Plans for Altadena Town Hall Move a Step Closer to Reality

Plans to relocate and convert a Victorian house for use as Altadena’s Town Hall advanced Thursday when Los Angeles County supervisors approved a commercial and residential development on the home’s present site.

The 99-year-old residence, known as the Hawkins House after the family whose members have lived there for many years, sits on a 1.47-acre parcel of land on which developer Jonathan Webb of Nottingham Ltd. wants to build commercial buildings and condominiums.

Before clearing the site for development, Webb plans to donate the 6,000-square foot, two-story house to the Altadena Town Hall Steering Committee.

“We’d like to move it as soon as possible,” Webb said. “We think we can move it in one piece. We don’t have far to go and we don’t have many overhead wires.”

But first, $265,000 must be raised to move the house from 1955 Lake Ave. to a site about a mile away on El Molino Avenue between the county sheriff and fire stations. The steering committee will schedule a kickoff fund-raiser at the house before it is moved, Webb said. The effort could begin in 30 days, he added.

“We are going to have a big gala where the community can come and see our dream,” said Geri Gauthier, head of the town hall committee. “This is a wonderful step forward for Altadena. We want the house to be a focus of the town, a cultural center, an information center and a historical center.”

Gauthier said the house will be relocated to a lot with a large, Morton fig tree, next to the Woodbury House, an 1882 Victorian that is the oldest home in Altadena.

Nottingham Ltd. will contribute $20,000 to help move the house and has pledged to raise $30,000 more. Meanwhile, $50,000 was pledged by developer Tim Cantwell, who recently received county approval for the unrelated, 272-unit La Vina housing development. Cantwell has promised to provide an additional $100,000 for moving the house if the steering committee matches the amount.

“We’ve got a lot of money to raise and an awful lot of work to do,” Gauthier said. “How do I feel? Panicked!”

It is the community’s most ambitious fund-raising effort ever, Gauthier said. And the costs of moving the house do not include the unknown expenses for overhauling it to use as a town hall, she added.

She also said that the Cantwell contribution may be thrown into limbo because of a lawsuit filed last month in Superior Court against the La Vina project.

The 15-member town hall group received its first peek at the interior of the privately owned house last week and discovered that the entry hall and two side parlors had been kept in pristine, Victorian condition. The rest of the home was fairly utilitarian, Gauthier said, which would suit its role as meeting hall, Chamber of Commerce office and historical museum.

Work on the town hall project began more than a year ago after Webb approached the Town Council with the idea of donating the $325,000 Victorian home. In its place, Webb proposed building a 6,800-square-foot commercial building fronting Lake Avenue and seven independently standing condominiums on a lot around the corner on Sacramento Street.

His project won the support of the Town Council, the council’s Land Use Subcommittee, the Altadena Chamber of Commerce and the Lake Avenue Business Standards Committee. Still, some residents protested that the project would bring increased traffic. They also objected to the commercial development, calling it an unneeded mini-mall, and argued that the condominiums would not blend well with single-family homes in the neighborhood.

However, after county planners determined that the development would not appreciably increase traffic and that the commercial and residential development complies with zoning in the area, supervisors approved the project.

Building plans must now be submitted for approval, a process that could take at least six months before construction begins, Webb said. Escrow closed on the purchase of the Victorian several weeks ago. Purchase price for the home and an adjacent lot was about $860,000, he said.