Planned demolition of La Jolla house once owned by key Yellowstone figure saddens local historian

The planned demolition of a house in La Jolla’s Village once owned by Harry Child, credited with the early development of and public access to Yellowstone National Park, is again raising concern about how much consideration the city of San Diego gives to potentially historic properties.

An application was filed with the city this month seeking to demolish the 4,196-square-foot two-story house at 1424 Olivet Lane. The property then would be subdivided into four parcels to build four separate two-story houses of approximately 6,800 square feet each. Each home would be built over a subterranean basement and include an attached garage.

The project is undergoing environmental review, and a decision to approve or deny it will be made at a public hearing that has not yet been scheduled.

As part of the process, the project must be reviewed for potential historic significance, including any connection to noteworthy people, because it is more than 45 years old.

The Olivet house was built in 1914 by Child, whom La Jolla historic preservationist Seonaid McArthur called “the pioneering founder of the Yellowstone Park hotel system and one of the key figures responsible for establishing the visitor infrastructure at Yellowstone National Park.”

After building the house, Child lived there and his daughter Ellen and her husband, William Nichols, built a neighboring residence at 7724 Prospect Place. The family then spent their winters in La Jolla.

In a report to the San Diego Historical Resources Board, McArthur wrote that “working directly with officials in Washington, D.C., [the Child family] financed and planned the park’s first hotels, transportation systems and visitor services. Their legacy endures most visibly in the Old Faithful Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 for its association with early national park concession development.”

Speaking with the La Jolla Light, McArthur said “Here you have a man who believed in the power of nature and the importance of nature. He worked to provide a setting so everyone could visit the magnificence of Yellowstone Park. … Harry Child was an incredibly important man in American history in his development of ‘America’s National Park.’”

The city’s Historic Preservation Planning section reviewed the property in 2023 for a preliminary permit application for development, ultimately concluding that it did not meet the city’s criteria for historic designation.

“Architecturally, the building had been substantially modified over time, including the removal of dormers, construction of a brick patio and stairs at the front of the home and replacement of the majority of the windows with vinyl,” city spokesman Peter Kelly said. “These modifications resulted in a loss of integrity of design, materials and workmanship, and the building was therefore determined not to be significant architecturally.”

He said the association with Child was “known and evaluated” during the review, but “it was determined that the … property served as a vacation home and was not Child’s primary residence associated with his historically significant accomplishments.”

Additionally, Kelly said, “other properties outside of San Diego that are more directly associated with his significant accomplishments were determined to be existing and retain higher integrity than the Olivet [Lane] property.”

McArthur, however, said “La Jolla loses a piece of its history when the place comes down, part of our collective experience as to what drew us here. Those that came here for La Jolla’s beauty are forgotten. I think about all the people that have contributed to La Jolla … they are all part of the history, and it makes me sad when they are not remembered.

“The pending demolition of 1424 Olivet Lane thus represents not only the loss of a distinctive La Jolla residence but also a tangible link to the visionaries who helped shape the experience of America’s first national park.”

McArthur added that situations like this shed light on “pressures” to build to any extent possible in San Diego and lead her to question “how much time and consideration the [Historical Resources Board] can give to things like this.”

Earlier this month, the San Diego Planning Commission approved a proposal to help accelerate homebuilding in the city by softening historic preservation rules.

The commission’s 7-0 vote Nov. 6 sent the proposal to a Dec. 11 hearing before the City Council’s Land Use & Housing Committee. If approved there, the proposal would go to the full council for a vote in late January or early February.

Among other changes, the new policy intends to give the City Council authority to overrule the HRB when the board designates a property historic. Currently, the council’s discretion to overturn such decisions is limited to when there has been a procedural error — not disagreements about historic value.

The proposal is the first half of a wide-ranging package of reforms that city officials are pursuing in an effort to streamline rules protecting historic homes and other buildings. The effort is called “Preservation and Progress.”

The second half of the package, which city officials describe as more complex and robust, may include limiting property tax breaks for historic homes and eliminating automatic historical review for buildings when they reach 45 years old.