It's sad to see a thing of beauty destroyed, especially when it's the house where you grew up. Designed by my father, our custom home in the Covina Hills was a source of pride for our family for 32 years, and to me - an adopted child - it was my ultimate sanctuary, my best of all possible worlds.
I sold the place in 1991, but fortunately, the woman who bought it didn't alter it much in the 31 years she owned it, and thanks to her graciously granting me visitation privileges, I got to see my old family home every few years or so in its basically intact state.
When I learned it had been sold in 2022, I hoped that the new owners would similarly appreciate it for the work of art it was and preserve at least a semblance of its period uniqueness. There was no way to know the house's fate for certain, however, without going there in person, and although I dreaded what I might find, I finally went back for a look one month ago today.
This was the scene of devastation that greeted me upon arrival.
Below, some photos to remind my friends what
the Shannon House originally looked like.
Outside...
April 1960, Year 1.
...and the grand interior space with its 22-foot-high cathedral ceiling.
The last photo I ever took of the former interior, February 27, 2021.
Perhaps not unexpectedly for a property undergoing renovation, the yard and house looked like a disaster area. The driveway and the floor of what had been our carport had been jackhammered to bits, much of it still stacked in piles in front of the house. As I walked down the muddy bank of the driveway, I saw broken fragments of Mother's precious black slate flooring strewn all over: my first hint that the interior had been destroyed.
I introduced myself to the workmen as having grown up there, and the foreman was kind enough to let me to look around inside. I almost wish he hadn't. The interior of every room had been completely gutted to the bare walls. All of the ash paneling, all of the custom cabinetry and every built-in fixture in the entire place had been stripped out.
What had been done to the glorious living room, though, was a genuine crime. The ceiling of cedar and precious old-growth Philippine mahogany - the supporting solid beams of which are an incredible 60 feet long - was spray-painted flat black, as though it were nothing more than particleboard. And the vast open interior space which used to make first-time visitors literally gasp in amazement was all split up now, with this almost unbelievably tacky fake hallway protruding into it. It's nothing less than an interior design atrocity.
After taking one last peek inside my old bedroom, I went out into the living room and experienced another disheartening moment: our twin huge picture windows had been replaced with a sliding glass door leading out onto a deck. The air inside was choking with drywall dust, so I walked out there to breathe. I scoffed when I saw the dimensions of the new deck. It wasn't even wide enough for a decent-sized table for people to sit at. Ridiculous.
From the deck I beheld the back yard. Our tennis court (or I should say "my" tennis court, as it was built for me) and all of the decorative landscaping, even Mother's roses, gone.
This, however, was the one change that didn't upset me too much, as the buckled and cracked tennis court had been functionally unusable even since the time I lived there, and the landscaping - front and back yard alike - had been killed off by 30+ years of not being properly watered. If the remodeling process yields any real benefit for the property, it will be all-new landscaping.
And lastly, the kitchen - which was featured in
a gas company ad in 1960 - every bit of its absolutely unique Mid-Century charm, obliterated.
At that point, I'd seen enough. Turning to leave, I snapped a quick picture of the massive fireplace - another truly distinctive feature of the interior - and that was it. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.
Out in the front yard again, I took the picture at the top of this post, then I started looking around for keepsakes. In particular, I wanted to find an intact piece of the slate. It took a couple of minutes of slogging around in the mud of the former driveway to find one, but I did. Then, noting that the planter under the bedroom windows had recently been demolished, I decided I wanted a brick, too. I found a nice one that had been in the planter directly beneath my bedroom window. Perfect. Then I trod sadly up the driveway, perhaps for the last time.
The rescued brick and slate. The white bricks were made specially for our house.
I must admit that the whole time I'd been there, I was in something of a state of shock, and consequently there were things I didn't notice at first that I only saw later when looking at the pictures I'd taken. One was the cheap-looking mass-produced windows that they'd installed. OMG, horrible. Also, the demolished planter out front and the carelessly-oversprayed brickwork of the fireplace and elsewhere led me to suspect that ultimately they intend to either remove or clad all of the brick surfaces. The fireplace might look nice clad in marble, but looking at what's been done thus far, somehow I doubt the remodelers are going to want to spend that kind of money on the remaining interior work.
Something else I didn't notice until later was how they truncated the north side of the living room, installing a whole new floor-to-ceiling wall which created a new room, possibly a home theater. Unfortunately, this wall utterly destroys the symmetry and visual impact of the cathedral ceiling. Again, a unforgivable crime of interior design.
Altogether, it was a dispiriting experience to say the least. I almost wish they'd simply razed the place to the ground and built a whole new house. I truly hope I'm wrong and that it ends up looking like a showpiece again, as it was when our family lived there, but based upon what I saw that day, I'm not optimistic.
I know change is inevitable, but why is change nowadays so often in the direction of cheapening, diminishing or even destroying beauty? This is what hurts the most: that the development people who bought the house didn't appear to appreciate or perhaps even recognize what a period jewel they had acquired. Sure, the kitchen and the bathrooms needed updated appliances and fixtures, but the rest of the house should have been left more or less as it was.
I suppose at some point if I'm in the area again I'll drop by and see the end result. After that, though, I don't think I'd have reason to return. The Shannon House - as it stood for 63 years - is no more, and nothing can ever bring it back.
Post scriptum: here are a couple other mementos that I rescued/preserved years ago when I still owned the place.
A piece of the original ash paneling prior to staining, upon which the builder - Mr. Fred Allen - scribbled estimates of the cost in pencil.
A module of the quatrefoil pattern which served as a uniting design element for both the interior and exterior of the house.
I also kept a few pieces of furniture, and a handful of rocks from the property, including a specimen of white quartz from the original Japanese rock garden in front of the kitchen windows, and various natural stones which had lain in situ on the land for thousands or perhaps even millions of years before our house was built.
And of course, I still have my memories.
Finally, I guess I won't be returning as a ghost to happily haunt the place, as I once fancifully imagined. Wouldn't want to now. It in no way resembles a forever home any longer.