GLENDALE — Walking into the Doctor’s House Museum in Brand Park is like stepping into 1888, but not for Dick Brouillard.
He was one of dozens of volunteers who spent two or three years’ worth of weekends in the early 1980s repairing the building, one of the oldest structures in the city.
The structure was relocated in 1979 from its original foundation at 921 E. Wilson Ave. and was known as the “doctor’s house” because it was owned and occupied by three of Glendale’s earliest physicians.
Now a museum, one room paid tribute to volunteers who relocated the house to Brand Park. Brouillard rattled off the names of friends and colleagues in framed photos from 1983.
“There I am in a fireplace,” he said. “There’s Glen. And is that me? That might be little Dick. There was another Richard, but we both went by Dick. He used to work as a crane operator — you know, the ones that went up 30 or 40 floors.”
Outside the museum, Brouillard looked up to see if the roof work he performed years ago had withstood the test of time. He smiled, pleased with his handiwork.
“I remember putting that spindle on the roof,” he said. “I laid these bricks” that encircle the front of the structure. “And I did it because she told me to,” pointing to his wife, Sharlene.
“He liked building, and I said this would be great,” she said.
The Brouillards returned to Glendale from their new home in Santa Clarita to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the community-wide grass-roots campaign that not only preserved the Doctor’s House, but spawned the Glendale Historical Society.
“They had no experience in this sort of thing. They were just your average Glendale homeowners who were very upset this piece of history was going to be destroyed,” said John LoCascio, president of the historical society. “This was a labor of love . . . and that’s what we’re celebrating.”
The Doctor’s House is an unusual example of the society’s work, LoCascio said.
“It’s about keeping the face of the community consistent,” he said. “We don’t typically advocate buildings to be house-museums. We want them to be lived in and be part of the community.”
