WORTH SAVING? THE LITTLE HOUSE ON THE DESERT.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

PALMDALE - After emigrating from Germany in the 1880s, Max Godde and two of his brothers cleared a square mile of Antelope Valley desert to farm, and he built a small frame house - a shed, really.

The house was enlarged over the years while Godde grew wheat and almonds, and he and his wife, Elizabeth, raised eight children. The couple lived in the house together more than 50 years.

Now standing in a remnant field bordered on three sides by housing tracts, the 111-year-old house - possibly the oldest house in Palmdale - is being evaluated to determine if it is worth preserving.

``When I went and stood out there, I (wondered) how did they ever feed eight kids,'' said Kim McBride, a great-granddaughter of Max and Elizabeth. ``How could you feed eight kids on this dried-up piece of property?''

The house, vacant and vandalized since its last occupants moved out in January, was almost certainly headed for demolition until a neighbor, Roy Ramirez, found out through assessor's records that a valley pioneer built it in 1890.

On Nov. 15, about 12 hours after Ramirez stood in front of a bulldozer to prevent demolition of the house, his information led the Palmdale City Council to prevent construction of a 41-home subdivision on the Godde site at least until January.

City officials say the possible options include moving the old house and its barn elsewhere, as Palmdale's 1888 schoolhouse was moved to McAdam Park.

Developer Harris Homes Inc. has hired an expert to study the old house.

McBride believes the house and dilapidated barn should be restored where they are, other valley buildings from the 19th and early 20th century should also be moved there, and the complex should be preserved as a museum staffed by people who dress as the pioneers did and who demonstrate practices and crafts of the period.

McBride's support for preserving the old house isn't unanimous even in her family. The house stands on property at 55th Street West and Avenue N that was sold to Harris Homes by two elderly Godde descendants who live in the San Gabriel Valley.

Some people point out that the house and barn are badly deteriorated. McBride responds that some California missions were little more than crumbled walls when restoration began on them.

Most of the house's plank exterior has been covered with a thin layer of stucco. The kitchen has modern cabinets. The windows have been broken by vandals. The old barn has a corrugated metal roof over the original shingles.

But there are clues of the house's age. On one room's exposed interior wall, the space between two weathered planks is filled with a strip of newspaper bearing the date 1891.

The farm at one point also had a bunkhouse and probably a second barn, McBride said.

McBride's grandmother Anna, daughter of valley pioneer William Stratman, recalled that she was a girl living on a neighboring farm when one barn burned and killed the Goddes' cow sometime before 1920.

Farm families in the area picked up mail for each other whenever any of them made the nine-mile trip to the Lancaster post office. McBride said her grandmother remembers seeing the dead cow when she went to the Godde homestead either to pick up or deliver mail.

McBride suspects that the Godde brothers who cleared land in the Antelope Valley - Fred, Frank and Max - came to the area in a wet El Nino period: The valley was described as covered in green grass nearly waist high. Then drought hit, and many families moved away.

``Somehow the Goddes and Stratmans survived,'' McBride said.

They planted almonds, which covered much of the Quartz Hill area until blight hit in the 1970s.

For years, Max Godde's homestead had no well. He had to haul water from a spring two miles away in what became known as Godde Pass.

In addition to helping build Sacred Heart Church in Lancaster, the Godde brothers gave their name to Godde Hill Road. They did most of the work cutting into the ridge for the road, which connected the brothers' Quartz Hill acreage with a farm Fred Godde acquired in Leona Valley.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1) Max Godde, his wife, Elizabeth, and six of their children are pictured on their Palmdale homestead around 1901.

(2 -- color) Neighbor Roy Ramirez is leading a campaign to preserve the Godde house, including a portion built in 1890, at a proposed housing-tract site.

(3) Members of the William Stratman and Max Godde families pose early in the 20th century with a horse-drawn reaper in a wheat field in what is now west Palmdale.

(4) A glued-on strip of 1891 newspaper serves as a pioneer version of wallboard tape in the Godde house.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer