Anderson Street Water Tower
historic building in California
The Anderson Street Water Tower, also known as the Water Tower House, Sunset Beach Water Tower, or Pacific Coast Highway Water Tower, is a historic 87 ft (27 m) water tower in Seal Beach, California. Built in 1892, the redwood and fir structure has since been converted into a house. It is currently owned by Gregg and Mary DeNicola, who bought the tower for $4.5 million in 2022 and rented it on Airbnb. It was the tallest family home in the U.S. until the Falcon Nest in Prescott, Arizona overtook it in 2017.
History
The water tower was built in 1892 and was used for supplying water to trains that were traveling from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Each year it was purchased, a year was added to the door, making a total of five as of 2024: 1892, 1940, 1985, 2016, and 2022. In 1940, the Santa Fe Tank & Pipe Co. rebuilt the tank, with it now being able to contain 75,000 US gal (280,000 L), making it the largest water tower ever on the West Coast at the time. At this point, it was being used to store nearby towns' water. The water tower began to degrade by 1980, being termite-infested and graffitied, causing the city to start planning to dismantle the structure.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Anderson Street Water Tower” is historic building in California. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Anderson, Street and Water, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “historic building in California” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q124571065. Authority coordinates are 33.724, -118.078. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1892, 2022, 2017 and 2024.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Anderson Street Water Tower”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Anderson Street Water Tower primary sources, Anderson Street Water Tower archive and Anderson research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Anderson Street Water Tower”?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Anderson Street Water Tower” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.