Historic Queen Anne Home in CA Faces Demolition

Redman House, Watsonville California

Date added: April 10, 2025

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James Redman was a prosperous Watsonville farmer who desired a fine, high style residence to display his wealth to his peers in Watsonville, and he trusted that William Weeks would deliver a functional yet architecturally stunning residence within his budget. Weeks' advertisements at the turn of the century stressed the most design for the money:

"Don't build before you see my latest home designs strictly up-to-date costing $150 per room and upwards; guaranteed estimates furnished. I can give you the best work for the least money."

James Redman was the son of Kendrick Francis Redman, one of the original Santa Cruz County Pioneers who worked as a farmer in Watsonville after his arrival there in 1865. K.F. Redman profited from his crops of sugar beets and potatoes, and his son, James, also became a successful farmer in Watsonville.

The Redman family came to the Pajaro Valley from Missouri when James was nine years old. There were several siblings in the Redman family, with at least two dying when the family crossed the plains to California. Upon arrival in Watsonville, K.F. Redman took up farming while the family lived in a small house on Brennan Street. In 1870 the Redman family moved to a ranch about 1 1/2 miles from Watsonville, along the Pajaro River.

James Redman moved to the 120-acre property where his grand house would be built in 1882. He had married Miss Louise Werner two years prior, and the two of them began what would become a successful farming operation on their property. His farm was described as having raised an average of fifteen tons of potatoes and sugar beets per acre in 1902. James Redman also had an 81-acre orchard in Monterey County.

Four years after purchasing the property, James Redman hired William Weeks to design a home for his family, in 1896-7, and the building contract was given to Will Porter with the lowest bid of $3,368. Unfortunately, Porter hastily left town and the local firm of Lamborn and Uren, who had an original bid of $3,843, finished the construction. The house and property was described in a biography on James Redman in the History and Biography of the Central Coast in 1903:

"As the traveler passes along the Beach Road near Watsonville, he notes with interest an attractive residence, built in the colonial style of architecture and presenting an appearance at once inviting and unique. This is the home of James Redman and family. The interior of the house is as attractive as its interior. The appointments of the eight rooms are modern. The finishings are of eastern oak, birds-eye maple and natural hardwood. Acetylene gas has proved to be a satisfactory mode of illumination. All the conveniences for housekeeping are to be found, and the home is one that would be considered elegant in our large cities.

Acetylene gas was probably necessary in the Redman house because it was not located within the Watsonville City limits, and therefore probably was not attached to any city gas systems. This description portrays the recognized austerity of such a house located amidst a farm outside of the City. The Redman house was surely a landmark to Watsonville residents at the turn of the century, and remains as such today.

James Redman and his wife adopted a daughter, Alice Mary, but never had children of their own. Louise passed away in May 1912 after an affliction of "mistral stenosis, an affliction of the kidneys." Redman appears to have married again in June of 1915, to Ella Woody. James Redman died in 1921 at the age of 64, with the local papers hailing him as "a keen and energetic farmer, resourceful and capable, and it was said of him by his acquaintances that the county had no agriculturalist more enterprising as he."

The Hirahara Family

The Redman House was sold to J. Katsumi Tao by auction after Ella Redman's death in 1937 for $69,575. There has been no information discovered about the Tao family, and the property was sold again to Fumio Hirahara in 1940 for a mere ten dollars. The Hirahara family lived in the house from 1937 to the mid-1980s, a longer span than the Redman family. Although the Hirahara family has been reluctant to share information regarding their family history, it has been discovered through public records how the family was able to keep their property while they were held in internment camps during World War II. An article appeared in the Santa Cruz Sentinel on April 18^th, 1943 that read,

"John L. McCarthy, Watsonville attorney, was granted permission in Superior Court to act as guardian for an 'American-born Japanese, a minor, who is in a relocation center. Order permits McCarthy to borrow a sum of money not to exceed $50,000, payable on or before ten years after the date with interest at five percent, to execute notes, with deed of trust and crop or chattel mortgages required by the lender."

Further research at the Santa Cruz County Recorder's Office unearthed a series of tax lien notices issued to various Hirahara family members in 1942 and 1943. An assignment of chattel mortgage was also found in May of 1943 under the guardianship of John McCarthy. This chattel mortgage was released in October of 1943.

An annual report filed under John McCarthy's name with the Santa Cruz County Recorder's office revealed further information regarding McCarthy's guardianship of the Hirahara property. It appears that McCarthy was paid $184.60 for ordinary fees as guardian and $4,000 for extraordinary services. In addition, a man by the name of Manuel Souza be paid $500 as a bonus. No further details regarding the relationship between the Hirahara family and John McCarthy is known. After the War, the family returned to Watsonville and continued farming the land until the early 1980s.

