Gerald Lance Johannsen | Contributed
My name is Gerald Lance Johannsen, and I was the former owner of this Grand Old Dame of San Jacinto, from 1979 until 1996. The Shaver House will soon pass into memory or photos, after a devastating fire, destroyed it on August 31st, 2022. During my seventeen years of residence, I really loved living at this vintage Eastlake style, “mansion” of its day. I was told that the house at the corner of Alessandro and Main Streets, was built in 1904, and thus it did not experience the devastating 1899 San Jacinto Earthquake. However, the San Jacinto Register, did report that John Shaver, who was relaxing on his home’s porch, during the 1918 Earthquake, “was pitched off of the porch”, during the quake.
As a few longtime residents might still remember, that my attempt to create a bed and breakfast inn at John Shaver’s home, was accomplished, albeit for only three years, starting on February 1st, 1988. I named my enterprise, “The Hyacinth Inn”, since “Hyacinth” translates into Spanish, as “Jacinto”. For the BnB journey, I bought thousands of dollars of era-appropriate furniture from Georgia, installed a jacuzzi spa, built a huge backyard lanai, remodeled both the kitchen and dining room areas, and gutted the plaster, lath and horsehair walls and ceilings, of both 2nd floor bedrooms. The new walls were replaced with smoother, stronger gypsum board and the walls and ceiling were finally insulated. I conned my own parents, into portraying guests, for my brochure. Longtime local resident, Don Stuefloten, took the photos, and prepared the final copy for the Hyacinth Inn brochure. The venture was some fun, but also caused me some headaches, while running such a business out of my house, including being sure that the place looked presentable at all times. During its run, as a BnB, I was able to hire four competent ladies, by the hour, to help with the cleaning, cooking or actual guest registration and interaction. Luckily, guests did not generally come to the inn on weekdays, and so I almost always cooked for and mingled with my guests during the breakfasts on weekends. As I said, I operated the inn for just three years, but when the venture proved to be financially unviable, I was never-so-glad, to tell the City of San Jacinto, that I would be closing, and there would be no more bed taxes to pay. During the time of operating the bed and breakfast, five weddings and/or wedding receptions, were held on the property— including one with a hardwood dance floor, setup on the backyard lawn.
I still remember the names of three prior owners of the Shaver house, before I acquired it. First, there was John Shaver, who served as one of the Riverside County Supervisors, for about thirty years. Besides having a public civic life, John Shaver also operated a lumber planing mill, in San Jacinto, and likely used prime lumber for building his house. After Mr. Shaver took his own life in the 1930’s, I have no knowledge of who owned the home, until Bill and Evelyn Burke purchased it and operated their real estate business from a small, add-on office, next to the front door entrance. Originally from New York state, the Burke’s raised four or five children in the house, which had perhaps only four bedrooms, total. I am guessing, but I think the Burke’s purchased the home about 1965 and made their own modifications, to suit themselves. The two upstairs bedrooms were fitted with drop ceilings, as were the kitchen and dining areas. The drop ceilings were a quick-fix, to cover up the ugly cracking, that had occurred over time, in the plastered ten-foot ceilings. It was also likely that the Burkes, painted all the baseboard and door trim boards, in the living room and drawing room—-from natural wood to ivory.
When the Burkes sold the Shaver House, the buyer was a lady from Los Angeles, who intended to move to San Jacinto, to care for her elderly father—in the house. The woman’s name, was coincidentally also Evelyn—Evelyn Cairns. Evelyn Cairns might have lived in the house for a short while, but her elderly father, died in that first year of ownership, and Mrs. Cairns decided to re-sell the mansion. The listing was given to the Burke’s San Jacinto Realty, and I happened to drive by, in that time period, and noticed the “For Sale” sign. This was time, between selling my first home and buying another property. I was also thinking of getting married to a lady, and we both liked the house, for possibly starting life together. When the engagement fell apart, I became the sole owner, and moved in, by September of 1979. The 2000 square foot home was purchased for $65 thousand and carried interest rates of 6 and 7 percent on the first and second trust deeds. I also got the tax advantage of the new Proposition 13.
