You can’t miss the deep-rose colored house at 1064 Harrison Avenue. Actually, the paint color is Old Claret, Roger Johnson explained Friday, as the house fairly glowed in the sunlight. Johnson and his partner, Bob Girrard, took the local landmark from shabby to gorgeous after purchasing it in 2001. Their handiwork was recognized Monday with the 2010 Dr. Edward Harvey Historic Preservation Award in the Residential Division. 

In the Commercial Division, the 2010 Harvey Award went to Mitch Mitchum and Rosemarie Paavola of Luottamus Partners for restoring the Sanborn Building at 951-957 Commercial St. The downtown building was severely damaged in the 2008 Thanksgiving fire.

“It really should be known as the Phoenix building. It rose from the ashes,” said Mayor Pro Tem Blair Henningsgaard, who presented framed certificates to the Harvey Award recipients at the start of the Astoria City Council meeting Monday.

Paavola said being chosen for a Harvey award is a wonderful experience. She and business partner Mitchum used historic photos to guide the work, which was accomplished with permission of the State Historic Preservation Office. The Sanborn Building, constructed around 1923, received historic designation in 2009 from the Historic Landmarks Commission. It’s located in the Downtown National Register Historic District.

The project included replacing the building’s roof and the structure that supports it, incorporating seismic upgrades around storefront openings, returning storefront windows to their original size, repairing wooden transoms, adding single-lite, fir storefront doors and painting the building’s exterior. Salvaged material was used as much as possible throughout the building.

Downtown Astoria is a great place for people who like to restore old buildings, Paavola said. She and Mitchum have found tenants for four of the six commercial spaces in the Sanborn and are talking to prospective tenants for the remaining two.

“Given the economy and the time of year, we’ve been more successful than we expected,” Mitchum said.

“It came out so well because of the good people we had working for us,” Paavola said. She singled out architect Jay Raskin and Astoria contractor Jim Wilkins, who served as construction manager for the Sanborn renovation, for special thanks, and all the local subcontractors. “It takes a love of old buildings to bring them back,” Paavola said.

Another winner was also delighted.

“It’s an honor. I couldn’t believe it.” That’s how Roger Johnson said he reacted when he opened the letter announcing the Harvey Award.

“When I got a letter from city hall, I thought, ‘I know I paid that water bill!’ … I didn’t open it right away,'” Johnson said. “We certainly didn’t do it for an award. But I’m glad it was recognized.”

Girrard and Johnson removed 41/2 tons of asbestos siding that encased their circa-1880 home, where Herman Wise, Astoria’s first Jewish mayor, lived in the early 1900s. When the asbestos came off, the original horizontal wood siding and long-hidden architectural details were exposed.

Girrard and Johnson also put a new roof on the house, revealed a copper bay window roof and replaced nonhistoric windows. And they replaced the dual front door, installed when the house was a duplex, with a single door with a transom and side lites. Before they settled on the home’s striking color scheme, Girrard made several trips to historic districts in Washington state and San Francisco for color ideas.

“It’s really stunning. It’s the only house painted in claret,” Henningsgaard said before presenting the award certificate to Johnson and Girrard. Both thanked City Planner Rosemary Johnson for her help with permits during the lengthy restoration of their home.

“We’re fortunate that people want to do this. We had a number of excellent candidates,” said David Pearson, the Historic Landmarks Commission’s chairman, Monday. The residential restoration by Johnson and Girrard shows tremendous community pride, he said, and restoring the Sanborn Building is great for the community and downtown. “Historic preservation can become an economic engine of its own,” Pearson said.

The Dr. Edward Harvey Historic Preservation Awards have been presented every year since 1988 during May, which is National Historic Preservation Month, to recognize property owners who have completed exterior restoration, rehabilitation or beautification projects that are sensitive to the historic attributes of their building or the architectural heritage of Astoria. The work must have been completed within the last two years.

Owners of three other properties received honorable mention awards, which will be presented today at the Astoria Historic Landmarks Commission meeting.

Recipient in the Commercial category is Daren Doss, who restored the Union Fishermen’s Cooperative Packing Company Boat House at 4900 Ash St., which was built in 1903.

Honorable mention recipients in the Residential category are Daniel Block and Ruby Jui Fang, who reconstructed the front of their building at 1167-1169 Harrison Ave. to match the original design of the circa 1914 property; and Nelson and Linda Yaple, who painted their home at 1031 14th St. with emphasis on historic details, replaced aluminum windows with wooden ones and did extensive landscaping.

The historic preservation awards were named for the late Dr. Edward Harvey, who once headed up the Oregon State University Seafood Lab. An early leader in Astoria’s efforts to preserve historic homes and buildings, Harvey lobbied the Clatsop County Commission to establish a Historic Advisory Committee and served as its chairman for many years. He spent many years restoring his own home at Seventh Street and Grand Avenue, which was built in 1880, and was one of the first private homes put on the National Register of Historic Places.

“We make these presentations to celebrate the good work people in our community have done in rehabilitating and restoring their properties,” summed up Astoria Community Development Director Brett Estes. “The city is proud to recognize people who take the time and effort to restore their properties. They make the overall historic integrity of our community even better.”