One of Fresno’s ‘rare and amazing’ adobe houses is under threat. Will city protect it?
One of Fresno’s most unique and architecturally significant buildings stands forlornly in the middle of a construction site set back from Shaw Avenue, west of Highway 99.
Parked nearby, almost menacingly so, is a large excavator capable of toppling the historically listed structure with little effort. On the opposite side and further away are 20 newly finished townhomes awaiting their first occupants. Plans call for 100 more.
To untrained eyes, the Garcia Adobe isn’t much to look at. The house is dilapidated and neglected. The front door is missing and so are all the windows. The interior is disheveled, and a small wooden “carport” attached to the back is collapsing.
But local historians perceive something else. They note the Garcia Adobe’s combination of traditional construction methods — two rooms built from adobe bricks with mud mortar and one made from chunks of hardpan with traditionally fired bricks set into the walls and window frames — and see a valuable piece of San Joaquin Valley history dating to the 1920s.
“That’s how working-class people built back then — with whatever they could find,” said Karana Hattersley-Drayton, Fresno’s historic preservation project manager from 2002-16. “This is a rare and amazing building, and I am fearful for it.”
“It’s the last example we have of that building type,” said Robin Goldbeck, vice chair of the city’s Historic Preservation Commission. “The other one we had left was destroyed, and we want to avoid the same thing.”
The Garcia Adobe was constructed between 1923 and ’37 by Jose Garcia, a laborer and friend of Baldassare Forestiere whose famous underground gardens are less than a mile away. It was formally evaluated (under the name “Brewer Adobe” after the subsequent land owner) by two surveys in the mid-1990s as part of the Highway City Neighborhood Specific Plan and placed on the Local Register of Historic Resources in 1997.
As development closed in, subsequent years haven’t been kind to the Garcia Adobe. It has been vandalized, cannibalized for materials and, according to a 2011 report by Hattersley-Drayton, used as a site for illegal cockfights.
In 2006-07, the building was included within the project footprint of a proposed subdivision and approved for use as a storage facility with the written understanding it would be protected and a historical exhibit prepared. However, the subdivision was never built.
In 2019, the developer of Casa di Fortuna resurrected the project and, according to a site plan approved by city officials in April 2020, agreed to four mitigation measures regarding the Garcia Adobe.
They are: maintain a 50-foot buffer so that new construction does not impact the building; continuously abate weeds around the building; create (in tandem with the city) an interpretive panel about the history of the adobe and Highway City; and design and construct an interior frame to stabilize the building against the wind and seismic forces.
“This will be completed during Phase 1 of construction,” the measure concludes.
Permission to demolish adobe denied
Phase 1 at Casa di Fortuna is finished. Yet there’s no sign of an interior frame stabilizing the Garcia Adobe. Furthermore, the presence of the backhoe as well as metal storage bins stationed nearby suggest the 50-foot buffer isn’t being respected, either. (The structure cannot be moved without risk of crumbling, Hattersley-Drayton said.)
Most concerning to members of the Historic Preservation Commission is the fact that the developer, Mazen Al-Hindi, recently requested — and was denied — permission to demolish the building.
Which doesn’t exactly suggest builders are serious about following the steps designed to protect the Garcia Adobe, much less highlight its historical value.
“It really does seem like a situation where they’re looking for it to fall down so they don’t have to deal with this,” HPC member James Sponsler said during the Nov. 22 meeting.
Fellow HPC member Don Simmons took it a step further in a separate interview, noting a sizable hole in one wall that appears to be fairly recent.
“There’s hole in the building that wasn’t there in 2019 — it looks like a forklift or frontloader or something hit it,” Simmons said. “So we know the building is being slowly damaged by everything going on around it.”
Al-Hindi did not return messages. An employee who answered the number listed for Casa di Fortuna replied to questions about the development, but could not speak to specific plans for the Garcia Adobe.
‘Secured’ by a flimsy plastic fence
During the November HPC meeting, Assistant Planning Director Mike Sanchez told members he shared some of their concerns and requested the subdivision’s builders “secure” the structure.
“Despite the perimeter fencing and 24/7 security, I still want that extra layer of protection for that building,” Sanchez said.
When I visited the site on a recent Sunday morning, I encountered no perimeter fencing nor any security guards. And the Garcia Adobe was “secured” by a flimsy plastic fence.
Sanchez told HPC members that if developers don’t comply with agreed-upon mitigation measures, the planning department could withhold Casa di Fortuna’s occupancy permit.
“That’s the one hammer we have left,” he said.
Simmons, the HPC’s longest-tenured member, questioned the original wisdom of including a historic building inside a gated community accessible only to residents.
“If you’re going to have a historic structure on your property, then highlight it,” he said. “Make it integral to the project. Don’t plan the project and hope that the building gets destroyed.
“I think that was their idea: ‘The building’s not going to last much longer, so we’ll build around it as if it’s not there.’ ”
The Garcia Adobe has not been cared for and lacks visual appeal. No famous people ever lived there. But as a link to our region’s history, the building has much to tell us. That is, if we care enough to listen.
This story was originally published December 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