The house provided me with shelter, warmth, and comfort, for those 17 years, even though it was burglarized twice. I hosted perhaps twenty parties there, with most guests, being members of the local Jaycee chapter. The house endured the 1994 Northridge Quake, the San Jacinto Flood of 1980, and the annual Santa Ana winds, that often gusted to over 80 miles per hour. I remember numerous times, trying to fall asleep, during those winds, and the wind gusts would whip at the house, so that the top floor would laterally shift an inch, and then instantaneously, shift back.
Mr. Shaver must have been a kind man, despite his late-life financial troubles of the 1930’s. On the day of my grand opening for the bed and breakfast, (2/1/88), a woman attended, who said she was the daughter of the paid housekeeper for the Shaver’s. She said she remembered being in the house as a little girl, and what a nice and generous man, John Shaver was to her and her mother. For the record, John Shaver took his life, by driving his car out to the remote area of Old Mountain Road, and allowing the car’s exhaust fumes to complete his demise.
The Shaver House also had some interesting neighbors when I moved in. There was the elderly widowed woman, Dorothy Berg, who lived in the house across Alessandro Street, along with her sister Audie. Dorothy had a kind spirit, while her sister was a female curmudgeon. Dorothy’s husband, “Opie” had been an osteopath doctor, and operated his practice out of their house. Dr. John Mead’s former office, before he retired, was kitty-corner from the Shaver house. John Mead had been my mother’s OBGYN for my delivery, back in 1949.
My neighbors to the south of the house, changed almost every other year, since it was a set of duplex rental apartments owned by Ken Winslow, someone whom I knew through the Jaycee chapter. One set of tenants were Gary and Joyce McCall of the Menifee McCall family; another set were Bret and Cheryl Pardo, a general contractor and a local hair stylist. Others included a poor fur trapper, with his wife and two kids; and finally, there was a man, his wife and daughter, who were Jehovah’s Witnesses. One of the duplex units, currently has a tenant, named Mike, who has rented his apartment for over 30 years. “Mike” was the one who notified me of the demise of the Shaver House, the week after the fire.
The couple from Orange County who bought the Shaver house from me, in 1996, had the last name of Champion. Mr. Champion retired from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating facility, and the couple started a business on the lower floor, as a showroom for antique furniture. The Champions seemed happy when I visited them, two years after they moved in. Soon after that visit, however, I was informed that Mrs. Champion had died of a heart attack. Mr. Champion re-married within a year, but it was not an ideal situation, since the woman had two teen sons, that dressed like they were into punk. Two years later, Mr. Champion died, and the new Mrs. Champion continued to live in the house, even after her sons moved out. It was in 2019, that former neighbor, “Mike”, told me that Mrs. Champion (the 2nd), had died in the home alone, and was found, days later.
Mrs. Champion’s demise ushered in the complete neglect of the Shaver House, and homeless people, started entering and squatting there. A fire, in 2021, damaged the rear of the house, the lanai, and gutted the detached garage. That fire was controlled. The final straw came on the recent night of August 31st, when once again, there was another fire, and the “Old Girl” was so damaged, that she will likely be razed. It is sad that no one wanted to take up the mantel, for saving and protecting John Shaver’s masterpiece home.
To illustrate what the home meant to the world, Hollywood TV producers came calling on three occasions between 1976 and 1982. The first was an afterschool special, named “Sara’s Summer of the Swans”; the second was a two-part Lassie movie for TV, “Lassie: A New Beginning”; and the third was a movie, for transitioning from the Carole Burnette Show to a new comedy series being launched, called “Mama’s Family”. The movie was seen by million viewers, but only the Shaver House’s exterior, was shown, for creating a “Kansas context”. The audience movie was video-taped in Fairfax (LA) at CBS studios, and had a live audience. Proudly, I was in that audience, to see my (Shaver) house, feted on the studio video monitors. Later it was shown to the world.
RIP, to our memories, dearly beloved Shaver House
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