in a modern duplex in Vallejo. She and her family would visit with her uncle, a porter with the Southern Pacific railroad, who lived on Tyler Street in South Berkeley. Her uncle would take them joyriding around town on weekends. Little did she know that her family was looking for a new home in the neighborhood. Not long after graduating from high school in 1947, on a sleepover visit with friend or family member in West Berkeley, her mom called to tell to wait another week before coming home. When she called back, her mom told her to walk with her bags to 1634 62nd Street. Doris walked up the steps of a strange old Victorian home, and her mom opened the door, surprising her by saying "Welcome home!". After living in a modern duplex, and developing friendships in Vallejo, Doris was very disappointed to move to an old house in Berkeley!

According to Doris, back in the 1940's, 62nd Street was primarily an Italian neighborhood. She recalls only three other black families living on the street back then. After the war, George worked in San Francisco's Playland at the Beach amusement park. Essie raised chickens and Jackson roses (many of the rose bushes survive in the yard). Doris remembers having a chicken for a pet. George only had a 4th grade education, but he was very handy, building duck ponds and chicken coops, and basement bedrooms for Doris and her brother, Preston. Doris' older sister at first lived in the bedroom adjacent to the kitchen, until their aunt who came to live with them displaced her, and then she too moved into a basement bedroom.

Not long after moving to 62nd Street, Doris got married (in 1949) at the Progressive Baptist Church on King St and Alcatraz Ave (two blocks away). Her husband was a veteran, and they decided to move into their own house in North Berkeley on Kains Street. Doris remembers having her wedding reception in the backyard on 62nd street, fearing that the chickens, ducks and roosters would interrupt the festivities, but they were respectful. Doris' new neighbors in N. Berkeley had a parade to welcome her husband back from the war. Despite the warm welcome, he made a point of regularly breaking down and cleaning his infantry service rifle while sitting on the front porch of their home. Doris was too young to recognize that there were race lines in Berkeley at the time. As a young UC Berkeley student told her as part of a college research project, Doris and her husband were among the first racial block busters in Berkeley. Doris still owns the house on Kains, over 60 years later. She has fond memories of joining her family for holiday dinners and neighborhood cookouts on 62nd Street.

Doris worked for the California Youth Authority and moved to Sacramento for work in 1979. Doris' sister passed away in 1979, her mother passed away in the 1980's and her brother Preston passed away in the early 90's. Doris herself is a cancer survivor, and she has three daughters, living in Berkeley, Fremont and San Jose. Preston's house was left to his son, but after he died shortly after his parents, the house passed to Doris, his nearest living relative.

From that time, the house was mostly empty, except of course when the squatter moved in. Doris finally got him out of the house in 2009, and the house was then purchased by us. So it's quite likely that the Delaney House has only been sold twice - once in 1947 and then in 2009.

Despite the City of Berkeley's shenanigans, we still feel lucky to own the Delaney House - and the Cheney Cottage, still in pieces under tarps in Albany Village. Some day, they'll be together, and the history of both houses will continue to be written.

Landmark in El Cerrito?

We are running out of steam. It's been almost two weeks since we sent Joan MacQuarrie the letter that was also posted to the blog. In that time, we have heard..... nothing. Eric Angress said that he has had some good conversations with Berkeley City Councilmember Laurie Capitelli, but nothing has happened. The situation remains unresolved.

Meanwhile, both houses are at risk due to the rain, and the City of Berkeley refuses to do ANYTHING to help. The petty bureaucrats that run the Permit Center are more concerned with their own internal mishegoss than they are with actually preserving houses in this town.

What might have been?

So now, we're thinking: let's give up. We can move the Cheney Cottage anywhere - the City of Berkeley has no control over it, it's out of their jurisdiction. We can find a lot in El Cerrito, and move the house there. We feel confident that there are cities in the area that would love to have such a distinctive and important house moved to a lot within their city limits.

At this point, it is becoming imperative that we get the house moved somewhere and reassembled, and protect it from further damage.

Stay tuned.

