A 1913 Long Beach Craftsman, relocated and revived

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When Wendy Harn rescued a 1913 Craftsman from the wrecking ball in 1989, she didn’t know much about it -- except that it was free. A developer had planned to demolish it to build condos, but first the city of Long Beach insisted that he offer the house to anyone willing to move it. Harn stepped forward, and the following year she relocated the two-story, five-bedroom behemoth from its Ocean Boulevard site opposite the Long Beach Museum of Art to her lot in the Bluff Park Historic District.

Twenty years and hundreds of thousands of dollars later, Harn and her partner, Sasha Witte, are nearing the end of a painstaking renovation in which stained glass emerged from behind plywood panels and the Craftsman’s true beauty was discovered under layers of old paint.

That’s the home in its current location, and that’s it below in 1990 -- raised in preparation for the move. Read the full story and click through the 14-picture photo gallery.

-- Emily Young

Photo credit (top): Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times

Photo credit (center): Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times

Photo credit (bottom): Wendy Harn

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