What we've learned about La Habra
The oldest blocks are the ones around the original downtown, where the old rail depot now houses the Children’s Museum. Houses there are small and honest: two bedrooms, one bath, a raised floor, a porch, and a lot of painted woodwork. Many have had a bathroom added at the back or a kitchen opened up, which means original and modern surfaces sitting side by side in the same room.
Spread out from there and the post-war grid takes over, thousands of similar three-bedroom houses on modest flat lots between Whittier Boulevard and Imperial Highway. Then the land rises. Up around Hacienda Road and toward Westridge, lots get bigger, driveways get steeper, and the homes start carrying two levels and a lot more hard flooring than the flats do.
La Habra homes, structurally
Most of the city is single story, 1,100 to 1,700 square feet, slab construction from the fifties and sixties with carpet and sheet vinyl or later laminate. The pre-war pocket near the core is smaller again, with raised foundations, wood windows and painted trim that repays gentle handling. Northern hillside homes break the pattern at 2,000 to 3,000 square feet across two levels. Inland summers are hot and dry, and sprinkler overspray leaves mineral spotting on low windows city-wide.