Project: Rehabilitation - conversion residence to retail

Location: Ontario, CA

Date:1994

Quality: Medium

Above: This beautiful Victorian home was lovingly restored to its original condition and now houses a tea shop and craft shops.

Above: Seeing the finished building it's hard to believe that it was scheduled to be demolished for use as a parking lot.

This beautiful example of an Eastlake-style house was in a sorry state, abandoned and derelict, when its current owner first bought it. A lone residential property in an existing commercial zoned street - most people would have demolished the old building and built new.

Luckily, the owner decided to keep the building and restore it to its original condition. Located in earthquake country the first order of business was to reinforce the structure to meet modern commercial standards. As this meant increasing the design live load from 40 psf (pounds per square foot) to 70 psf the floors needed considerable reinforcing. No problem for the first floor, as this could be easily accessed from the existing crawlspace, however, as the first floor ceilings were beautifully ornate plaster, the second floor had to be reinforced from above.

Another challenge was how to reinforce the existing stonework - this was accomplished from the interior to avoid unsightly steel plates and bolts being visible on the outside.

A handicap ramp and toilets were added to the building's rear to bring the building completely into code compliance.