One of Oceanside’s oldest commercial buildings, which opened in 1912 at the corner of Mission Avenue and Coast Highway, is about to get a new life.
Originally known as the J.E. Jones hardware store, it later was Huckabay’s Department Store, a center of North County retail life for more than 30 years. For the last 28 years, it’s been the offices of Fullerton Mortgage and Escrow Co.
“It’s a showpiece corner,” said John Hartman, whose family bought the property for their mortgage company headquarters about 1990.
Facing Mission Avenue, the building’s 12-foot-high front windows flood the interior with light, and its patterned tin ceilings soar 17 feet above the floor. It’s one of the few buildings in Southern California to have a full basement, and the top floor was a dance hall in the 1940s and ‘50s.
Huckabay’s closed the department store in 1969 and sold the property to investors in 1977, about the time new shopping malls were stealing business from older downtown areas in cities across the nation. The building remained vacant for several years before the Hartmans bought it.
“When we acquired it, it was in terrible condition,” Hartman said. “We did a major overhaul, but that’s been almost 30 years ago. It’s time for the next person to do that all over again.”
The edifice was sold in October to Orange County-based Abdelmuti Development LLC for $5.4 million, according to property records.
What’s ahead is uncertain.
The building is not on any state or national registry, but it has significant local historical interest.
The bones of the building will stay, but it will get another major makeover to suit the next tenant, said company co-owner Jamal Abdelmuti. A new roof, new plumbing, and other upgrades are needed to make the structure ADA and code compliant.
Abdelmuti owns Jack’s Surfboards, a surf gear and clothing shop that opened its flagship store in 1957 in Huntington Beach and now has seven locations in Orange and Los Angeles counties.
That prompted rumors of another surf shop in Oceanside, but that’s not the plan for now, Abdelmuti said. His family took over Jack’s Surfboards in 1975.
They are looking for the right tenant to move into the Oceanside property, he said. It could be a restaurant or a retail store, and even a surf shop is a possibility “in the back of our minds.”
“We bought it more for an investment property,” he said. “It has nothing to do with our retail component. We will do some improvements and put it out for lease.”
The original owner, Joseph E. Jones, was a San Luis Rey Valley rancher, a businessman and civic leader who played an important role in Oceanside’s early growth. When he built the hardware store, most of the city’s streets were still unpaved.
“At the time, everything was centered around the train station,” which was a few blocks to the west, said Kristi Hawthorne, president of the Oceanside Historical Society.
“Those would have been the blocks that had all the activity,” she said. “His building started changing the dynamics of downtown Oceanside.”
The building remained a hardware store for more than 20 years. It became a clothing shop about 1934. Then, in 1939, Hiram and Walter Huckabay bought it and opened Huckabay’s Department Store.
The Huckabays built an addition that today houses the Kingsmen Cleaners, a business on Mission Avenue that relies largely on the uniforms of young Marines from nearby Camp Pendleton. The dry-cleaning business and an upstairs office tenant in the main building are expected to remain under the new owner.
During World War II and into the 1950s, the upper floor of the building was used as a dance hall called the Silver Slipper Ball Room. Many of those guests were also young Marines, and Hawthorne said she’s talked with people who met their future wife or husband at the dances.
The Hartmans spent about $1.4 million to buy and restore the building as the Fullerton Mortgage headquarters, according to a 1991 story in the San Diego Union.
For years, the mortgage company was affiliated with Century 21, but Hartman said he has been an independent broker for the past five years. He said he’s not quite ready to retire, but downtown Oceanside is undergoing a renaissance, and it was time to sell the property.
“This building’s highest and best use is not a real estate office,” he said. “I’m excited to see the progression of the downtown area, and I’m happy I could be a part of it.”
He’s leaving the building in good hands, Hartman said, and he will continue to work there through the end of the year.