Cahen-Clendenen House

The Queen Anne Cahen-Clendenen House was built originally in 1882 by Hippolyte Cahen for his wife Adelaide Ann Meyerholtz. Cahen was a prominent early Anaheim resident. He owned a dry goods store, started the First National Bank of Anaheim, served on the Anaheim Water Board and the Anaheim Board of Trustees in 1886-87. When Cahen decided to move his family to Los Angeles about 1900 (so his children could be educated in a bigger city) the house was sold to the Kuchel family. One of the children, Thomas Kuchel went on to become a US Senator from California and was probably born in this house.

The home was then sold to Dr. Johnson and his family and later to C. Everett Granere. Granere was a mortician for Hilgenfeld's Mortuary in Anaheim. Granere decided to remodel the home in 1949 and convert it into apartments. Undoubtedly this was influenced by the need for housing after WWII and the fact that Victorian homes were then abundant and "out of fashion." The remodel created one apartment downstairs and two upstairs. A stairway was built on the west side of the home to give access to the 2nd story apartments and a two-story garage was added with a fourth apartment on its second story. The cupola on top of the third floor tower room was removed and a colonial style porch with tall pillars was added to the front of the residence to disguise its Victorian heritage.

Mr. Granere eventually sold the apartments (then located on Claudina Street) to Myrtilla (Wally) Schuster who resided on the first floor and rented out the remaining apartments.

Around 1975 the home was acquired by the Anaheim Redevelopment Agency as part of its plan for the development of the new City Hall. The house was purchased in 1976 by Alan and LaDel Clendenen, a Zion family. Their children, Ivy and Ty Clendenen graduated from Zion and went on to Orange Lutheran. Alan and LaDel purchased the home for $50 in exchange for their promise to move it to its present location on nearly an acre at the corner of Vintage Lane and Cypress Street. The Clendenens then began an extensive reconstruction of the home returning it to its Victorian origins. Fortunately much remained from prior to the 1949 remodel. Many of the fixtures and all of the pocket doors had been simply covered over in the remodel. Where part of the structure had been altered, clues remained allowing the Clendenens to reconstruct what was altered or missing.

Today the house looks very much as it did when the Cahens resided there in 1882. Approximately 27 years ago an open-air lattice house (circa 1920-1920) was moved to the back yard from a small home being demolished on the south side of Broadway between Claudina and Philadelphia Streets in Anaheim. Beams to support it were salvaged from the Schwartz family home in El Toro (circa 1880). About 24 years ago the Clendenens added a solarium to the first floor of the house. This structure was previously owned for a number of years by Disneyland, which purchased it from an architectural auction house that brought it over from Europe. It is approximately the same vintage as the house and appears to be English or Scottish in origin. Also situated on the property is the 2 story garage added in the 1949 remodel and an additional modern 11 car garage built to house the Clendenen's antique car collection. The home was purchased by another Zion family Ken and Susan Chinn in 2000. Daughter Elysabeth graduated from Zion in 2002, Daniel is currently in the 3rd grade, Mary is 1st and Robert is in Kindergarten.