Recycling the Old Foundation

The new view from the porch of the rubble that was once the Delaney House's foundation

Today, HIlary brought his bobcat to 62nd Street, and after much work, the old foundation is mostly gone.

Because the house had a brick foundation, we thought that removing the foundation would be easy - we could practically pick it up, piece by piece. But in fact, although the perimeter foundation was brick capped with concrete, the central slab was almost a foot thick in places.

Hilary breaking up concrete with the bobcat

Hilary and Tom spent the day breaking up the concrete and loading two dumpster loads to be taken away. It's still not done - on Monday, Hilary will return to haul off the rest of the pieces and to break up the area that was under the front room. The concrete that was our foundation gets ground up and recycled as aggregate for new concrete projects.

With rain in the forecast, we expect that the new large front yard on 62nd Street will soon become a mud pit, so we'll be going back tomorrow to cover the gaping hole in our yard with plastic.

Next, the surveyors come back to site the Cheney Cottage - we're still optimistic that the Cheney Cottage will actually move to 62nd Street.

More Letters to the City

I like to write letters. I enjoy the act of typing a letter (unless it's a thank you note, which are never typed), putting it in an envelope, and mailing it. I like to write bread and butter notes, the one page thank you letters to friends who have had us to dinner or done something for us. These days, one gets so few opportunities to actually write letters, but I embrace them when they come along.

Emails are a poor substitute, particularly for a Luddite such as myself. But I don't keep my head in the sand: I recognize them as the method of communication of our time, and I am a heavy email user. In my job, I get upwards of 200 emails a day (not counting spam), so I spend a great deal of time responding to email. It is an extremely convenient way of communicating, particularly when working on a massive project like the Ed Roberts Campus, which requires me to have several ongoing conversations at the same time.

As 62nd Street followers will recall, Tom and I asked the City of Berkeley to waive the requirement for a Surety Bond for completing the project. We had even offered to put up a Completion Bond covering a portion of the work. There are several reasons for this: the big one, however, is that we have been bilked out of so much money on permit fees that our cash flow is suffering.

So yesterday, Joan MacQuarrie, the Chief Building Official for the City of Berkeley, let us know that they will not waive this requirement for us. I won't quote her entire email, but her reasoning is that the City is concerned that they may end up with an unfinished and abandoned building that could be a haven to drug dealers and squatters.

Since the house on 62nd Street has been abandoned for 20 years, had a squatter living in it that the City spent years dealing with, and was a refuge for drug dealers, we're not exactly certain what they think we are doing. If a drug house for squatters was the plan, why would we have even unlocked the front gate? That mission was already accomplished.

But this gave me the opportunity to flex my letter writing muscle:

Hello Joan MacQuarrie,

I am responding to the email you sent to Tom today regarding the Bond Waiver Request.

I first want to congratulate you, as you have done something that few people have managed to do: you have offended me. I tend to be pretty thick skinned, but your arguments have offeneed and angered me.

To begin, I am amazed and awed with the City's reasoning that we are being held to the bond requirement because you "had many situations over the years where houses have been left on cribs, the work incomplete, the job abandoned, buildings left unoccupied for the homeless and drug users to squat. The city and the neighborhood end up with blight and an unsafe building and neighborhood." Noble words, but have you not been paying attention? The lot on 62nd Street has been abandoned, neglected, and had a squatter for the last 20 years. There is a video about the building: "Shelter: A Squatumentary" about squatting in the Bay Area (I would be happy to loan you my copy of this video). There were drug problems, shootings, and arrests made at this property.

I would suggest you have a conversation with Officer Spencer Fomby, who I believe is the Beat Sergeant (Berkeley PD) for 62nd Street. When he learned we had purchased the house, he stopped by to tell us that he was "very happy" that someone was finally addressing an ongoing blight problem in the neighborhood. Perhaps you should also speak with our neighbors, all of whom were sick and tired of the squatter, the drug problems, and living next to a boarded up house. They are all thrilled about what we are doing, and sickened by the amount of trouble we are having getting through the City's permit processes.

