In Part 11 in an ongoing series highlighting the oldest homes in town, The Beach Reporter explores the history of three homes; all owned by longtime residents of Hermosa Beach.

Built in 1925, Cathy and Richard McCurdy bought 1004 Ninth St. that sits at the corner of Ocean Drive and Ninth Street about five years ago from Alan and Maggie Dettlebach.

The McCurdys spent the first year and a half remodeling the house, a project that entailed several additional rooms and preserved the house’s historic integrity. It is rumored one of the past owners transported the house from Los Angeles to Hermosa Beach.

The McCurdys restored the three-bedroom and 2-1/2-bathroom house that sits fairly high on its lot and seems to have been inspired by Tudor architecture.

The philosophy behind the style was to shrink the size of buildings as a way to become more intimate compared to the spacious constructions common in the late Gothic period. The Tudor architecture concentrated on details, and the windows and doors were made smaller. A Tudor house tried to create a dramatic entrance with doorways that featured low arches. Most houses had a coat of arms that sat above the entryway.

The top floor features two bedrooms including the master bedroom and bathroom, a dressing room and an office that also serves as the house’s fourth bedroom. The house also features hardwood floors painted a dark coffee color. The office still maintains its original Douglas fir wood.

In the remodel, the McCurdys expanded the garage to accommodate two cars and built about 1,000 square feet of additions, including the master bedroom and bathroom and a family room. They turned the old family room into a formal dining area.

“I can’t really say I have a favorite room. I love it all and its nice how one room seems to flow into another so if we have a large party, people aren’t all jammed up in one space,” added Cathy.

The front of the house contains an L-shaped living area that connects into the formal dining room. The house’s bottom level also features the kitchen, a powder room, a bedroom and bathroom. The bedroom contains a door that connects to the kitchen and a set of French doors that open up to the house’s backyard, comprising a patio and courtyard with minimal landscaping.

The house also has ocean views on both the bottom and top floors where they can see all the way to downtown Los Angeles on a clear day. The McCurdys added more crown molding to the house in areas such as around the windows and restored the house’s light fixtures and doorknobs; the latter were made out of glass. The McCurdys found a local business in Hermosa Beach called Let There Be Light on Hermosa Avenue to buy all of their original light fixtures.

Cathy has lived in Hermosa Beach since the age of 7. She migrated to the quiet beach town from New York City with her family. She attended South School, Pier Avenue Junior High School and Redondo Union High School. Richard, a New Jersey native, relocated with his family in Long Beach and attended high school there. They met while working for the same company in Torrance and they have one son together.

“We toured old homes for ideas on this renovation,” said Cathy. “We always wanted to find an older home. We sold our house on 25th Street that we built from the ground up and put every dime back into this little, old house.”

Longtime resident Violet Young owns both 3435 The Strand (transformed into two units) and 3302 Hermosa Ave.

Violet and her late husband, Edward, bought the house in 1974 from Timmis and Elizabeth Moore. Originally from a small town located just outside Madison, Wis., the Youngs migrated to the South Bay in 1955 and bought a house in the Hollyglen district in Hawthorne. The couple spent more than 48 years there and had two children there, a son, Jonathan, and a daughter, Sheila.

Young’s husband worked as an engineer at Hughes Aircraft and loved the real estate market. The couple became partners in the business and began acquiring property around town.

“You didn’t need a great deal of money to buy a house back in those days like you do now,” said Young. “We still have the house in Hollyglen, two houses in Hermosa Beach and two in El Segundo.”

Young, who recently moved into 3302 Hermosa Ave., rents out the top level to a man who lives there a few days a week. The three- bedroom, two-bathroom house features a kitchen, living room and a deck on the front of the house with what Young considers to be a “fantastic view.”

“It so nice to walk out onto the deck at night and see a beautiful silver streak of the moon against the water or to watch the sailboats float by the palm trees that frame them in the distance,” added Young.

According to city records, 3435 The Strand was built in 1924 and rumor has it the house was moved onto the property. The Youngs bought the house in 1960 for $25,000 from Val and Mildred Lehnberg that has always served as a beach rental.

“The beach had not acquired the popularity for the beautiful people it does now,” said Young. “At that time, Hermosa Beach was a bohemian, hippie beach town. In renting during this time we found the most outrageous things in the rental after people moved out. We started out with nothing and as time went on, we discovered that beach property is worth something.”

Over the years, Young rented out to all different types of people including the children of Anthony Franks, the former U.S. postmaster general. Young still works for the property management company she founded with her husband that is now operated by her son and son-in-law.

“This town has grown so much and it’s been really interesting to experience the ways in which it has grown,” said Young. “I can remember when Aviation Boulevard used to be two lanes and of course, the traffic is worse; but I guess that’s just growth.”