Historic Fixer-Upper : Restoration: Efforts to refurbish 107-year-old Olivenhain hotel meet resistance from some who say structure should be razed.

For some, the century-old Baecht hotel in Olivenhain represents little more than a stack of future firewood, a ramshackle nightmare fit to be blown down by the next gust of wind.

Perched in the shadows of a eucalyptus grove, the place resembles that crumbling rural fixer-upper owned by city-boy Oliver Wendell Douglas on the old television show “Green Acres.”

“Actually,” said Olivenhain town council member John McGregor, “that ‘Green Acres’ house has a lot more to offer than this one does right now.”

But now, for the first time in nearly a decade, residents of the North County community are resurrecting plans to refurbish the two-story hotel, which has sat largely in disrepair since a local developer gave it to the community in the early 1980s.

Built by the original German settlers who colonized Olivenhain more than 100 years ago, the aged hotel has become a connection to the community’s rich ethnic heritage.

Recently, following McGregor’s lead, council members rekindled a drive to persuade local artisans and businessmen to donate the time, materials and money to help transform the redwood relic into a modern museum, craft shop or reading room.

So far, they’ve received offers for a new roof and security system, as well as pledges of other work from local builders and carpenters--most inspired by the community’s recent restoration of the adjacent Olivenhain town hall.

For McGregor and others, the newest restoration project would be a clear acknowledgment of the community’s storied past in a time when most progress-conscious Southern Californians seem obsessed by the future.

“There’s still a lot of families related to the old colony,” said the town councilman, a building contractor by trade. “There’s still a lot of memorabilia around. This old hotel would be a great place to display it.”

But Olivenhain residents are at odds over the worth of the onetime wayfarer’s refuge--weighing its value as either a historical diamond-in-the-rough or a pile of fool’s gold.

Most agree on one thing: Beauty and, in this case, historical significance, are truly in the eye of the beholder.

“Sure, it’s part of the community’s history,” neighbor Elaine Tiglio said. “But I get tired of looking at it in its present condition.”

Other residents say the hotel has little value, historical or otherwise, and would be better cut down into kindling wood, filed away like some spent chapter of the past.

Furthermore, they criticized the town council for not protecting their would-be treasure when they first got their hands on it.

Since 1982, when the community moved the Baecht hotel to its present spot just a shout from the old town hall, the place has become home to hummingbirds and the domain of vagrants who have scrawled graffiti on its walls and left their trash strewn about its dusty floors, some locals said.

“It’s a tremendous health hazard and I would like to see it demolished,” resident Molly Hannan said. “It’s constantly being vandalized and broken into. I’m concerned about fires being started there by homeless people trying to stay warm for the winter.

“Instead of wasting any money on refurbishment, why don’t they just tear it down and instead use the money to build real shelters for homeless people who need them.”

For Marjorie Gaines, a former Encinitas councilwoman who helped spearhead the hotel’s relocation to its site along Olivenhain Road near the intersection of El Camino Real, such sentiments are just wrong-headed.

“In any community, you’re going to have people who value its history and those who move in and do not,” she said. “This is definitely a building of value. In my opinion, it’s quite a treasure for the community--especially sitting on the site with the meeting hall.

“With some work, it can be an object of interest for many years for people who want to see how the average people lived in the old days,” said Gaines. “You can imagine that just by looking at the place, it’s simple style and stark lines of architecture. It’s not fancy. It’s just a very substantial house.”

According to local historians, the structure was first inhabited in 1884 by Herman Baecht, his wife and 10 children, Midwesterners who answered a newspaper advertisement promising the good life among the fertile eucalyptus groves out West.

The family hauled redwood lumber from then-distant San Diego and watched as a team of carpenters for the new German colony built their new 10-bedroom home among scores of others--and began planting fruit trees.

“The place was the largest building ever built in the old colony,” said Richard Bumann, the author of “Colony Olivenhain,” a historical treatment of the community’s first days. “That’s probably because Baecht’s family was so big.”

But the reluctant land was not so good to Baecht, a former U.S. Army officer. Following several crop failures, he was forced into other work as once-hearty settlers began drifting from the colony.

For a time, Baecht ran a combination general store, post office and stagecoach ticket office out of his converted home, while helping to arrange minstrel shows in the community center.

His stately home with the towering wooden cupola soon became known as the Germania Hotel, a rest stop for new German immigrants, and later was simply called “The Hotel” when his wife took in roomers.

Over succeeding years, the place changed hands and was still inhabited in 1980--despite a lack of heat, electricity or running water--when a local developer proposed demolishing it.

McGregor said that after initial attempts to restore the hotel in the early 1980s, the project just “ran out of emotion” before the recently renewed efforts.

After first intending to spend nearly $370,000 to install such modern conveniences as heat and electricity, town council members say plans have been scaled back to a more modest figure of $50,000. The possible funding for the museum project might come from the sale of $100 yearly memberships or donations from local builders.

For now, organizers are looking mostly for donations of window glass so they can seal off the hotel from nightly intruders until they can get their long-awaited refurbishments under way.

“This hotel has sat around so long, it’s in pretty sad condition,” McGregor said. “It’s so run down, people began asking, ‘What are we going to do with it? Rebuild it or turn it into firewood?’--and I was one of them.”

While he said it will take a lot of time and energy to restore it, historian Bumann said the old hotel is worth it.

“If you don’t do it, you never get a second chance,” he said. “I just like old, historical things. It’s nice to have them around.”