San Francisco contractor restores Dunsmuir apartment complex

By Earl Bolender
Published: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 5:40 PM CST
E-mail this story | Print this page
San Francisco contractor Roger Young, whose work has included solar energy design, stands in front of an apartment complex in Dunsmuir that he bought and renovated.

Roger Young, a licensed contractor in San Francisco, considers himself an innovator.

He has designed and built homes that are environmentally friendly, including solar energy models in Sonoma County, and was responsible for construction of a photovoltaic power plant in San Diego County.

Young's latest undertaking was the complete renovation of an apartment complex near the south Dunsmuir entrance for use as both short and long term rentals.

It was during the late 1970s that Young, whose innovative home designs have been featured in daily newspapers, magazines and on television, saw an opportunity to build vacation homes in the Lake Tahoe area.

“There were thousands of lots available for development,” he said. “People from the Bay Area were buying the lots, but nobody was building. I started a company called Recreation Design, which showed people how to build on their lots.

“The company did well until about 1980 when the interest rate hit 20 percent and the real estate market crashed,” Young said. “It was then that I saw an opportunity in the solar energy business.”

He became corporate projects manager for United Energy Corporation, a group whose primary goal is to develop, manufacture and market environmentally safe products.

“I built a solar photovoltaic electricity producing energy power plant in San Diego County, which was sold to San Diego Gas and Electric,” he said.

Young was quoted in a September 1984 edition of Sun-Up magazine as saying that UEC “becomes the first U.S. company to feed substantial amounts of electricity from an integrated energy farm to a utility.”

The magazine article reported the facility, an integrated energy farm, would allow UEC to provide as much as 20 megawatts of PV-generated power for use by San Diego Gas and Electric.

“The farm is comprised of huge acre size ponds of water,” Young said. “An array of lens modules, that are mounted on the eight-inch deep ponds, rotate east to west during the day to track the sun.”

From UEC, Young began building solar homes in Sonoma County.

“At the time, I was one of the few people who knew about solar,” he said.

With partner Gary Starr, Young created Solar Electric Engineering. The two solar entrepreneurs built Sunrise Estate, a luxury solar-powered showcase home that “was as close to being power-independent as a house can be,” Young said.

“In 1987, the solar industry collapsed,” he said. “Tax credits that had been given for solar energy had elapsed. This really killed the industry.”

On the bright side, Young said the housing industry began to make a big comeback. He is now a contractor in San Francisco where he grew up.

In the mid-'80s, as a single dad, I began to make frequent visits to the Mt. Shasta area to climb and river raft with my son,” Young said. “I always had the dream of living in this area and, trying to make money in real estate, I bought a run-down apartment building in Dunsmuir about three years ago.”

He said the apartment complex, located just north of Manfredi's Depot at the south Dunsmuir entrance, was “in need of help.”

“It was in a disgraceful state of disrepair,” Young said. “Since it is virtually the first building visitors see when they drive into town, I felt sprucing up the appearance of the building would indirectly help the city as well.”

Hiring local people to do the work, Young set about the task of completely renovating the apartment complex and its two cottages in back.

“I even landscaped the corner of Elizabeth Street and Dunsmuir Ave. where the building sits, which had been an eyesore,” Young said. “I have also done some landscaping around the building, a lot of the material being left over from jobs I've done in the Bay Area.”

With a drop in the rental market in the summer of 2006, he said he got the idea of advertising his building for both short and long term rentals on the Internet.

“It quickly filled the building with everyone from anglers to temporary Dunsmuir city workers including those working on the freeway to attendees at some of Mt. Shasta's numerous spiritual awards,” he said.

Young, who worked at Coldwell Banker in Dunsmuir for a time, said it his hope and desire to buy other property in the community for restoration.

“While working at Coldwell Banker a steady stream of prospective home buyers came by each weekend,” he said. “They were amazed that they could purchase attractive Dunsmuir homes for a fraction of their corresponding cost in other urban parts of the state.

“In my construction business, I've seen quaint towns like Truckee and Grass Valley undergo impressive renovations from Bay Area buyers who moved from city life for one reason or other,” Young said. “I feel Dunsmuir is sitting smack dab on that track for future success.”


Siskiyou Cottage Apartments
Short term & long term rentals
In Dunsmuir, California
415-302-2820