The Pioneer House soon after completion

The “Pioneer House” as it was referred to in the early discussions of the “Tri-Village Complex” was just a part of the complex of 3 types of historic domiciles from the area. It was a collaboration of several local groups and of course the Recreation and Parks District of the City of Thousand Oaks that brought what we know as the  Newbury House back to Thousand Oaks.

The creation of the plans for the Pioneer House were awarded to Vito Lasala & William Squire of the firm Lasala & Squire AIA in Woodland Hills, CA. They created the drawings for the Pioneer House and drawing #7620 was presented for use in its construction. The drawings are dated 25 June 1976. These were the plans that Bill Eves of Quasar Construction, my Brother-in-Law, and I were given to build the Pioneer House.

You may recall from the previous article on the Adobe House that Earl Meek, a long time Thousand Oaks resident was the spearhead of the project. He coordinated our initial discussions and brought us together with the Building and Safety Dept. of City of Thousand Oaks for the building of the Adobe and Pioneer Houses. My Brother-in-Law Bill Eves and I had spent some considerable time with them on the Adobe House and the Pioneer house was not to be different.  The plans were touted to be reviewed by many eyes and everything was ready to go.

The foundation for the Pioneer House was done and in place long before this stage of the construction of the two buildings. After completing the Adobe House we were now ready to build a wooden house more like present day homes. Time was fleeting and we were getting close to the year end Dedication of the Tri Village Complex. We turned our attention to the foundation layout and measurements and found it matched the plans correctly. Some materials were already on site and we began to cut lumber and put things together.

The foundation for the Pioneer house is in the foreground, as the Adobe foundation is is the background.

As we reviewed the plans to determine supplies needed we noted that the windows were called out as 4 foot wide by 4 foot tall. This was not like a pioneer house, they did not have square windows and 4 feet is a wide window for a pioneer house not to mention it would be quite expensive. In addition it meant that two of the glass windows would be right against the fireplace. Time for a change and a call to the parties involved. Yes, the windows got changed to 2 foot 6 inches wide by 4 foot high. While everyone was looking at the plans it was noted that there were no windows in the bedrooms. This too seemed not to be correct, time to add two more windows and they would be the same size as the others. The changes were approved by all the various parties and we were back to building a Pioneer House.

We proceeded with vigor and put together the framing of the front wall of the Pioneer House and tilted it up into its place as the façade of the Newbury House. Well it looked strange; we had followed the plans and built the wall to the required 16 foot high. Bill and I looked up and thought “why would a pioneer build a house so tall?” This did not look like what we had seen in our review of similar buildings. So to be safe we stopped construction and called Building and Safety and Earl Meek. That began the discussions between all the interested parties again and work was stopped. A lot of discussion ensued and the final result was that the wall would be 10 feet high. This was good because 16 foot front and back walls would have meant a 24 foot high peak (over 2 stories) we thought that would be more like a church. Construction resumed and more materials arrived. There were more changes required during construction as the inspectors from Building and Safety reviewed actual construction. The other changes were not as big a deal and construction forged ahead but was getting squeezed for time.

The house was built with rough cut lumber and most of it was cedar. It was unusual to work with slightly green lumber (damp) with a rough surface that gave you splinters at every move. We kept our tweezers handy. You may notice that the outside lumber is applied with wide boards that are covered on the seams by small boards. The pioneers had learned about the shrinkage of the lumber in their construction and developed a simple fix. The large planks were applied and were still somewhat damp and would shrink over time, so the smaller lumber was applied over the seams of the large planks to create a seal and that solved the problem of shrinking planks opening up a gap and letting in the weather.

We had many challenges in building this relatively small building and had to rely on a lot of help from all sorts of local organizations, businesses and involved people. One challenge was the actual construction of a “stone” fireplace and chimney. Neither Bill nor I had built a historic stone fireplace. It was time for help. We visited Carlson’s Building Supplies and talked to Mr. Carlson himself, a treasure of information and a wonderful man. He told us that there were two English stone masons that had just visited his yard the day before. Wow, talk about lucky! We contacted them and they accepted the project.

It was good to have these two masons that were experienced in this type of work. They were great to watch as they “created” a historic style fireplace. Some of their methods were very intriguing. As they progressed along they many times needed a small stone or piece of stone to fit it all together. To do this they would use a mason’s hammer for some and for others they actually took rocks up on the roof and threw them off on to other stones and break them into smaller pieces. They were very adept “artists’ of the trade and we were very pleased to have found them so easily.

One of the special parts of this fireplace construction was to add a special section to the fireplace hearth to accept a “Time Capsule” for burial in it. There was a special ceremony at the Stagecoach Inn for the Dedication of the Tri-Village Complex and the Community Time Capsule that was held December 19, 1976. It was held while the fireplace of the Pioneer house was still not fully complete so that it could be buried within the hearth.

The Pioneer and Adobe House’s are great examples of what a community can do with the help of so many interested and dedicated volunteers and business people. After some considerable and unusual situations we were pleased to have been a part of the rebuilding of the history of Thousand Oaks.

Return to Pioneer House Main Page

Return to Tri Village Main Page