The Hirahara family sold their remaining property to Hare, Brewer and Kelley, incorporated, in 1982. There was an interesting provision written into the deed allowing for Teyo Hirahara to remain in the house until either her death, infirmity requiring long-term hospitalization, or her choosing to move elsewhere. Teyo Hirahara was the last person to inhabit the house. Watsonville Polk Directory research reveals that the house was inhabited by Teyo Hirahara in 1983 and by 1986 the house on Beach Road is listed as vacant.

Since Teyo's departure from the residence, the house at 1635 Beach Road has stood empty and has been left to deteriorate. The 13 acres of land surrounding the house has been leased out to farmers and continues to be farmed mainly for strawberries, which remains a dominant crop in Watsonville.

The Redman House Today

The Redman house stands amidst 13 acres of viable farmland directly off of Highway 1 just outside of the City of Watsonville as a reminder of the agricultural history of the area. The house was designed in Weeks' signature Queen Anne style of architecture and includes applied plasterwork, rough hewn stone foundation, decorative shingling on the wall planes, false dormer windows, and a witch's hat roof over a rounded corner tower. These elements can be found in the grandest of Weeks' residential homes, including the Judge Julius Lee house on Beach Street and the Tuttle house on East Lake Avenue. The three homes, although varied in size and utility, all contain these similar elements, and are important examples of Weeks' contributions to residential architecture during his early career.

The Redman house, as it is popularly known today, has faced two difficult decades while it has been under the ownership of developers Green Farm LP. Original intentions to raze the house and develop the property for visit, and an array of locally grown products including wines. The mission of the Redman Foundation to restore the house for commercial use was thwarted by the County of Santa Cruz because the land is zoned for agricultural use, and the house has sat unoccupied while several development options were proposed.

In the year 2000, the owners entered into an agreement with the Redman Foundation, a non-profit group formed to save and restore the Redman house. The agreement would have allowed the foundation to eventually buy the parcel and restore the house.

The Redman Foundation has been working for three years to create a viable use for the property that would include both commerce and agriculture, because as currently zoned, the majority of the property must continue to be used for agricultural purposes. The Foundation has created a business and restoration plan for the property to be used as an information center for the Central Coast region, including the Pajaro Valley, for both local residents and tourists who drive by on Highway 1. The center will offer a history of the region as well as information on activities and places to Redman House and maintain it for future generations as a symbol of Watsonville's agricultural roots in the state of California.

Unfortunately the restoration efforts have failed, and the home has deteriorated further.

History of Watsonville

The Redman house, as it stands amidst a large field of strawberries, serves as a beacon of the history of Watsonville and the Pajaro Valley, as this area's roots lie in agriculture. The town of Watsonville was laid out on the eastern portion of the Rancho Bolsa del Pajaro, granted to Sebastian Rodriguez in 1823. The area became settled in the following decades with shanty-type buildings and wood plank sidewalks. A man by the name of Judge John H. Watson from Georgia, either legally or illegally, gained a claim on this easternmost parcel of land and laid out a town that would later be called Watsonville, in 1851.

During Watsonville's early years, many Spanish settlers remained and their cattle roamed nearby and often would graze in the square that would become the town Plaza. Sidewalks were formed by wood planks, and many of the streets were named after prominent citizens.

Land began to be leased in Watsonville to grow crops in 1851, mostly with potatoes during the "potato rush" that fed the 49ers up in the gold country. Once the bottom fell out of the potato market, people began planting sugar beets, apple orchards and various fruits and berries. 20,000 acres of crops were being cultivated by 1878 that included pears, almonds, olives, oats, corn, hay, grapes, and sugar beets. Santa Cruz County was a large producer of sugar, with the largest sugar factory in North America, Spreckels Sugar, located in Watsonville.

The first election in Watsonville's history was to elect a justice of the peace in 1852. A board of supervisors was created in 1866, and in 1868, the Watsonville city government was formed. The town plaza was created in 1860, and the first bandstand was constructed in the Plaza in 1880. William Weeks was responsible for the redesign of the Plaza and bandstand in 1906.

The city of Watsonville was connected to nearby towns such as Santa Cruz and Monterey by stagecoach originally, and transportation to and from Watsonville greatly improved when the train was extended to Pajaro in 1871, at which time the population of Watsonville had topped 2,000 residents. The town began to expand as homes were built first around the Plaza and then moved out along neighboring streets. The Mansion House hotel, which remains as an omnipotent presence along Main Street today, was built in 1871.

