December 15, 1999

Is my dreamhouse your nightmare?

I think it's wonderful there are people in town with so little to worry about they can devote time and concern to so-called "monster" houses in their neighborhood. Personally I've a good many real things to worry about. I simply don't have time to be jealous of the man or woman who owns a nearby empty lot, or a soon-to-be empty lot, and wants to fill it to overflowing with a house and a half.

I live in a Linda Mar rancher, where I've put in 36 years of living in 1040 square feet with a 400 square foot garage. I could use a monster house with 4000 square feet and plenty of closet storage. In fact, if someone were to offer to trade me even, my Oddstad wonder for their overgrown three story, I'd be sorely tempted to take them up on it. I would also love to live in a neighborhood where my house was surrounded by larger, more expensive homes. It would add money to what I could ask for my home and it wouldn't cost me anything. Which is another way of saying that if your potential neighbor with the potential large home is forced out of your neighborhood, it might just cost you some profit otherwise made on your home when you decide to retire to Grass Valley or Medford, OR.

Henry Doelger was a fine fellow, and Fairmont is fine as planned developments go, but I don't want to live where the neighbors can force me to look at a damn palm tree every time I walk out my front door.

For my first four and a half years, I lived in what's turned out to be the largest home I've ever lived in. It was massive, an ancient ranch home, on the large dairy ranch my dad was running at the time. The children's room was huge. The bathroom was as large as the master bedroom in a standard Linda Mar ranch house. The second story was unneeded, which was just as well. It was over-run by bats and bees.

I do take seriously the complaints of those who object to a large home next door. The last time we had a discussion on housing in Pacifica, it was about something we came to call condomania. People objected to planned developments of condominium housing. I could never figure out what that problem was either. The same people who complain about suburban sprawl are the ones who get all shook up over condos, which are a very efficient use of acreage.

The only answer I can come up with to explain those who object to large homes is green-eyed jealousy. Someone who can afford six or seven hundred thousand dollars to build a home in Pacifica must be rich, or at least richer than the rest of us. I might think they're foolish to build such homes, but in no way would I stop them if I had the opportunity. Too much of Pacifica has already been set aside to satisfy the insatiable demand by some people for more and more open space. It's a good thing Francisco Sanchez didn't give in to the demands of his children, or only Sanchez descendants would be living here today. We'd have 12.6 square miles with one old adobe home on it. But if that happened, where would you and I live?

Some recent Reactor columns may be found at Paul Azevedo's website, http://www.thereactor.net/ Reach him by e-mail at Paul@thereactor.net