Clemente Inn owner Marty Edwards holds the key to the building’s fate. Ryan lely/Sonoma Valley Sun
It is the essence of a conundrum. Built in 1912, the Clemente Inn was, through the 1920s, part of the fashionable hubbub of the “Boyes Hot Springs” resort culture. Vacant now for the last 30 years, its lines still look good, but its innards have crumbled. In the fall of 2007, neighbors complained of the safety hazard and the County PRMD slapped a 30-day condemnation notice on it, forcing Marty Edwards, its owner of four years, into a maze of entangled and conflicting regulations, restrictions and possibly regret.
Earlier this month, Edwards met with the Landmark Commission and the Redevelopment Agency to seek a way forward. The simple solution – tear it down –met with simple resistance: No! It’s a landmark! A complex solution – tear down part, maintain key walls, get redevelopment assistance – met with complex resistance: which walls, where is the plan, and if it ‘s not to be a hotel, then there’s a zoning problem.
Redevelopment Manager Boris Sztorch said after a meeting last month, “It’s her decision. I said we’d help her. But if she wants anything other than demolition, she’ll have to have a business plan.” At the same time, he noted, “Blight removal is considered a priority.”
Lisa Posternak, the Landmark Commission staff member who has been working on the project for the last four months, said the county wants a resolution quickly because of hazard and liability issues. They’re pressing Edwards to make a decision. “So it’s in her court.” But not entirely. “If she wants to demolish it, the PRMD would like to see that Landmarks has approved it.” The Landmarks Commission may not do that, given the importance of the building as an “anchor location” to the area and its history. But then, said Posternak, she could appeal.
“The crowning blow to all this,” said Edwards, “was at the meeting the other day they said that if I could manage to save the façade and then attach it to all new construction behind, all up to today’s code, that that would be viewed as a rehabilitation permit at PRMD and Landmark. And everybody would be happy. [But] then [Sztorch] called and said, No, if I’m just leaving the façade that there would be no redevelopment funds available because they view it as new construction.” In a subsequent interview, Sztorch did say that redevelopment funding could be provided for demolition and reconstruction, with the board of supervisors’ approval.
District 1 Supervisor Valerie Brown said, “We are now being told that the Landmarks Commission cannot deny the request to demolish. The engineers’ report says the costs to rehabilitate would exceed the value of the property. So if you deny their ability to demolish, it would essentially be construed as a potential “taking” and they’re being advised by county counsel that that’s not an option.” Should the owner demolish and rebuild, she will confront a zoning problem. “If she takes the structure down entirely, then it’s a brand new building requiring brand new use permits, and the general plan calls for the site to be rezoned urban residential.” But Brown thinks it would be a great hotel or restaurant, as it was before. “It’s a perfect location. It’s the beginning of an economic stimulus transformation. I think it would be grand.”
For Edwards, a hotel in that location right now does not “pencil out.” However, when the Springs redevelopment comes into flower, the building could be the landmark of elegance it once was, in a thriving community. Time, money, hazard, regulations and dreams all continue chasing each other through the maze.
