$370K APPROVED FOR FRINK ADOBE
City Council's outlay will help preserve 1874 home linked to citrus boom
After decades of little movement on work to preserve the Frink Adobe in Loma Linda, the aging structure’s fortunes appear to be changing quickly.
The Loma Linda City Council on Tuesday night unanimously approved adding proposed improvements to the historic home, at an estimated cost of $370,000, to a list of projects for the developer that owns the property.
Also promising for the adobe: Pete Dangermond of the Two Canyons Conservancy, shared his vision of what the nonprofit could do at the site.
Until now, preservation of the adobe, completed in 1874, had been frustratingly slow, supporters told the council.
The Loma Linda Redevelopment Agency bought the house in the 1980s, former agency chair Milford Harrison told the council.
“We bought all this property because we were afraid it was going to go into piecemeal development,” Harrison said at the meeting. “We wanted to have control over what happened on that property.”
Not much happened as the agency waited for a developer to propose a project for the site and protections for the home, which is on the California Register of Historical Places.
The city put plastic on the roof to keep rain from deteriorating the mud brick walls, and boarded up the windows and doors after vandals broke in.
Former teacher Jim Shipp, president of the Loma Linda Area Parks and Historical Society, led tours of the adobe for 4,000 students and 2,000 adults.
Horace Frink, who started building the home along the zanja water ditch,
planted “what are believed to be the first orange trees in the Inland Empire,” Shipp told the council.
Frink and his brother also surveyed for the train line through San Timoteo Canyon.
At that site, Shipp said, “the story of our community came to life: for students to be able to stand on the very soil where important events happened, see the birthplace of the citrus empire, to understand how the zanja and the citrus and the railroad combined.”
In 2012 the state dissolved redevelopment agencies, and a successor agency established to oversee projects that were underway gained control of the land and adobe.
The city, on behalf of the agency, in 2020 sold 71 acres and the house to developer Highpointe for $1.5 million plus $13.8
million for in-kind “community benefitting improvements.”
On Tuesday the council decided to add work at the adobe to the list of improvements, with the understanding that some items on the list may not be accomplished before money runs out.
The estimated costs for the adobe include $87,920 for roof and structural reinforcement, $20,135 for an arborist and tree replacement; and $261,308 for an adjacent lot for parking and more.
“Properly improved and landscaped it could become a community asset and a focal point for that surrounding historic district community,” Dangermond told the council.
The conservancy is exploring how to make the site attractive, solve various issues and provide historic inter
pretation.
Dangermond said the group has no objection to the city keeping it as a city park, and letting the group have a long-term lease, as other groups often do.
City Manager T. Jarb Thaipejr said the developer is willing to give the property to the conservancy. The city made no moves to take
ownership of the site.
The extra piece of property would be used for a parking lot, restrooms, an equipment shed to display historic artifacts, and a period vegetable garden, Dangermond said.
“Having the extra space is one of the keys to making this a successful project,” he said.
A proposal by the developer to build 103 condos and 51 single-family houses on the rest of the property will likely be before the City Council on July 12.