The “Centennial House” is typical of the many summer cottages that used to surround Anaheim Bay before the Navy Weapons Station was built in 1944.
The summer cottages were built to house families who would spend from a week to two months at a time at Anaheim Landing which was originally built in 1864 by Anaheim businessmen and wine growers, as a port from which to ship their wine and other products and to receive and import lumber and other materials to build their houses and stores.
The 1875 arrival of the railroad in Anaheim ended most of the Landing’s usefulness as a shipping port, but residents found the bay and the soft beaches ideal spots to get away from the inland summer heat for a week or two. The early vacationers often resided in the unused warehouses whose proprietors hung blankets to provide “private rooms” for rent, but more often families sheltered in tents. Newspaper reports note the Landing’s summer population would sometimes swell to over 500 persons, with tents laid out in streets. But by April 1897, there were also 31 beach cottages. Most of the Landing’s early permanent dwellers were squatters, claiming it was an open tidal area and thus public land, but the Hellmans went to court to confirm their ownership and soon after 1900, the Hellman Company began selling and/or leasing lots.
Anaheim Landing’s popularity was one reason Philip A. Stanton and the Bayside Land Company founded the subdivision of Bay City just to the west. But the Landing remained the more popular, and soon many of the newcomers built more substantial summer houses, some with 3-4 bedrooms, that they would lease out.
The Landing had its own Boathouse with a restaurant, snack shack, bowling alley and even a short pier and dock with boat rentals. It also had its own lifeguards. The Hellmans agreed to be part of Stanton’s incorporation in 1915 when Stanton’s group wanted to incorporate so they could allow legal sales of alcohol at their new Joy Zone amusement area. While this did not help growth in the rest of Seal Beach, the Landing and Anaheim Bay area continued to gain in popularity. Families put up more and more of the little beach cottages and in the photos from 1905-1930, you can see many of these cottages lined up just beyond the high tide line, especially on the west side of the Bay went all around from the railroad bridge to the current Coast Highway bridge, all still located on blocks but still just beyond the high tide line.
On the south side of the Pacific Electric trestle was an area then called East Seal Beach where larger cottages/small homes were built. These parallelled the PE tracks, but were on the inland side facing Anaheim Bay. In 1929, after another land dispute was settled, the new Surfside Colony was built on the ocean side of the PE tracks.
This area struggled during the Depression. But still those who came here loved it. However, the approach of World War II, the growth of aviation and other military-related factories and bases, resulted in a dramatic housing shortage and cottages around the bay were filled to the max. Aerial photos from the late 1930s show little cottages like the centennial cottage on all sides of the Anaheim Bay inlet.
All this came to an end when the Navy took over Anaheim Bay. Newspaper accounts and court records tell us that there were still over 100 small beach cottages among the 200 structures that would have to be moved. The first homes were removed in March 1944 and by June they were all gone from Anaheim Bay. Many were taken to be Granny flats in the backyards of local homes in Westminster, Midway City, Huntington Beach, and of course, Old Town Seal Beach.
The Centennial Cottage resided behind a house on 12th Street and was spotted by former SB Historical Society President Barbara Roundtree in the mid-1990s who organized a campaign to preserve the house. In July 2015 it was “donated” to the city by the Melanie and Don Blayney family who gave the cottage to the city on the condition it be removed in 30 days. The Blayneys wanted to build a new home on 12th Street, where the cottage was currently located and had already obtained a permit from the Coastal Commission to demolish the building. They said the cottage was built in 1900, but this is difficult to verify. But it was very likely built before 1920. The construction style of the cottage is called ‘board and batten’.