La Jolla’s retail community may have changed dramatically in the past 100 years, but the Balling Building at 933 Silverado St. has remained — and largely in the hands of one family.

The building — with retail units on the bottom floor and two apartments on the second floor — is a fixture in an evolving community, with a history rooted in family ties.

Current owners Bruce and Marsha Rianda plan to celebrate the building’s centennial next month. When they inherited it in 2012, Bruce immediately pored through documents and historical photos to try to get a complete record of its history.

“We know it wasn’t there in 1921,” he said, pointing to an aerial photo from that year that shows the lot as empty. “The earliest county record we have is from 1924, so that is what we know.”

When it was first built (and photographed) by the Demling family, the building was one story and intended to house retail tenants.

It was soon sold to the Balling family, which included William and Addie (Theresa Demling’s sister) and the Ballings’ daughters, Emma and Josephine.

In 1928, the “Balling Block,” as it became known, was established, and an overhang on the Balling Building still reads as such. A plaque mounted on the building where it faces Girard Avenue credits Addie Balling as the “founder” of the block and refers to Emma and Josephine as the owners.

The building contained various retailers in its early years, reflecting a change in the area toward commercial uses in that era.

“In the 1920s, there was an extreme amount of wealth that came in from various sources,” La Jolla Historical Society historian Carol Olten previously told the La Jolla Light. “For example, the miners of Colorado came into town. La Jolla was becoming a high-end resort kind of place.”

What started largely as a community of beach cottages where tourists would stay for a few months was evolving into a place where people could both live and visit, necessitating more retail.

When William Balling died in 1942, the remaining family members moved to Pasadena, but Addie continued to manage the Balling Building.

In the 1960s, both daughters got married — Emma to Tim Shenk and Josephine to Rowland Getze.

“Emma and Tim [met at UCLA and] moved back to Ohio, where he was a farmer, and they taught elementary school in Ohio for years,” Bruce Rianda said. “That’s how my wife’s family got involved with them.”

Marsha Rianda’s father had a career in the Army. After World War II, he was sent to Germany to a tire facility. When the family was relocated to Ohio, the local school assumed the children would need extra help with English because they were coming from Germany.

Tim and Emma Shenk were assigned to be Marsha’s teachers, and the two families became friends, especially as Marsha’s parents got involved with the school. Soon after, Tim and Emma became parents to Tim Jr., who became friends with Marsha’s younger siblings.

“They would live on the farm but come out here to Pasadena during the summer,” Bruce said.

Under the daughters’ management, the Balling Building facade was redone in 1962.

“They got rid of all the old art deco look … and they put in a new [frontage] with new details,” Bruce said. “When Josie and her husband decided to retire, they wanted to do so here, so they agreed to put apartment units on top of the building after the renovation.”

Emma and Tim, with Tim Jr. in tow, needed a two-bedroom apartment and built one to meet their needs. Josephine and Rowland Getze, with no children, needed only a one-bedroom apartment, which was built across the hall on the second story.

Marsha’s family stayed in touch with the Shenk family and often would come to California to visit. Tim died in 1989, Emma in 1997. Josephine and Rowland also are deceased, though the dates are not known.

Tim Jr. inherited the building but never had children.

When Bruce and Marsha married, they would come from Arizona and visit Tim Jr. in the building.

One night in 2008, Bruce said, “[Tim Jr.] sat down with my wife and asked, ‘Who am I going to leave this [building] to?’ … Marsha figured his relatives back in Ohio would get it and he said: ‘They’re going to get two farms. They’re happy.’ And that’s how we wound up with it.”

The Riandas thought the inheritance would come long after that, but Tim Jr. died suddenly four years later.

“Now it’s in our family trust,” Bruce said.

Over the years, they’ve renovated the apartments to be more modern and reflective of their needs and those of any subsequent residential and retail tenants. During one such renovation to welcome a new tenant, a portion of the wall was removed and a world map that had been affixed to the interior wall was revealed.

Bruce recalled that the building’s retail occupants had included a travel agency and a real estate office. Longtime tenants include La Donna clothing store and Silverado Cleaners, and relative newcomers include Parakeet Juicery, Brow Lounge, Cinderella Shoe Shop and Bumble and Bumble hair salon.

To celebrate the centennial in August, the Riandas plan to etch an old photo of the building as it originally appeared onto a plaque and install it somewhere on the property.

“I always was fascinated by history, so this has been a good chance to delve into something that was really close to us,” Bruce said. ♦