Jail Awaits Home Rebuilder if 10-Year Project Drags On

A 10-year dispute over a house under construction in Calabasas apparently was resolved Friday when the do-it-yourself owner promised to complete his home by Dec. 16--or else take up residence in the Los Angeles County Jail.

Thomas Spring told a Calabasas Municipal Court that an inheritance will enable him to pay for materials and helpers needed to finally rebuild the 4,000-square-foot home he has been toiling over since 1974.

Spring has been fighting with the county over the unfinished house in the 24000 block of Mulholland Highway since his original one-year construction permit expired. He has twice pleaded guilty to failure to comply with county building and safety division orders to either finish the house or demolish it.

Friday’s court appearance was for sentencing on the more recent plea. Commissioner Richard Brand ordered Spring to spend six months in jail and pay a $500 fine but agreed to suspend both punishments if the house is completed by the December deadline.

‘Hard to Be Hopeful’

“If he doesn’t, he’s going away,” Brand said. “If he does, he’s not going to serve any time. But this has gone on so long, it’s hard to be hopeful.”

Spring and his wife, Ann, the parents of eight, purchased the home for $2,000 when it was ordered moved 11 years ago from the path of a water pipeline project near the Valley Circle Boulevard-Ventura Freeway interchange in Woodland Hills. The house was cut into four pieces and trucked five miles to Spring’s one-acre lot, where he intended to rebuild it on a new foundation.

But its reassembly turned into a bigger job than Spring had counted on. His problems were compounded when he lost his engineering job during the aerospace slump of the mid-1970s, he said.

‘It’s Been Unpleasant’

“It’s been difficult raising eight children and paying these legal fees when a construction schedule is dictated to you beyond your immediate needs and requirements,” Spring, 50, now employed, said.

County officials said they have done all they can to accommodate Spring.

“This has been frustrating. It’s been unpleasant for everyone,” said Joe Fellick, senior building engineering inspector for rehabilitation projects for the county. “This is the worst relocation project I know of.

“He just doesn’t have enough people out there working on the house. He just has his son. And the work’s just not getting done.”

Fellick said Spring’s Mulholland Highway neighbors complained frequently about the snail’s-pace progress on the house at first. “But they finally just gave up. They lost faith in the county when it seemed the county was doing nothing.”

Deadline Pleases Neighbor

Carol Ricco, who lives in a $400,000 house next door, said she has sympathy for Spring’s plight. But she was nonetheless pleased by the court-ordered deadline.

“It’s wonderful. It’s about time they jumped on him,” she said. “Eventually our area will be very prestigious. But everybody has to maintain their property.”

Spring’s lawyer, Richard Moore, said the inheritance from Spring’s mother is sufficient to complete such things as a heating system, stucco and drywall installation, lighting and plumbing. Those improvements will cost about $10,000, he said.

Moore blamed the slow construction on “the reality of the everyday world--making a living, raising a family and high interest rates.”

“It ain’t the Old West any more out here. There’s so much bureaucracy. You can’t go out and buy property and do your own thing. Tom may be the last of the breed that tried to do that.”

Tim Hansen, a county prosecutor, said Spring has made 32 court appearances and appeared at countless county building and safety conferences over the years.