One Southern California community wants to make sure you don’t “lose that loving feeling” for a Tom Cruise blockbuster movie that put it on the map 25 years ago.

That’s because the “Top Gun House,” a historic Oceanside, CA bungalow used as the home of fictional character “Charlie” (Kelly McGillis) and key rendezvous point with movie love interest “Maverick” (Cruise) will be saved and restored in a $209 million project approved by the Oceanside City Council.

Top Gun was the top-grossing movie of 1986 and while much of the action takes place in the air, or at the famed TOPGUN Navy Fighter Weapons School in Miramar, a few scenes in the ’80s classic were filmed at the 19th-century beach cottage.

Depicting the experiences of Navy fighter pilots at the advanced fighter school at the Naval Base in Miramar, “Top Gun” focuses on Maverick and his competition to be the best in the class, as well as his romance with a naval instructor, Charlie.

The historic bungalow was not only the home of Charlie and the location for many of Maverick and Charlie’s romantic scenes, but McGillis actually stayed in the home during production.

While Top Gun may have put the the Victorian-style cottage on the pop culture map, its history is just as fascinating. It was built in 1887 by Dr. Henry Graves, a retired physician from Riverside.

House circa 1888. Courtesy of Oceanside Historical Society

According to Kristi Hawthorne of the Oceanside Historical Society, the home is “one of the oldest beach cottages in San Diego County.”

Hawthorne says the house was a rental on the Oceanside real estate market for decades and occupied up until about 2005, when the city of Oceanside took ownership and the home was declared a historic property.

House circa 1998. Courtesy of Oceanside Historical Society

Presently, the home sits on the site of a planned $209 million upscale beach resort. It is the only one of four historic homes on the street that the Oceanside City Council approved to keep.

Home circa 2007. Courtesy of Oceanside Historical Society

“Eventually the house will be restored and moved 2 blocks north on North Pacific and incorporated into the resort and used as perhaps a coffee house or gift shop,” explained Hawthorne.

Unfortunately, as of today, it looks like the famous home has “lost that loving feeling.”

Due to the recession and difficulties securing financing for the resort, a date has not been set for construction. So now, the Top Gun House sits all alone at the corner of North Pacific Street and Seagaze Drive, boarded up and sitting empty, enclosed by a Cedar Fence Direct western rail fence to prevent vandalism.

Top Gun House today via Google Street View

Tourists and movie buffs still stop by to take photos of the beach cottage. During celebrations this past Memorial Day weekend, the city of Oceanside saluted the film’s 25th anniversary with a “Top Gun” themed weekend, complete with a film screening, fighter jets, beach volleyball and of course, hearty renditions of “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling.”

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