By Hunter Fuentes and Jon Stordahl
We’ve all heard tales about lucky people who accidentally stumble across a buried treasure. In 1991, a man purchased an “ugly painting” at a yard sale for four dollars because he liked the ornate gilded frame. When he removed the old painting, he discovered a rare first printing of the Declaration of Independence, one of only 25 copies. It was sold at auction by Sotheby’s later that year for over $2,000,000. When we hear these stories, we all picture ourselves as the lucky finder rather than the unfortunate seller who parted with a fortune out of ignorance. But we could just as easily be the hapless seller. Obviously, it’s important to know the value of what you’ve got, and that requires information. Oscar Wilde once said, “The answers are all out there; we just need to ask the right questions.”
We started this monthly guest feature in the Indy as part of a larger effort to document and authenticate the architectural pedigree of as many structures in town as we can. This effort involves scouring city building and planning files, meticulously (sometimes monotonously) searching the digital databases of archived historic publications, thumbing through vintage phone directories and speaking with local experts.
Since we live in a home designed by Aubrey St. Clair, we started out focused on developing a portfolio of his work. His projects include the city hall, the downtown fire station, and the water district building. He also designed dozens of private residences and commercial properties. Craig St. Clair, Aubrey’s grandson, was kind enough to share a list of his grandfather’s work that his family had compiled. That became a starting point. Our catalog now includes over two dozen commercial structures and almost sixty homes. During our efforts, we have discovered several properties associated with his practice that were previously not identified. This requires some detective work, luck and, of course, asking the right questions. Here are a couple of examples of the process.
Jane Janz, a native of Laguna, an author and local historian, has been very generous in sharing her knowledge and her incredible archival collection with us. She passed along a page from the Laguna Beach High School 1942 Nautilus yearbook that featured a photo of a truly stunning Streamline Moderne home and a short story about Aubrey St. Clair and his son. In a 1940 edition of the South Coast News we uncovered a reference to a “… large modern California type house” St. Clair designed for James A. Cugno. The yearbook photo matched the description provided in the newspaper. Jane directed us to Jill Thrasher, the head of the Sherman Gardens Library. We asked Jill and her capable assistant, Melissa, if they could locate an address for James Cugno. They found an answer in a 1940 Corona del Mar directory. The Cugno home was at 212-214 Ocean in Corona del Mar. In a 1942 directory, we found a map that placed the 200 block of Ocean in the early 1940s just north of Poppy. We drove down the block, never expecting to find the house still standing, but it was! It has a new street number and is completely hidden, under a remodel that covered the façade in red brick and wood shake, but the basic contours are unmistakable. The house is intact.
In another example, we found a reference to a new St. Clair home in North Laguna in the March 1939 edition of South Coast News. The article, which included a sketch, said the home was being constructed at 135 Crescent Bay Lane for Mrs. Rose Walker. But where is Crescent Bay Lane? Well, a 1945 city directory listed almost three dozen street name changes, providing both the old and new names. The former Crescent Bay Lane is now the lower block of Crescent Bay Drive, the same street we live on. The rest of the mystery was solved by exploring the city records. Ironically, this home is right around the corner from us and, like the Cugno residence, is also hidden under an exterior remodel but remains intact.
The discovery of both these homes feels like uncovering that hidden copy of the Declaration, like finding buried treasure. Of course, there is no auction at Sotheby’s for our discovery, but there is the satisfaction of being able to help ensure that people know the value of what they’ve got.
Hunter Fuentes is a local resident and realtor with Compass in Laguna Beach, specializing in historic architecture. Jon Stordahl has lived in Laguna for over 20 years and is a retired history teacher. You can reach Hunter and Jon at [email protected] and [email protected].
