Preservation advocates recently volunteered to restore and take care of a historic site in Huntington Beach, free of charge.
The property under consideration is a 4.4-acre site that is the location of the home of Yukiko Furuta and Charles Mitsuji, which was built in 1912. Also on the property is the Wintersburg Japanese Church, which dates from 1934, and other buildings.
The Historic Wintersburg Preservation Task Force is making the offer to care for the property, which is owned by Republic Services, a trash disposal firm. Projects like this can benefit if advocates use brochure printing to create informative materials about the site.
The Task Force’s chairwoman, Mary Urashima, says the group has been increasingly worried about the site’s condition, but after visiting it recently, they decided they had to take action. Urashima said the front door of the church looked like it had been chopped with a hatchet, and heavy rains that have fallen on the region recently have contributed to the ongoing deterioration.
Urashima said the group described the work that needed to be done to restore the buildings and preserve the area, and sent the results to Republic, but has not yet received a reply. Historic Wintersburg is tied to Japanese-American history of the early 1900s. The site is the only parcel left in the city that a Japanese immigrant family owned before the California Alien Land Law was passed in 1913.