Historical houses and the neighborhoods they created connect us to a bygone era; to times when interaction with neighbors and nature was a way of life. In my last installment about the mystique of old houses, I had begun to time travel to the early 1900s as I riffled through the cottage’s old deeds, which revealed several owners between 1914 and 1949. Although this title search didn’t lead up to current times, the old title records revealed enough information to stir my imagination and satisfy my curiosity.

The first sale of the vacant lot on which cottage was built happened in 1914 when the subdivider, Laguna Beach Company, sold Lot 5 of Map of Laguna Cliffs No. 2 to a fellow named E. J. Bumsted and his wife Pearl. In 1915, after only one year of ownership, the Bumsteds sold the property to Anthony Prewitt and his wife Jane. Then Charles T. Patchell and his wife Meda Hess purchased the lot from the Prewitts in 1920. This is when I detected that the cottage was built in 1922 under the Patchells’ ownership as on August 13, 1924, the Patchell’s sold the property to a Jean C. McFadden. I wondered if Jean McFadden was related to early land baron pioneers in Orange County, the McFadden brothers…

But before the Patchells built this cottage, in 1917, Anthony and Jane Prewitt built a craftsman style cottage on the property. Miss McFadden was the lucky owner of two cottages when she bought the property in 1924.

For many years, these two cottages shared Lot 5 until sometime after 1933 when a property boundary was established between the two cottages by way of a lot split. It was fascinating to learn that the cute yellow cottage next door was once on the same property as this cottage. I suspect the lot split was done so the two homes could be owned and sold separate from each other.

After Jean McFadden bought the cottages in 1924, a gap in the chain of title occurs then picks back up on April 24, 1933, when the Patchells purchased the property again from two married couples, the Davidsons and the Greens. By July 19, 1933, the Patchells sold the property to a single woman, Dorothy Beckman and the very next day, Miss Beckman sold the property back to the Patchell’s. These whirlwind title transfers made my head spin. I can’t imagine why Dorothy didn’t stick around to enjoy cottage life for a spell. If I owned two cottages by the sea, I’d want to stay put.

Another gap in the chain of title occurs from that point until 1949 when a grant deed shows Blanche B. Hansen, a widow, as owner of the cottage built in 1917. In this grant deed, Blanche conveys title to a widower named George R. Nichols. Mr. Nichols resided in the house next door with his daughter, Emma Gertrude Nichols, as evidenced by a recorded Declaration of Homestead by Head of Family, recorded on December 5, 1949.

After connecting the title dots, I imagined these early pioneers of the cottage on the porch watching sunsets and enjoying the ocean breezes through the open casement windows. I may not know anything about their lives, but knowing of their past presence somehow adds to the cottage’s charm.