La Jolla’s oldest structures

This week we look at “a unique opportunity to own a collection of three meticulously restored, award-winning historic homes” in La Jolla’s Barber Tract, adjacent to Windansea Beach.

Home to some of La Jolla’s oldest structures, the neighborhood is named for Phillip Barber, a wealthy New York heir who bought up a swath of land along the coast and sold off French Normandy and English Tudor-styled homes to aspirational San Diegans on newly subdivided lots. Barber’s daughter Florence Buchanan Palmer, one of only four female architects active in San Diego in the 1920s and 1930s, was posthumously awarded a “master designer” designation by the city in 2015.

The properties offered for sale predate Palmer’s career, and all were moved to the third-acre lot at 7210 La Jolla Boulevard from their original construction sites around town.

First up is the Rhoads House, a 1917 craftsman bungalow-style duplex. The home was relocated from Wall Street near La Jolla Cove to its current situation in 1928 by newspaperman Horace Rhoads and converted to a single-family residence. Expanded and updated over the years, it now includes nearly 3100 square feet of living space, with four bedrooms, three baths, and a semi-attached guesthouse.

Five domestically stable decades followed until 1979, when Rhoads’ onetime home was joined by the Galusha B. Grow Cottage — an 1895-built Victorian also known as the Yellow Cottage, with roughly 1000 improved square feet, two bedrooms, and one-and-a-half baths. The house originally served as a vacation cottage for Grow, a downtown banker.

Finally, the Corey House, another Victorian, built in 1909 and the smallest of the trio at an estimated 745 square feet, arrived in 2003. Martha Dunn Corey, the original owner, was La Jolla’s first female doctor and used the property, originally sited a block to the east on Draper Avenue, as both her residence and office.

Collectively known as Heritage Place La Jolla, the residences were the collection of Bob and Patricia Schaelchlin. Mrs. Schaelchlin was also involved in arranging another Heritage collection in Old Town, a seven-acre park featuring seven Victorian homes saved from the wrecking ball and relocated from downtown.

The homes have undergone considerable modernization efforts and feature luxury interior appointments while retaining their historic appearances. The Rhoads residence offers an updated open kitchen with an adjacent dining area seating ten, master suite with private sitting room and sun deck, and refinished exposed-beam ceilings. The Corey home has a covered front porch, vaulted ceilings, and a loft-style bedroom.

All three of the historic properties are currently used as rentals, netting a prospective buyer in excess of $20,000 per month in income. Due to a Mills Act historical designation, property taxes are advertised at just $11,300 annually, corresponding to a value of about $900,000.

It’ll take a bit more than that to land Heritage Place in your portfolio, however. First listed in 2007 following the death of Mrs. Schaelchlin at an asking price of $5 million, the homes have been on and off market for more than a decade without attracting a buyer. The current asking price of $4,350,000 has remained unchanged throughout four listing attempts dating to 2015, including the most recent listing posted in late February.

7210-7212 La Jolla Blvd | La Jolla, 92037

Current Owner: Yellow Cottage LLC | Beds: 7 | Baths: 5 | List Price: $4,350,000