The 1880s and 1890s were prosperous decades for beet farming that peaked after Claus Spreckels built a beet processing mill (designed by William Weeks) on 25 acres of land near Walker Street in 1887. Spreckels enticed local farmers to grow sugar beets to be processed in his mill. At the peak of the sugar beet boom in 1892, 2,937 acres of land had been dedicated to the crop with over 1,000 tons of beet sugar produced. This was the largest crop with the highest percentage of sugar, and was the financial backbone of Watsonville. Of course, crop booms always seem to burst in the end, and thus was true for the sugar beet crop, which busted in the late 1890s.

As the sugar beet industry declined, farmers took up many other crops that did well in the mild climate of the Pajaro Valley. These included strawberries, raspberries, apricots, and apples. In fact, Watsonville, once known as the "Sugar City," became known as the "Apple City" in a matter of years. Apple production in Watsonville expanded in large part because of the Slavic immigrants who had settled in the area. Known as Slavonians, many of these people came from Dalmatia in the 1870s. The Slavonians developed an efficient system of growing, packing and marketing the apples that included setting up contracts with packing plants before the apple harvest, known as "apple futures," and they created an extensive network, selling apples throughout the United States. Apple farms are still a popular crop in Watsonville, and is home to the famous Martinelli's sparkling apple cider.

Later crops grown in Watsonville were pears, plums, prunes, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, flower bulbs, and cut flowers. Watsonville and the Pajaro Valley are also famous for their artichokes, which were first farmed in the area by Italian immigrants who recognized the cool, mild temperatures as perfect for growing this crop.

Redman-Hirahara house facing final chapter

Building Description

The Redman House is a two-story Queen Anne style residence with an asymmetrical plan. The house has a compact verticality to it as it sits in its original setting amidst a field of strawberries. The house appears to be at least 2 1/2 stories, but is really only two stories with windows placed in the attic to fool the eye. The property is bounded by Beach Road to the east, Riverside Road to the west, Lee Road to the south and Highway 1 to the north. The Redman farm originally extended eastward to the Pajaro River, but in later years the land was sold off, and now the house sits on thirteen acres of strawberry fields, highly visible from the highway. The house has stood vacant since the early 1990s and was at one time threatened with demolition; the house appears to be in poor condition from the exterior but it is structurally sound.

The elevations of the house are highly detailed. Each facade is composed of a myriad of projecting and recessing elements, with large gables projecting over three-sided bays, a corner tower whose dome creeps around the roof eaves, wrap-around porches, and recessed balconies.

The detailing is as diverse as the elements composing the facades. The architect used geometric patterning in the wall shingles to add an extra measure of character to the facades. Other details include both Corinthian and ionic columns supporting the porch roofs and window hoods. Floral plaster friezes appear in gable ends and on various wall panels. Eastlake brackets and dentils embellish stray corners and eaves.

The house is sheathed with shingles above the first floor, with sporadic patterns of textured shingling cropping up on any available wall panel. Windows are treated with much the same eclectic selection and include a variety of designs such as beveled panes, plain double hung and fixed pane windows.

The north elevation is one of the most detailed and visible elevations, as it would have been viewed from people traveling to and from Watsonville. Currently it is visible from cars passing on Highway 1. This facade contains the two-story rounded tower and the main facade of the wrap-around porch with decorated columns. The gable roof on this facade has a decorative plaster frieze at the eave line. The gable roof at the main entrance to the house to the right of the porch has a similar plaster frieze at its eave. This decorative plasterwork is also found along a band running around the corner tower separating the first from the second floors. Both the circular wrap-around porch and corner tower have domed roofs, each capped with decorative spires. The dome over the porch disappears into the facade of the house and a roof gable, incorporates a hint of a cap at the top as it fades into the eave line. There are four decorative scroll-shaped brackets above the paired columns at the gabled entrance to the house. The upper half of the double-hung wood windows on the corner tower includes a decorative pattern in the glass. The second story presents a recessed balcony, off-center from the first-floor entrance, which contains two Corinthian columns and a small decorative balustrade. The door out to this balcony is centered between the columns. Between the balcony and the rounded tower, there is a large diamond of shingles inset into the regular pattern of shingling on the second story. The eaves have small dentilations along this facade until they intersect with the corner tower, which has larger, widely spaced dentils with the smaller dentils between them.

