By Julie BUTCHER

“Let me say first how nice it is to see the city doing something beautiful in North Glendale,” one participant said during a packed, two-hour community meeting held on Wednesday, July 10 at the Montrose-Crescenta Library concerning immediate and longer-term plans for the former Rockhaven site.

Nurse Agnes Richards opened Rockhaven Sanitarium in 1923 as an innovative place for the treatment of mentally ill women. At the time, the Crescenta Valley was a popular place for treatment facilities. In 2008 the City of Glendale bought the 3.4-acre property, located at 2713 Honolulu Ave. and composed of 15 buildings built between 1920 and 1972 surrounded by lush, serene gardens, and has made numerous failed attempts to develop it. In July 2021, Senator Anthony Portantino secured $8 million in state funds to “to renovate and preserve the historic Rockhaven property for the public to enjoy and appreciate as a museum.”

At the July 10 meeting, city officials and representatives of various consultants narrated and visualized plans for remaking the property’s Pines Cottage into a museum and ensuring that the entire site be made accessible in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“None of this is carved in stone,” city historic preservation planner Jay Platt said introducing the meeting to the large crowd. The city’s Historic Preservation Commission will hear a similar presentation at its meeting tonight, Thursday, July 18 at 5 p.m. in the city’s Municipal Services Building, 633 E. Broadway, Room 105; following input from the commission, the Glendale City Council will give final approval to move forward, likely in August, on what is being considered Tier I of the plan.

Friends of Rockhaven (FoR) summed up its organization’s immediate response to the presentation and plan.

“Overall, we are pleased that plans are moving forward with Rockhaven Historic Park,” said FoR president Joanna Linkchorst. “There are nit-picky things (use of keywords to convince us of their awareness of our concerns, lack of knowledge of certain historic elements), but also concerns (altering the Pines to create a slick, modern, electronic museum) and full on dread (no plans to open our park as a park, but still seeking ‘someone’ to monetize it)!”

“Rockhaven is already a museum,” continued Linkchorst. “We have had people come from all over the world to tour the property and see these buildings. No changes need to be made to make this an attractive museum. As a matter of fact, the less changed the better! Keep it more like a house museum and let people see displays in the original rooms and layout, just as Agnes Richards wanted. Please make it accessible to all [and] air conditioned; keep it as original as possible and stabilized. Don’t touch the tiles in the bathrooms! Please make new public bathrooms away from the museum itself. They could make new, fully accessible bathrooms in the garage right next to the museum, right along the proposed path. If they still want a kitchenette that could be made in the Gardener’s Office behind the garage.”

City representatives repeatedly explained that they could not talk about “past disappointments because of ongoing litigation.” FoR filed a lawsuit in April 2023 alleging the city harmed the historical location via “Demolition by Neglect.”

“‘Demolition by Neglect’ means the process [by] which the owner of a building or structure allows its ongoing deterioration over a period of time as a result of lack of maintenance, failure to secure it from pests or vandals, and/or failure to take reasonable measures to prevent ingress of water or wind through the roof, walls or apertures, leading to deterioration and/or structural failure constituting a threat to public health and safety,’” according to the City of Glendale’s Municipal Code 15.20.020.

“The lawsuit is simply to get them to follow their own laws,” Linkchorst explained. “If the city wants the lawsuit to be gone, they should follow numerous requests to have them ‘look into’ finding the money to do some of the work. If we saw movement toward caring for the buildings then this case would vanish. Not tarps! Jay [Platt] claimed the buildings are ‘watertight’ due to the tarping, but changed that to the ‘roofs are watertight’ because broken doors and windows are not keeping anything out. One building has a failing foundation that is going to cause a wall to collapse on their fancy new chair lift. And even if doing the tarps is enough, there is still a building without a tarp! One [building] ‘staff determined was not part of the historic fabric,’ we were told. They have since learned staff isn’t allowed to determine that. But putting up plywood and bolting doors only makes the Nurses’ Cottage an attractive nuisance and trespassers are finding ways in, causing further damage.”

Early in the question-and-answer portion of the meeting local residents who live on nearby Hermosa Avenue expressed their concerns about plans for parking as Hermosa is narrow and busy. Platt showed the area being considered for parking for the museum, capable of parking 10-12 vehicles and accessible from Hermosa Avenue. Additional space would be available for parking for other uses, he added, acknowledging that the city understands parking is an issue for the immediate neighbors.

Consultants from SWA shared detailed plans and slides showing what the site could look like once the contemplated work is completed. They focused on what they heard from the community: the importance of complying with the Secretary of the Interior standards for historic preservation; maintaining the existing site; understanding that native planting may not be the best approach; and getting people back on to the site in a safe, beautiful and park-like setting. The plans preserve all of the existing trees, call for keeping or reconstructing historic hardscape (walls and stone paths) and adding minimal intervention to make the entire facility accessible to the public, with entrances on three sides. Plans include restoring the rose garden and numerous historic pots dotting the landscape, adding an additional path with blooming plants and safety rails and building one wheelchair lift to address the extreme slope of parts of the site.

Mostly people want a park, Mike Morgan said sharing the sentiments of the meeting attendees and many members of the community.

Currently, the plan calls for the Pines Cottage to be restored to its historic 1931 appearance on the outside and rehabilitated on the inside for use as a museum.

“We don’t know who the operator will be,” Platt reported, so the plan is to create a “blank space” for the museum. The city will continue to look for partners to develop the rest of the property, he said, acknowledging that the city owns the site, that it is eligible for the Glendale Register of Historic Resources, that it is important historically, important for women’s history, the history of treating mental health and the history of sanitariums in the Crescenta Valley, and that local preservation laws are strong. “The community would have pitchforks coming for us [if the site were not preserved],” he added.

“We’re not going to do all of this and then not take care of it,” Platt stated regarding the city’s commitment to the Rockhaven property.

City staff reported that the full $8 million, donated by the California State

Legislature, would be spent on these projects.

Susan Bolan, whose great aunt stayed at Rockhaven, commented, “We appreciate the attention to detail and the focus on maintaining the historic character of Rockhaven. But lawsuit notwithstanding, you need to know that there is a pile of experts in this room. You’ve got to have the Friends of Rockhaven involved.”

Also from Bolan, this topic will be discussed at the Crescenta Valley Community Association meeting on Thursday, July 25 at 7 p.m. The meeting will be held in community room of the La Crescenta Library, 2809 Foothill Blvd.

Following the meeting on July 10, Councilmember Dan Brotman commended the presentation and the “great questions” from the audience. Regarding the city’s reluctance to engage with the Friends of Rockhaven, he said, “of course we’re not going to talk to someone who’s suing us.”

“It’s dumb, the dumbest thing they could’ve done,” he said. “They should just drop the lawsuit.”