Extraordinary Home Restoration Reveals Prehistoric Coronado Seashore

Restoration of the Esrock Residence on the corner of Tenth Street and Adella Avenue has revealed one historic page of information after another. The project was completed last month by Lorton Mitchell Custom Homes and has recently been occupied by new owners, Bernie and Jill Esrock.

The 1902 home was moved from its original location on Ocean Boulevard in 1905 after enormous storms battered the shoreline, destroying the boulevard and throwing seas of water into the front yards of the oceanfront homes. Originally known as the Kneedler Home, it was owned by Dr. William L. Kneedler, a retired Army doctor and personal physician to President William H. Taft.

To move the home, multiple teams of horses had to be brought in, as well as large logs and a small army of men. They slowly raised the home, placed it on logs, and pulled it, one-foot at a time, across Orange Avenue and the trolley tracks, towards its new destination on high ground at Tenth and Adella.

As one log popped out the rear, it was painstakingly replaced in the front, and so on. The entire operation took the better part of five days, Friday-Tuesday. It was moved fast for a reason. On Sunday, record tides were expected to hit our shores. That, combined with the stormy seas, might just have proved fatal for the Kneedler Home.

Being a wooden structure, the Kneedler Home could be moved, unlike the brick and stone residences along Ocean Boulevard, which had to stay on their original foundations. Within a year, however, workers were able to build a large, rock seawall, which saved the homes and allowed for a reconstruction of Ocean Blvd. The rock seawall, paid for by the homeowners, is still in place today.

In the 1950s the Kneedler Home became known as the Morton Home, owned by Dr. Paul Morton, a fondly remembered Coronado physician. A new historical chapter for this home had begun. Last year, Lorton Mitchell and his team began to excavate the site after receiving an endorsement from Coronados Historic Resource Commission to restore the home to its original 1902 exterior.

Contractors are used to finding sand, and even water from the aquifer (the underground river coursing underneath Coronado) when digging on a site. Often they find old bottles from a time gone by. What Mitchell found was what he believes to be the ancient seashore of Coronado at the edge of Tenth and Adella, dating back millions of years, to a time before streets, homes, or even people.

The site was dry, said Mitchell. We drilled down 30 feet and never hit water. What we did hit, however, were pre-limestone formations dating back millions of years. Ive never seen this in the more than 100 homes weve built in Coronado. We hit the brown sand, and we hit the white sand, but what we saw next was like nothing we had encountered before.

Mitchell brought in a geologist to confirm their findings. There were no fossils, but lots and lots of seashells. The pre-limestone foundation was created by pressure and time, fusing together into stone over the centuries.

The conclusion was that, at one time, Coronados shoreline ended at the area near Tenth and Adella, where Tenth drops down into what early residents called the Coronado Flats (the Pomona/Glorietta area). That, indicated the geologist, was all water.

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Extraordinary Home Restoration Reveals Prehistoric Coronado Seashore