California

Time Travel Tour to Save Two Iconic Boat Houses

A trip back in time is aimed at preserving an iconic site in Encinitas.

A local preservation group is working to save a bit of vernacular architecture in Encinitas, two Boathouses on 3rd Street.

The Encinitas Preservation Association is raising money this weekend with special tours of historic Encinitas, including rare access to the Bumann Ranch and other local historic sites. The dual boathouses, never meant to sail, are authentic architectural representations of boats, rented out as affordable housing.

On Saturday, a bus tour to raise money for their preservation will take people to notable historical sites in Encinitas, including Bumann Ranch.  

“It’s probably one of the last homesteads in San Diego County,” said Richard Bumann about the ranch homesteaded by his grandfather in 1886.

Many of the original barns, shacks and living quarters remain intact. Three generations of the Bumann family have called the ranch home for the past 125 years.

“This is a granary built by my grandfather sometime in the 1890’s,” said Richard Bumann showing off the property exclusively to NB7’s May Tjoa, ahead of Saturday’s tour.

On rare occasions, Richard and Twink Bumann open their ranch to the public.

Visitors are taken to another era.

Richard Bumann’s grandfather, Herman Bumann, eventually bought two adjoining homesteads and farmed 480 acres. Two generations later, the private family ranch is down to 10 acres.

“In a way, time kinda stopped here at the ranch,” Twink told NBC7.

Today, efforts are underway to designate the boathouses, built in the 1920’s as a California historical landmark.

That’s a designation that could happen by next year.

The bus tour is from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. with lunch at the historic one room schoolhouse at F Street. Tickets are $65. They can be purchased here: www.eventbrite.com

The tour will take people by more than 50 or so historic sites in Encinitas and allow them to tour two of them with the highlight being the rare look inside the Bumann private property. Tours of the Boathouses are not included because people live in them currently.

The Encinitas Preservation Association was formed in 2008 specifically to save the boat houses from being torn down. 

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