A Brief History of the ModelMania Building

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

At the April 7 Downtown Fullerton Art Walk at ModelMania, I gave a brief presentation on the history of the ModelMania building. For those of you who missed the talk, here’s what I shared.

The site of the ModelMania building at 232 W. Commonwealth Ave. was within lot 30 of the Amerige Brothers’ original townsite map, as shown below:

Here is lot 30:

These lots were sold to settlers, and the first buildings constructed on this lot were homes. According to Local History Librarian Cheri Pape, one of these early houses was likely owned by Fullerton Tribune editor Edgar Johnson. Here is a 1911 tract map showing houses where the building is today:

Eventually, the houses were demolished to make room for businesses. In 1948, Southern California Edison built an office building at 232 W. Commonwealth. This would later be the ModelMania building.

Part of the reason for Edison building this was the post-war population boom required an expansion of electric services in this area (and throughout southern California).

Edison stayed in the building for nearly two decades, after which time they acquired a larger property at Brookhurst and Valencia–property which they still own and use.

From 1975 to 1978, the building housed the North Orange County Mental Health Service.

From 1981-1985, it was used by American Mental Health Family Treatment [Chemical?] and something called Pacific Academy.

From 1987 to 1992, it was a car dealership called Stadium Pontiac. The paintings of Angels and Rams logos are still there, along with the Pontiac logo above the inside entrance.

In 1993, the property was acquired by Pete Magoski, who moved his hobby shop Bargains Galore/ModelMania from its original location in La Habra into the building. According to Pete’s son Mike, they got the building in a land swap because the City of La Habra was clearing out the area where the shop was originally located to build a senior center.

ModelMania was not open very often, but it housed (and continues to house) a large and unique collection of model airplanes, ships, cars, and more.

In addition to the model shop, Pete and his friend Vic (both retired aerospace engineers who had worked on Apollo missions and space shuttles) used the building as headquarters for their aerospace consulting business, North American Aerospace–where they continued to work on various aerospace projects.

Though he is now fully retired, Pete still has his office and drafting table in ModelMania.

Over the past couple of years, Mike Magoski and Emily Heller have cleaned up the place and re-opened ModelMania four days a week as not just a model shop, but also an art and music destination. It is one of the venues in the re-emerging Downtown Fullerton Art Walk.