In Part V of an ongoing series featuring some of the oldest houses in town, The Beach Reporter this week highlighted three houses all built at the turn of the century and all located east of Pacific Coast Highway.

Lauren and Aslam Amlani purchased the property at 833 14th St., a Dutch colonial house, in 1997 with the purpose of restoring it to its original condition.

“My husband is an avid carpenter and so we took on what you would call a historic and architectural excavation of this house,” said Lauren. “We bought it with the intent to restore it back to its historic splendor.”

According to Patricia Gazin’s book, “Castles on the Sand,” the house was built in 1905 with a life rumored to have started in Beverly Hills. It was supposedly transported to Hermosa Beach in 1924.

Records on the house cite a Mr. Moon as the owner in 1925. Its address back then was “Lot Five, Block One, Hermosa Knob Hill.”

According to Lauren, approximately five different families including her own, have owned the house since 1924.

The Amlanis restored the structure piece by piece from the time they bought it until their son was born in October 2000.

“This was our baby and I don’t think we would have been able to complete it if I had my son a few years earlier,” said Lauren. “We both have full-time jobs working for Walt Disney in its theme park division, and so we both have creative and historic backgrounds and share a real love for doing things the right way.”

The Amlanis stripped the walls only to find a layer of paint, wallpaper and a wood paneling before getting to the original bead board 1-inch walls from the 1900s. They also stripped the ceilings and floors.

“We dug up the layer of carpet to find black paint over original Douglas fir (reddish blonde) wood,” said Lauren. “The owner made it a rental and in the 1960s, it was a hippie house with peace signs and tie-dye flags. In the 1970s, it had its own Mary Tyler Moore and Greg Brady theme rooms.”

Three bedrooms, a den and a bathroom comprise the second floor. Built-in furniture that once sat in the Amlanis’ son’s bedroom has since been removed.

One day prior to its removal, a woman who grew up in the house visited the Amlanis and asked if she could look at the house. She told them that when she was a child she had written a few things on the inside of several drawers in the furniture.

When the Amlanis removed the furniture, they found a piece of writing the woman wrote many years ago. It stated, “There is a little ghost that lives in this room. His name is Fred, he’s very cute and he won’t hurt you.”

The Amlanis own a 95-pound collie that would stand in front of the room’s closet and bark at it for no reason.

“Well, one day my son, Lucca, told me that there is a man who lives in his room and is very nice,” said Lauren. “Everyone tells me that this house has such a good aura, it’s very sweet and warm. Maybe this spirit of this house watches over everyone.”

The Amlanis also maintain a large garden in their back yard, and the house also comes with an authentic granny attic and a basement.

“I know it’s one of the oldest houses in Hermosa Beach. It’s on a street we consider the heart of Hermosa Beach since it’s in the center of town and everyone walks down our street to the beach. It’s a street that connects the east with the west sides of town through Pier Avenue.”

The bottom floor consists of a living and dining area, kitchen, mud room and a bathroom. The bathroom upstairs still has original Hermosa Company tile.

“Being from New Jersey, I knew this is what I wanted in a house because it’s very East Coast with living quarters downstairs and bedrooms upstairs,” added Lauren. “We walked by it one day during an open house, looked at it, made an offer and closed escrow in 30 days. The day before the Realtors gave us the key, they still didn’t believe we were going to buy it because no one just walks off the street and decides to buy a house. We call it our big gray barn.”

The doors still have original tortoiseshell fixtures, and the windows still have their original wavy glass and wood sash designs. The kitchen comes equipped with a 1920s Wedgwood stove.

Believed to have been built in 1910, 1210 Seventh Place is now owned by David and Ginny Shoren.

They bought the house in 1976. As lifetime South Bay residents, the Shorens grew up in Hawthorne and Ginny attended high school with the Beach Boys. She always loved Hermosa Beach even as a teen-ager when she would take the bus down to the beach.

“I just always liked the way this house looked,” said Ginny. “It appealed to me. It had two fireplaces and it was ‘my dream home.’ I remember when we used to have a school around the corner called Prospect Heights.”

According to city records cited in “Castles on the Sand,” R.E. Simpson owned the house in 1924 and submitted an application to remodel the structure. In 1931, the owner made additional alterations and in 1938, owner Frank B. Pollock also made new additions to the house, which later served as a three-unit apartment. In 1965, the house was then converted into a single-family house.

“I’m glad we stayed here. I’m very happy in this town,” said Ginny. “I know those construction people would love to buy it and tear it down, but I’m parked and I’m staying right where I’m at.”

The second floor includes four bedrooms while the bottom floor comprises a living room, dining room and a kitchen.

Martin and Rachel Saylor rent 964 15th St., which, according to “Castles on the Sand,” was built before 1911. The spacious house stands on an expansive corner lot with a broad view of the western portions of town.

Mrs. Bernard Goodman Malamuth owned the house from 1937 into the late 1970s.

Malamuth, originally from Ontario, Canada, migrated with her family to California in 1910. The earliest known owner of this house was Florentine Shaw.

The Saylors were unavailable for comment.