Plans afoot for Hoag House replica in SR

Thirteen years ago, it took a truck and flatbed trailer to haul theHoag House, Santa Rosa's oldest wood-frame home, to its new home onthe city's eastern outskirts. Plans to develop the surrounding site with a retirement communityeventually fell through, leaving the now 152-year-old home to rotaway, encircled only by a cyclone fence as it sat in the midst of aweed-strewn field. Today, there is a new plan to save the Hoag House, or at least amemory of it, as the search for a permanent home moves forward. But what's left of the home would more handily fit into the back ofa pickup. Some wall studs, pieces of exterior clapboard siding, decorativegingerbread attachments, some arched doorways and a picket fenceare the only salvageable pieces left of the 660-square-foot home,said civil engineer Richard Carlile. He and his wife, Lynn, gainedownership of the home when the developer of the failed retirementproject deeded it to them. "Maybe 10 percent," said Carlile, estimating what's worth savingfrom the home. The materials could be incorporated into alook-alike Hoag House -- a "visual reminder," according to a cityreport -- he hopes to have built within Prince Memorial Greenway,just across Santa Rosa Avenue from City Hall. Despite its severely deteriorated status, architecturalpreservation consultant Donald Dakan, who prepared a report inJanuary on the condition of the Hoag House, said last week itshistoric value outweighs its minimal salvageability. "Absolutely. It is the city's oldest wood-frame structure, andwhatever's left is worth saving because of its intrinsic historicalvalue," he said. The push to preserve the Hoag House has come mainly from Carlile,who has been the driving force behind efforts to save it the past15 years. "It seems our history wasn't being preserved," he said, noting theHoag House "has moved around like an orphan" since it was uprootedfrom its original lot near 1st and B streets 24 years ago. Its new Prince Memorial Greenway home is at the northwest corner ofSanta Rosa and Sonoma avenues, just a block from where the HoagHouse was built in 1856. The Carpenter Gothic style home, identified by steeply pitched roofand gables and gingerbread ornamentation, was moved from itsoriginal location in 1984 to make way for a redevelopment proposal. Besides damage caused by weather and age, the home's roof wasmostly destroyed by a 1983 fire, a year before it was moved to thecity's corporation yard for safekeeping. It stayed there until 1995, when Carlile convinced developers tohaul it seven miles across town to become an interpretive centerwithin a proposed retirement community. Those development planseventually fell apart, and the home has remained in a meadow nearAnnadel State Park ever since. Carlile hopes that work can begin on the Hoag House replica asearly as this fall. "If you had to build the guts of this thing as a restoration, itwould be a lot more tedious, time-consuming and costly," saidCarlile. He estimated the price tag for a full restoration couldeasily exceed $1 million. A replication using new but matching materials could run as littleas $100,000 to $200,000, costs Carlile is hoping to offset throughdonated labor and materials from builders and contractororganizations. Assistant City Manager Marc Richardson, who heads the city'sRecreation and Parks Department, said a re-created Hoag House wouldbe put to good use once final design plans are approved by thecity's Design Review and Cultural Heritage boards. Among proposals being considered are using the home as a coffeeshop or cafe, as an informational center or as a place to rent outbikes to those who want to travel along the Prince MemorialGreenway and miles of bike trails that line the adjacent Santa RosaCreek. Richardson said the city likely will build a separate230-square-foot building to house restrooms on the nearly half-acresite. The Hoag House is among 12 city-designated landmarks, including theCarrillo Adobe, which also has been granted state landmark status. Most of the adobe has disappeared, mostly because of weather, sinceit was built in 1837. All that remains are two partial mud-brickwalls on a weed-covered lot on Montgomery Drive next to St.Eugene's Cathedral. A roof was erected over the adobe in 1991 toprevent further decay. There have been sporadic efforts to save it as well. Preservationof the adobe was part of an adjacent $40 million residentialdevelopment project approved by the city in 2005, but the workhasn't proceeded because of the downturn in the housing market. Dakan, a former member of the city's Cultural Heritage Board, saidthe city has plenty of laws, neighborhood designations and theCultural Heritage Board to help preserve history. "The public process is there to encourage and support preservation,but it relies on private endeavors to carry them forward, to do theremodeling and restoration," he said. "That is not the city's job."