Homeowners find comfort in the past.

When Gail Harrison purchased her 900-square-foot Pacific Grove cottage last year, it was important for her to have a connection to both her past and that of the area. Harrison, a designer for a Hollywood movie studio, wanted to have a piece of property in her hometown, and also wanted to honor her love for “antiques and old things” with a home that spoke to PG’s character. Although the home needed extensive restoration, she knew that she wanted to keep it authentic to its roots.

“It’s almost like I bought the house because it felt really good, and why change something that’s working so well?” she says.

The adobe house, built in 1926, is a Pueblo Revival-style home—one of a handful of others like it in town, all originally built as rental units. Harrison’s, on Grand Avenue with a perfect view of Lovers Point, is one of seven identical cottages mixed in with much more ornate Victorians on the block. Although the gingerbread trim and ornamental details of Victorians are typically PG-cute, the cleaner lines of her simple flat-roofed home appealed to her.

The Pueblo Revival style “was a different kind of mindset than Victorian,” she says. “It was all about the materials and simplification instead of being so decorative.”

Remodeling proved a challenge, especially since Harrison was supervising the project long distance. Carol Harrison, Gail’s mom, stepped in as project manager.

Of course, as with any major revival, there were some unpleasant surprises. One of the first disasters to handle was created by the flat roof, which allowed “a swimming pool” to form above the rooms, which dripped water down the inside of the walls. The house was also two inches off its foundation, which Carol says might have been reason enough not to buy.

“I said, ‘You’re not touching this house,’ but of course, sometimes daughters don’t listen to their mothers,” Carol laughs.

“I wanted to make it stronger and put it back into its era when it was the proudest house on the block,” Gail says.

Structural problems proved to be worse than the Harrisons had suspected.

“The contractor stuck his jackknife in the window frame and went right through it,” Carol says. “Everything was full of dry rot.”

But instead of getting all new windows, the Harrisons salvaged the original “wavy” glass, the best that glass makers could produce at the time, and asked their contractor to create new frames.

“The wavy glass is completely part of the charm,” says Gail. “The guys who renovated were fabulous, but we didn’t realize how much work it would be. Every time I came up they would still be barely moving from working on one window to the next.”

In the living room, contractors discovered the remnants of a fold-out Murphy bed in the wall, which couldn’t be saved. But underneath three layers of old carpeting, original oak flooring in the living room was salvaged.

In the kitchen, Gail painted dark wood shelves soft green period colors. An identical cottage behind the house provided more kitchen shelving.

“When they were remodeling the house behind us, they were throwing out things in the backyard,” Carol says. “I climbed over the fence and found this butler’s pantry, and it fit perfectly in the kitchen.”

Next to the pantry, a cabinet with slotted wood shelves known as a “California cooler” once kept perishables fresh with a block of ice delivered through a door on the outside of the house. The bathroom has its original claw foot tub, repainted.

“It’s very special,” says Realtor Arliene Beesley, who sold the house to Harrison. “Most people don’t do this, they just tear everything they can down, without changing the outside.” Carol argues that structures in the past were built to last.

“In the old days, builders considered themselves craftsmen,” she says. “If one built a door, it had a signature on it.”

“A lot of people wouldn’t even look at a house like this, they want everything new,” says Beesley. “But you find some people looking for history and quality and a unique property and they see the value in it.”

For Enid Sales, executive director of the Carmel Preservation Foundation, interest in restoring old homes has been a long time coming. Sales has battled Carmel homeowners in court to prevent them from tearing down homes deemed historic: either by nature of famous builders, former residents, or period architecture. Sales is heartened by Carmel’s soon-to-be-adopted Local Coastal Plan, which will make it harder for old homes to be demolished.

“The tide seems to be turning,” she says. “There used to be very little interest in rehabbing homes, and there was nothing in place to protect our resources, and many homes were torn down in the last few years. But I haven’t had a demolition request in here for quite awhile and I think it’s finally caught on. People know if they want to demolish they will have a terrible time because they have to go to the Coastal Commission.”

On the flip side, there’s a “carrot” offered to homeowners who want to restore their older homes. Tax breaks, reduced-cost or no-cost permitting fees, and design assistance are offered by all local cities, as well as the county and the state, to encourage preservation of older homes (typically more than 50 years old).

Gail Harrison, who realizes that the cost of preserving her home ended up being more than just tearing it down would have been, wishes there were more incentives to encourage homeowners to restore.

“You want people to be happy and occupying these places because you can’t have a museum on every block,” she says.

Melissa Lewington, who kept most of the features intact when remodeling her late-’20s house near Oldtown Salinas, didn’t need any incentives to do so. Lewington and her family wanted an older home because newer ones lacked the comfortable features they wanted, and were too far from the center of town.

“It’s a great old house and we bought it because we couldn’t find anything we liked as much or anything as roomy,” she says. “What I really liked about it is that it’s integrated into a neighborhood that has a commercial and residential feel. It’s much more livable than newer developments. I can walk downtown to the store. It’s much more friendly, certainly environmentally friendly, than having to use a car.”

The Lewington home, which has Leave It To Beaver curb-appeal, is being slowly upgraded with new pipes, wiring, and windows, but maintains charming features like a built-in ironing board, a built-in sewing desk, and a “milk door.”

“There’s a very small door at the back of the house that has a little dial on it that you used to turn to indicated what you wanted from the milk truck,” Lewington says.

Mary and Bob Condry’s Carmel cottage also has massive curb appeal, and maintains some inconvenient but adorable features. Built in 1936 by prolific Carmel builder M.J. Murphy, and expanded by a previous owner in the ‘50s and ‘70s, the originally 600-square-foot cottage still has tiny rooms on the main level. The Condrys incorporated some necessary features while preserving the historic elements of the home.

A narrow original staircase over the high-ceilinged living room leads to a loft room with a view of Point Lobos, and allows the Condrys a TV-watching area without disturbing the old-fashioned character of the main floor. Built-ins in the dining area provide storage but mimic the style of the house, and although the Condrys kept the single original floor heater in the house, they cut a small hole between the bedrooms and living room to allow heat to circulate.

Mary, who when she first saw the house said, “I can’t live in this darkness,” had contractors add a skylight to the back angle of the living room roof, so that it was not apparent from the street but brought in necessary light. The Condrys also painted dark walls white and replaced broken dark brown shutters.

“It felt like a closet in here,” Mary recalls. The Condrys also bumped out a bedroom wall to create a large bay window with a seat, with perfect views of Carmel Bay. Gardens surrounding the home include original plantings, like a flowering quince seen out the tiny kitchen window “that would have been in a 1930’s garden,” Mary says.

Realtor Becky Jones remodeled a run-down duplex near the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and put in features like cherry cabinets and rosewood floors while still keeping the original lines of the house. She says saving the character of the house—thought to be first occupied by Italian immigrants working at the old Hotel Del Monte—was worth the effort. The result: an inviting, sunny duo of apartments behind a white picket fence that fits in with the neighborhood.

“It took us a year, but the neighbors were very nice,” Jones recalls. “At the end of the remodel, they gave us a little card that said, ‘thank you for beautifying our neighborhood.’”