A nonprofit preservation group has settled a legal action taken against the city of Glendale that alleged the Rockhaven Sanitarium, founded by a psychiatric nurse more than a century ago, had fallen into disrepair.
The Friends of Rockhaven petition had challenged what the group said was the failure of the city of Glendale, and its City Council, to comply with the Glendale Municipal Code by maintaining and preserving historic property now known as the Rockhaven Sanitarium Historic District.
On Friday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephen I. Goorvitch signed court papers in which he agreed to retain jurisdiction over the case to enforce the settlement terms, which include an agreement by the city to make improvements on ponding and grading issues adjacent to all buildings at Rockhaven by March 2026, as well as identify items that could be done during the six months following Jan. 1, 2025.
In addition, within nine months the city will conduct structural assessments of the Coulter Cottage and the Nurses Cottage and within a year the city will identify other maintenance issues and take appropriate rehabilitation steps.
In the petition filed in April 2023, Friends of Rockhaven maintained the city’s alleged “delayed and deferred maintenance” has increased the cost of performing the repairs required for Rockhaven’s rehabilitation, thus causing “injury to the public purse.”
The group pushed for, among other things, repairs of Rockhaven’s roof, exterior drainage and rain gutters and the removal of mold, asbestos and lead.
In their court papers, lawyers for the Glendale City Attorney’s Office denied the preservation group’s allegations.
“Simply put, this action … is both premature and unnecessary as the city has voluntarily taken on the obligation … to rehabilitate and preserve Rockhaven,” the city lawyers maintained in their court papers.
Rockhaven was founded by psychiatric nurse Agnes Richards in 1923, beginning with a two-story Craftsman-style “Rockhouse.” Richards eventually acquired neighboring homes to incorporate them into a women’s-only facility, and for much of the 20th century the Rockhaven Sanitarium was an institution for mentally ill women.
“Rockhaven was conceived as an antidote to the prison-like atmospheres of the asylums of the time, where women patients were often imprisoned indefinitely and sometimes abused,” the petition stated.
Rockhaven eventually was put up for sale to private developers, who in 2006 planned to demolish the lot to build condominiums. But Friends of Rockhaven stepped in to oppose the transaction and the city bought the property in April 2008 for about $8.25 million, the petition stated.
Despite Rockhaven’s historic value, plus an $8 million state grant and community efforts to save it from demolition, the city has allowed the “Gem of the Foothills” to fall into decay, the petition alleged.
“The Rockhaven Sanitarium Historic District contributing buildings are in deplorable condition because of the city’s persistent mismanagement of this important historic property,” the petition stated.
Since buying the historic property, the city has ignored its own experts who advised measures to prevent, among other things, water leaks and damage from mold and other hazards, thus jeopardizing its historic preservation and causing further damage, the petition stated.
In a February 2016 letter, City Manager Scott Ochoa admitted to a state historic preservation officer that the city was providing limited maintenance to protect the Rockhaven buildings and that such a course was not viable over the long term, according to the petition.
The California State Historical Resources Commission gave unanimous approval to list the Rockhaven Sanitarium to the California Register of Historical Resources in April 2016, and Friends of Rockhaven successfully nominated the property for listing in the National Register of Historic Places, which bestowed recognition on the property in June of that year, the petition stated.