On Monday evening Save Our Heritage Organisation (SOHO) added this old Craftsman to their “most endangered list” when the preservation group celebrated their 29th annual People in Preservation Awards in Old Town.
The man who built the house was Henry B. Jones who was at the helm of Hillcrest’s first financial institution when it opened its doors at the corner of University & Fifth in 1910. The following year Jones, director of the University Avenue Bank (located where Union Bank stands today), had his family’s home constructed at 4040 Hillcrest Drive (the street’s name was changed in 1968).
In 2009 the owner, Scripps Health (Scripps Mercy Hospital), wanted to demolish this old Craftsman home, but many individuals fought for its historic designation as one of the final remaining structures from the original “Hillcrest” subdivision. Ron May, president of Legacy 106 made a presentation to the Historic Review Board (HRB) on behalf of the Hillcrest History Guild demonstrating why this house needed to be saved and preserved. Hillcrest will lose a remaining fiber of the character of the neighborhood if this house is demolished. The optimum outcome would be to preserve and restore the house on its present site since this bungalow is one of few remaining in William Wesley Whitson’s original subdivision that became what is now known as Hillcrest.
Much to the delight of the community, the city’s Historic Review Board (HRB) listed the two-story, shingle-sided building as Historic Resource #939 based on its excellent representation of the historic Craftsman Style on November 20, 2009. Despite a weathered and neglected exterior, the house is architecturally intact and retains a warm inviting original interior. Many would like to see it restored and appropriately re-used by the hospital as a grieving and counseling center or as a museum for the Sisters of Mercy, but after serving as a delightful host for over 100 years, it has been deemed obsolete by the hospital. Currently wrapped in torn tarps, boarded up and fenced in, the Jones house sits waiting to be saved by someone who will provide it a new home.
The community now fears that Scripps Health will exercise its privilege as a medical institution and have the house demolished. We encourage the hospital to find a small corner of their Hillcrest campus to save this small part of Hillcrest’s history.
