Historic Bishops Lane cottage to be moved soon to make way for a new house

In coming months, a historically designated house will be moved from La Jolla’s Bishops Lane to an adjacent property to make way for a new home development.

According to the San Diego Development Services Department, an application was filed Aug. 26 for a coastal development permit to build a 3,603-square-foot single-family residence with a lower-level accessory dwelling unit at 7762 Bishops Lane in The Village.

The application will go before local planning groups before construction begins. In the interim, the 1913 Lillian Lentell cottage will be moved to 817 Silverado St. The house was designated historic in 2012 as a resource that exemplifies La Jolla’s early beach cottage development, with a period of significance of 1913-15.

“We’re moving the cottage 30 feet to the adjacent property in the alley closer to Silverado,” said property owner and applicant Taal Safdie of Safdie Rabines architecture. “It will be more visible from the street than it is today.”

She said the move “should be soon, in the next two months, depending on how long it takes for everything to line up properly,” and that trenching would be done around the property in preparation for the move.

The Lillian Lentell cottage will be moved from 7762 Bishops Lane to adjacent 817 Silverado St.

(Bing Maps / La Jolla Light)

Safdie said the future development would be “modern cottage” style with parking on the property that will be “completely separate from the front cottage.”

The site where the cottage is being moved has another cottage on it. According to a city report associated with the project, “the relocation of the cottage would create a complex of two coastal beach cottages, visually linked by a two-car garage with studio above, into one continuous beach cottage complex facing Bishops Lane, while also fronting onto Silverado Street. An outside stairway will separate the cottage from the proposed garage and studio addition between.”

The San Diego Historical Resources Board voted during its Nov. 19 meeting to support moving the Lintell house with mitigation measures to preserve it.

At the time, board member and La Jolla resident Courtney Coyle expressed concern that the new development would overshadow the old cottage.

“There are a number of small cottages in La Jolla … that have been built upon, and by the time they are done, it looks like a modern mansion and it loses its scale and feel of those structures,” she said. “I hope for the best, but I’ve seen structures disappear ... within the new construction, and I hope that doesn’t happen here.”

A timeline for construction has not yet been established, as the city must provide comments on the application, which could be revised accordingly. ◆