![\"87-watreman_wednesday_club\"](\"http:\/\/hillcresthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/87-watreman_wednesday_club1.jpg\")
<\/a>In 1889, the newlyweds moved to Rancho Cuyamaca, started a family and Hazel acclimated to the remote camp life by painting. The governor died in 1891, and when the gold mine closed two years later, the Waterman family moved to San Diego. After dealing with financial challenges, in 1900 they moved into a granite cottage on the southwest corner of Albatross and Hawthorn designed by Irving Gill.<\/p>\nGill was impressed with Hazel\u2019s ability to grasp architectural ideas, and suggested a career. When her husband died three years later, she took classes via a correspondence school and honed her skills at home while working for Gill on projects including three houses on Seventh Street (now Avenue) for Alice Lee and Katherine Teats. The single mother earned quite a reputation as a creative designer while supporting her three children. (Waldo, was the youngest.)<\/p>\n
Her second major assignment was for John Spreckels who wanted to restore the historic Casa de Estudillo, which had been picked apart after being incorrectly identified as a site in Helen Hunt Jackson’s best-selling novel Ramona. Waterman took on the \u201cpathetic ruin\u201d with gusto as she passionately researched, then rebuilt, the adobe structure which became the state\u2019s first historic tourist attraction.<\/p>\n
Hazel also influenced her peers. The newly graduated architect Lilian Rice (whose legacy is the upscale Spanish village of Rancho Santa Fe) worked as a part-time draftswoman for Waterman and gained useful knowledge and experience about Southern California\u2019s history, landscape and topography. Walk by the Wednesday Club to enjoy Hazel\u2019s attention to detail and a vision that lives on today.<\/p>\n
First published in HillQuest<\/a>, an Urban Guide to 92103 & Beyond, volume 5<\/p>\n