Renovation underway at Heritage Junction

Santa Clarita Councilwoman Laurene Weste and the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society are helping to give Santa Clarita history a much-needed facelift.

On Wednesday, work began on reshingling the roofs of the historic buildings at Heritage Junction in Hart Park. Previously, the roofs had wooden shingles, which are being replaced with metal shingles custompainted to closely resemble the original wood aesthetic.

It took about a year to find a company that could provide a sturdy enough material that could also match the aesthetic the SCV Historical Society wanted, Weste said.

“The company gave us some samples and to check if it was durable — I threw it on the floor and stomped all over it,” Weste said with a laugh.

Marcelo Cairo, a structural engineer and board member of the Historical Society, which is overseeing the restoration project, said the roofing is much more than an aesthetic choice and was one of his first recommendations as an engineer involved in the restoration project.

“We needed to put a new roof on every one of the buildings, so that we can prevent further damage from the buildings from water,” Cairo said. “The existing roofing on all the houses is made of wooden shingles, which is also a fire hazard, so putting a metal roof makes it safer for these buildings. When you’re working on restoring historical buildings, you want to try to keep as close to the original construction as possible, but you have to balance that with making sure the buildings will exist for future generations.”

Heritage Junction contains authentic buildings from SCV history that were built between the 1860s and the 1920s. Weste, who is also a Historical Society board member, began the restoration project in July 2018 with a $75,000 grant from the city, and envisions Heritage Junction as a revitalized public event space where citizens can host public performances, film screenings and weddings.

One of the buildings, known as the Pardee House, is scheduled to become the first museum of Santa Clarita history.

“Santa Clarita is very blessed because we still have a lot of our history and we’re still saving more, and the linkage to our past is a very special relationship with where we came from that allows us to know who we are, where we came from and how people used to live,” Weste said.

Weste said the roof installation should take between two to three weeks.

Dan Watson/The Signal (Above) Roofers prepare the Edison House, a historical building that is part of the renovation project at Heritage Junction in Newhall, for new roofing on Wednesday. (Left) Councilwoman Laurene Weste examines a panel of metal roofing in front of the Kingsbury Residence.