The Ice House Cometh…or One Man's Vision/ A Town's Historical Landmark

By Steefenie Wicks
The year was 1982:
He made sure no one was there, then went back inside, made the cut deep in the wood and pushed the thick wooden piece through; when it fell outside on the street, it made a loud noise.   This brought people out of their businesses and from up and down the street and when they saw what he had done they cheered.  A s he stood in the newly cut window looking out at everyone, he burst into tears and at that moment he knew that he had made the right decision and he would spend the best part of 13 years developing the Michael Rex and Associates architectural firm in this storybook structure . . . the Ice House.
I sat down recently with architect Michael Rex and asked him if he could fill me in on how the Ice House was saved.  He began by saying that in the early 1980’s, he had been eyeing the fanciful structure for some time because it was obviously abandoned.  One night at a party he brought up the subject with his friend, cartoonist Phil Frank.  Frank advised him to speak with the owner of the building and offer him $1.  Michael was not sure that would work but he knew the property owner.  They were both members of the Rotary Club and his name was Ed Couderc.  
The Couderc family had owned the structure since 1952 and it was used to dispense ice purchased from the Union Ice Company in San Rafael and brought to Sausalito on open flat bed trucks that carried about 10,000 lbs. per trip daily.  When the Couderc family owned the structure, the ice was fed out of the chute by the coins placed in the slot that would trigger a conveyor belt.  When the ice fell off of the belt into a chute it would trip a rod with another switch to stop the machine.  Ed remembers as a child that his father would get calls from the Police department in the middle of the night because the machine would not turn off and ice was filling up the streets.
At the next Rotary meeting Michael approached Ed and offered him $1 for the building and Ed said “why not, but you’ll have to move it because I need the land.” Rex offered rent the site for a monthly fee and the deal was struck.
“When you walk into an old building it’s like you are walking into a story,” Rex says. “The story of the structure is there in the walls, the floors, the windows and the doors, the heritage of the place is so important.”  This becomes apparent when you enter the 19th century structure that now houses the Historical Society’s Visitor Center and Historic Exhibit in downtown Sausalito.
The Ice House had at one time been a Northwestern Pacific railroad “cold cargo hold.”  The first of these “cold cargo” cars were called “reefers” and were brought about by the same Union Ice Company that the Couderc family would later do business with.  Edward W. Hopkins, a nephew of San Francisco railroad tycoon Mark Hopkins, founded Union Ice in 1882.   It’s believed that the structure downtown has been part of Sausalito since the 1920’s when it served the iceboxes of the local residents.   
Rex noticed that sometimes the best things about a place go unnoticed.  When I asked what about the Ice House goes unnoticed he pointed out that the floor has never been polished and yet it has a shine that can only come from having ice drug across it for almost 100 years, but who notices the floor?
With the growth of his architectural firm, Rex began looking for larger office space in 1997 and that meant a new home for the Ice House.  A new home because it could no longer stay at its location on Caledonia Street.  Once again Rex came to his friend Phil Frank, and Phil came up with the idea of moving it downtown.  Frank set about drawing cartoons of townspeople pulling the Ice House downtown.  He and Rex started a fundraising project to relocate the structure, and in the middle of the night in 1999 the building was moved to its present location.
“Phil had an affinity to the Ice House and he had a love for old structures,” recalls Michael  “His encouragement for me to purchase the building changed my life and I have many wonderful memories of times spent in that building.  He was instrumental in the whole campaign to save the building, to move the building and gather the support of the town and the Historical Society.  Without his support and energy things might have taken a turn and the Ice House could have been destroyed.”
In closing I asked Rex what he thought about the structure now that it has become a historical landmark. His reply was simply, ”Old buildings are the physical embodiments of history, and oh, the beauty of it all. For beauty is timeless and is appreciated by all people of all ages  … if you design beauty you create joy and that is what I have done with my work all my life.  If the Ice House represents that then I’m very pleased and proud.”


Architect Michael Rex in his office today.
Photo by Steefenie Wicks