Hale House - Move To Heritage Square Museum

Move To Heritage Square Museum

The house was inherited by Hale's niece, Odena Johnson, who stated her desire to dispose of it as soon as possible. When plans were announced to demolish the house and build a chrome and steel gas station in its place, the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission stopped the demolition temporarily by declaring the house a Historic-Cultural Landmark (HCM #40) in 1966. A column by noted Los Angeles Times columnist Jack Smith helped the preservation effort. Smith called the "faded old house" one of the few remaining from the "age of exuberance." Smith described the house's significance as follows:

The house has been called 'picturesque eclectic,' meaning its designer took a scroll from here and a fleur-de-lis from there and put everything together with romantic abandon. … Because of its eclectic nature, the Hale house is said to embody, in one package, many architectural inventions of the late 19th century, that buoyant and capricious era.

Hale's niece agreed to sell the house for $1 if it could be moved from the site. In July 1970, the house was lifted from its foundation and moved to the nearby Heritage Square Museum in Highland Park. The move cost $10,300 and an additional $3,000 to raise wires so the house could pass under. Jack Smith, who had been an advocate of the home's preservation, attended the midnight moving of the house in July 1970. He later wrote that a "motley and festive" crowd gathered to watch, with cries of jubilation rising when the chimneys survived the move.

Shortly after the move, the house was used as a movie set for a film depicting a house bombed in a war. The house was later restored at a cost of more than $300,000.