The false third or half-story on this elevation features a large sectioned window flanked on each side by a pair of ionic columns. The window is framed with a decorative wooden band along the bottom, with baluster banding running along the bottom of the window. A shallow shed roof with one bracket on each side is set atop the window.

The south and east elevations of the house are less intricately detailed than the two main facades, as these would not have been as visible to the public. The south elevation has a projecting bay near the middle of the elevation with a gabled roof over the false half-story window. The corner turret wraps around to this elevation, and there is a porthole window with a decorative cornice at the second story just west of the projecting bay. Adding subtle playfulness to the design, the roof cornice has small dentilations, and the wall plane at the second story has interesting zig-zag bands of shingles, one row of small zig-zags at the floor line of the second story, and a larger row of zig-zag shingles at the window line. Toward the rear of the house, there is a small eyebrow dormer set into the roof to add to the assumption of a third story.

The rear elevation is plain and unadorned, with no applied ornamentation save for a band of zig-zag shingling that runs around the bottom of the window line. The rear gable has a half-pediment cornice and two mismatched windows at the second story, one of which must have been a later addition. The first floor includes a half-enclosed porch area with a rear entry door. The farm-hands would have entered the house through the rear door to eat meals in the rear kitchen-dining area.

The interior of the house is relatively intact and original, minus the losses incurred through vandalism in the time since the house has become vacant. The front entry door at the north elevation leads into a main central hall, with the rounded room to the right and the main staircase leading to the second story on the left. The room has what is assumed to be the original wallpaper running up half the wall to a high band of woodwork. The ceiling is beamed and all doors are surrounded with heavy woodwork with scrolled details so that the room has a Tudor-Revival feeling. The round room to the right has a fireplace with a surround that has been stolen. The woodwork around all entryways in the public rooms in the house are the same as those in the front hall. Behind the rounded front room is a parlor, and this is the only room with relatively intact plasterwork with the chandelier surround still extant. All other chandelier surrounds have been lost to vandalism. There is also a plaster picture rail running along the top of the walls.

To the left of the parlor and directly behind the front hall is the dining room. A false front built in cabinet is at the south side of the room toward the rear of the house with a pass-through feature to the rear dining room. A small door at the right of the dining room leads into the kitchen area. To the left of the kitchen area and directly behind the formal dining room, is a large area surmised to be where the farm-hands and family ate daily meals. This room is spartan and has a rear stairway leading up to the second story.

The main front stairway has a wonderful hardwood stair-rail with a carved newel post at the landing. There is a window seat at the landing as well. The second floor contains four bedrooms and one bathroom, the only bathroom in the house. Three of the bedrooms are unadorned, while the master bedroom suite is more decorative. The suite is situated toward the southwest side of the house and includes the rounded room. In all, the suite consists of three rooms, one of which is long and narrow and opens onto a small deck at the west side of the house. This could have been a dressing or closet area. The rounded room and the room behind would have been used as a sleeping room and a sitting area. The last occupant of the house used the rounded room as the bedroom.

The house appears not to have had any apparent alterations since its original construction, save for the possible alteration of the windows on the rear elevation of the house. Although the condition of the house has significantly deteriorated over the years from lack of maintenance, all original details and exterior elevations remain as they were constructed.

There are four outbuildings on the property, including what appears to have been a barn that was built around the time that the main house was constructed. The other buildings include a small garage, a residence, and a mobile home.

According to the Assessor's Records supplied by the County of Santa Cruz Assessor's office, the barn was estimated to have been built around the year 1900. It appears that the original barn, which is one and one half story with an attached lean-to element, was added on to over the years with an open carport type structure and an open one-car garage. The original structure is in very poor condition with vegetation growing up the entire open side of the structure and many boards missing from the entire structure. It is surmised that this structure would have been used as part of the farming practice of the owners of the property, however, this is unknown. The dates of construction of the later additions is also unknown.

The single-story stucco second residence on the property appears to have been constructed during the 1950s and is a simple one-story rectangular structure with a hip roof and aluminum frame windows.

The mobile home, which measures 20 feet by 48 feet and is located to the west of the 1950s residence. The estimated date that the mobile home was placed on the property was in the early 1990s.

The garage or tool shed structure located directly behind the Redman House appears to have been constructed around the time that the Redman House was originally constructed, as it includes very wide vertical wood planks on the exterior. The simple side gabled structure has a modified doorway and is entered by the south side of the building. It has been overrun with ivy and other vegetation is in poor condition. It appears to have been repaired in the past with available materials and has been altered. Today it is used to store tools and junk.