News: San Francisco-based nonprofit org & Bakersfield Adobe house
Andrea Jesse
https://www.sfgate.com/centralcoast/article/bakersfield-adobe-house-demolition-stopped-18330790.php
One man stopped a Calif. home's demolition. Now it's winning awards.
Updated Aug 27, 2023
Bill Cooper doesn’t consider himself a radical, but one morning almost two decades ago, he was walking through Hart Memorial Park in Bakersfield and saw bulldozers and work crews lined up and ready to take down an adobe structure he knew was one of the area’s most significant buildings.
So he stepped up and got in the way.
“I happened to be coming through the park in like 2006, I think,” he told SFGATE during a recent visit to the Hart Park Adobe House. “I got out. I said, ‘What the hell are you guys doing?’ to the contractors.
“They said, ‘We got the contract to knock all these buildings down because they’re dangerous.’ I said, ‘Well, just don’t do anything else.’ I started calling people I knew.”
Cooper didn’t stop there. He was able to secure an emergency lease on the dilapidated building from the county for $1 a year while he pitched the preservation of the now 84-year-old structure.The adobe house, built in 1939 as part of a Works Progress Administration project, housed rangers who worked at the 370-acre park (about one-third the size of Golden Gate Park) set along the banks of the Kern River.
Raising the money to restore and repair the building, which was part of the fabric of Depression-era life in Kern County, was a tough task, Cooper said.
“The county was calling it unreinforced masonry,” he said, referring to the initial challenges the county faced in the effort to restore the building. “I brought this architect up and [the architect] looked at it and said, ‘There’s a concrete foundation. There’s no water damage, there’s no cracks from the ’52 earthquake, there’s nothing wrong with this.’ But the county was resistant, and I lost the lease.”
But Cooper kept fighting for the building and, along the way, enlisted the help of Kern County District 3 Supervisor Mike Maggard, who was a public servant for 30 years before retiring last year.
“We got the lease again,” Cooper said, noting that the effort became part of the Kern River Parkway Foundation. “Maggard told me he would help, and Jeff Flores, who’s taken Mike’s place, said they’d get money. And they got money and rehabbed it. They did a tremendous job.
“It had to be done under state guidelines. They had to hire a historical architect out of LA, and this is what we wound up with.”
Renamed the Kern River Parkway Nature Center, it reopened in May 2022. The building was also chosen by the California Preservation Foundation, a San Francisco nonprofit organization that helps to protect and preserve old buildings in the state, to receive a 2023 Preservation Design Award.
“We have an annual awards program that awards historic preservation projects around the state,” the California Preservation Foundation’s executive director, Cindy Heitzman, told SFGATE. “This year we honor the restoration of a small adobe building in Bakersfield. It’s a building that’s so important to that community, and it also shows what can be done.
“It’s one of those buildings where you look at it and you go, ‘What’s so great about this?’” she added. “But it is historic, and historic preservation is not just about beauty, but it’s about preserving history and community.”
Cooper agreed, noting so many “diamonds in the rough” like the adobe have been overlooked in California, especially the Central Valley.
“Bakersfield is famous for tearing down all its [old] buildings,” Cooper said. “We have this thing where if you can’t pick it up and move it to [the Kern County Museum], you tear it down.”“We saved this one,” he added. “Now, we just have to make it work.”
One of those tasked with making it work is Raeyana Ross, who was hired this year as the new director of the Kern River Parkway Nature Center. She told SFGATE this summer has been one of discovery for area residents, as well as those from outside the region who’ve visited because they’ve heard of the building’s restoration.
“It was set to be demoed, and if it wasn’t for [Cooper] raising awareness, we wouldn’t be here,” Ross said. “So, it’s gone through a lot.”
Ross, who grew up in nearby Lake Isabella, said she always remembers visiting the park on field trips or with family, noting the building that now serves as her office “was boarded up, in shambles.”
“Then I came across an article on Instagram for the new building and the nature center, and so ... I’m here,” she said. “And it’s amazing I’m here.”
Ross said that programs for children are mostly on weekends. They also coordinate with area schools and plan to bring students to the adobe this fall.
“It’s getting kids interested and relearning the skill of being outdoors and co-existing,” she said. “It’s mostly centered around children, but everyone is welcome.”
She said those who do come through are always curious about the building.
“I’m surprised,” she added. “They’ve seen the building in all of its transitions and now having it be open. …We have sort of an open-door policy of being here Friday through Mondays, so people can come in and talk about the building.”
For now, Cooper, who often comes by to tend to the adobe’s landscaping and check after its most notable residents — a pride of Hart Park peacocks who’ve adopted the yard around the refurbished building as their stomping grounds — is happy that he helped get “one place saved.”
Then, he looks across the way and gestures: “You know, there’s an old adobe bathroom, which is kind of dysfunctional. You can see the old WPA stamp right on the curb. Maybe that’s next.”
“It’s one of those buildings where you look at it and you go, ‘What’s so great about this?’” she added. “But it is historic, and historic preservation is not just about beauty, but it’s about preserving history and community.”
