Past and Present
(Published in Inland Empire Magazine — January 2005)
While the multitudes flock to new home developments, there’s a small band of rebels heading in the opposite direction — choosing instead to buy and restore vintage homes.
It’s not an endeavor for the fainthearted. When Ed and Mary Rivas bought a former boardinghouse in Ontario, built in 1884, they were ready to roll up their sleeves — having already restored one home and built another from the ground up. Still, there were doubts, as Mary recalls: “Both of our mothers, when they walked in, started crying: ‘Why would you buy a place like that. Look at all this work!’ They thought we were crazy. But we knew what it would become.”
Eleven years later, 328 East Princeton Street has undergone a makeover that would astonish its former patrons. While retaining its utilitarian simplicity — down to the numbers on the bedroom doors — the Rivas’s have turned a plain jane into a beauty.
They began, literally, at ground level. “We had to put jacks under the house and level it,” says Ed. “Over the years it had settled, in places where the dirt wasn’t properly compacted. We would be running downhill walking to the kitchen.” Routine maintenance had been deferred. “Nothing had been done to the house in 25 years,” Ed recalls. “The walls were cracked. The ceilings were cracked. It had '70s-style carpet.”
New flooring was a must. The Rivas’s chose wide-plank oak for authenticity. They took the same approach with the oak kitchen cabinets, modeled after some photos they saw. Mary had the vision, Ed implemented it. “She told me what she wanted,” he says. “I drew up some pictures and worked together with a cabinet builder. There’s only one like it.” Unique glass doors complement the up-to-date granite countertops.
Classic touches can be inexpensive, as Mary discovered. “We used salvaged items when we could,” she says, pointing out three hanging lamps in the kitchen, recovered from the Claremont Colleges.
Attention to detail is paramount. “All the hardware, the hinges, the slides and the locks we had replated,” Mary recounts. When they had air conditioning installed, they insisted on retaining the original heater grills. That meant some creative duct work. “It’s not as efficient as it should be, because the openings might be a little smaller,” says Ed. Such sacrifices go with the territory.
As would be expected with a century-old house, there’s a wealth of history. Hours spent poring over city records led Mary to some remarkable finds. Some of Ontario’s earliest officials lived there, and at least one well-known writer — Beverly Cleary. “I contacted her, and she was nice enough to write to us,” Mary says, gently leafing through a copy of Cleary’s “The Luckiest Girl.” At the front is the author’s personal inscription to Ed and Mary.
An ineffable bond seems to link past and current residents to the property — and to each other. Ed and Mary discovered the home during a yard sale. Seeing the spacious grounds with the pond, bamboo garden and miniature forest, Mary was sold. “I told my husband, ‘This is the yard that our kids need to grow up in,’” she says. Since then, they’ve gotten to know many of the previous owners.
That sense of continuity is part of the home’s appeal. Nestled in one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, surrounded by 100-foot trees, the property is a refuge — and a link to the past. “We back up to the Graber Olive House,” says Mary, referring to the historic, family-owned landmark that graces north Ontario. “When we first moved here, we met the elderly Mr. Graber. He came to the back fence and said, ‘You aren’t going to tear down the house, are you, and put up condos or something?’” She assured him they would not.
That promise is secure for the foreseeable future. “I think I’m gonna die here,” Ed says. Mary, smiling, echoes that sentiment: “We were meant to be in this house.”
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