So your concern is that this property will end up with squatters and as a drug haven - that has already happened. That is so last year. We are here to FIX that problem. If you have spent any time on 62nd Street between King and California, you may notice the beginnings of a renaissance on that block. People are fixing up the houses and developing pride in our block. We are proud to be part of that process.

Let me also clarify that Tom and I are not a corporation: we are two individuals who are passionate about old houses, and have spent years working on houses in Berkeley. We have won a preservation award from BAHA, we have restored several blighted properties, and we are committed to improving our neighborhood (South Berkeley). We are not developers - we are a couple who have raised our children here, who run non profits here, and who have worked diligently to improve the quality of our City.

I'd also like to point out that, as we are not licensed contractors, we are ineligible to obtain a bond. The only way we could do that would be to put up the ENTIRE amount of the improvements in escrow. Do you seriously expect that all Berkeley home owners will do this in the future? If so, you are certainly creating an environment that is unfriendly to home owners, and that will make many many more people do un-permitted work (a big problem in the City already).

If you are so concerned about buildings being left on cribs to deteriorate, I'd also like to invite you to stop by the Gill Tract in Albany, and visit the Cheney Cottage. Because of the City's implacable processes, that house has been sitting there, in two pieces, for 5 months. This is a house that is a historic property, and, had the City allowed us to move it, it would have been well on the way to being restored, it would be providing much needed housing, and it would be a jewel in what has been a blighted neighborhood. Instead, it continues to deteriorate while we wait for the City to allow us to do something good for the neighborhood.

I have said this before, and I will say it again: we are taking a blighted property in a distressed neighborhood, and not only restoring it but also saving an endangered historic building and bringing that house into this neighborhood, to help bring the neighborhood back. The City has done little to help, and has cost us significant amounts of money and delays, which have also caused damage to both houses.

As I believe we have showed time and time again (in our earlier home restorations, in our work to save the Cheney Cottage, in my work on the Ed Roberts Campus), we are "get it done" people. I still cannot understand why the City isn't rallying behind us, cheering us on as we try to do something right for this property and this neighborhood. But I am respectfully asking that you get out of our way, waive the Bond Requirement, and let us get this project done. The neighborhood, and the City of Berkeley, will thank you for it.

Thank you.

Dmitri

I recognize that this blog is at risk of needing a name change: the sub heading might soon have to become "How A Gay Couple in Berkeley Spent Years Raging Against the Machine" It is tedious, right? But we still have high hopes that, before the rains start, we will get the approval to move the Cheney Cottage. We hope that soon, this blog will again be about the process of moving and restoring two historic houses.

We keep waiting.....

An Unobstructed View

The Delaney House, on blocks, with the security gates removed from the windows

With everything mostly on hold waiting for permits, Tom and I are doing a lot of smaller tasks at on 62nd Street. But sometimes, those tasks are extremely satisfying.

Today, we removed all the metal security gates from the windows of the Delaney House. It was a relatively small job (complicated by the fact that the gates were rusted and very difficult to remove), but it had a huge impact on the building. The house without the security gates looks so much better than with the gates, and it appears to fit more into its neighborhood.

Although some people may think 62nd Street is not the best neighborhood in town, few of the houses have security gates on the windows. Mostly, we've found the block is one where neighbors watch out for each other, and where people are relatively safe. We've become increasingly found of our new neighborhood and especially our new neighbors, and removing the security gates not only makes sense for the house, but it makes sense for the neighborhood.

The old foundation is ready to be removed - we are waiting for Hilary to tell us when he'll be there to tear out all the concrete and bricks. We might keep one small piece of it, that we'll use as a pond in the new landscaping.

The first floor of the Cheney Cottage, still waiting in Albany

Meanwhile, in Albany, the Cheney Cottage is still sitting, waiting to be moved. The tarps need to be replaced again, but the house, though dirty and damaged, is still there, still waiting. Maybe it'll move this month.

The view through the living room door to the stairs of the Cheney Cottage, with the second floor missing.

The two halves of our house, with torn tarps, still waiting.