Home Tours on Peninsula Raise Funds for Charity : Rooms With a View of How Other Half Lives

How would you like to have several hundred people trooping through your home, wanting to know what you do for a living, who all those people in your family photographs are and even what’s inside the drawers of your mahogany sideboard?

Sometimes, they don’t even hesitate to say what they don’t like.

And your home isn’t even for sale.

Well, some of the wealthiest people in the South Bay don’t seem to mind. They freely throw their doors open to the masses in what has become a Palos Verdes Peninsula tradition: home tours that raise money--usually a lot of money--for community organizations ranging from church to arts groups.

The oldest, the Yule Parlor Parade of the Neighborhood Church in Palos Verdes Estates, took place for the 30th year last weekend. It attracted about 1,800 people and raised about $20,000 for church-supported charities in the South Bay.

Designers already are at work planning and buying for the most ambitious of all the Peninsula home tours, the Design House sponsored by the Sandpipers, a South Bay women’s charitable group. Next year’s house--the home of L.A. Raiders football star-turned-actor Lyle Alzado--will be open for a month in the spring. In this event, which started 13 years ago, each room is done from scratch by a different designer who foots the bill to show off his work.

About 13,000 people toured this year’s house, raising $100,000 for the Sandpipers’ charity fund. The group was founded 55 years ago and aids needy people, provides scholarships and supports a number of service agencies.

The ninth Miraleste High School PTSA tour was held in early November and other home tours this year benefitted the South Coast Choral Society--which performed music in every home--and the Palos Verdes Community Arts Assn., which focused on kitchens and food prepared from recipes in a cookbook published by the association.

Natural for Fund-Raisers

People who put on these tours say they are naturals as fund-raisers.

“Everybody who lives up here (on the Peninsula) is definitely interested in building, remodeling, adding on or learning how other people live,” said Barbara Saunders of the Neighborhood Church Women’s Fellowship, which puts on the annual yule tour. “All the homes every year offer a tremendous opportunity for ideas.”

By the time Lila Moss of Torrance had walked through the final house on the yule tour, both sides of her program were filled with ideas: valences depicting toys in a child’s room, sectioned storage bins above a washer, wallpapers and, for the holidays, a goblet containing a candle and greenery.

Those who open their homes say they do it partly because they are proud of the way they live and the things they have, which they want others to see. Helping a community cause also is a factor; in the case of the yule tour, two out of the four homeowners were church members.

“There is a little bit of wanting to show off,” said Carol Cobabe, an interior designer who has been living for four years in a French Normandy home still under construction. Her kitchen was part of the recent arts association kitchen tour.

‘It’s Fun Showing It’

“We’ve traveled all over the world and bought antiques and architectural elements to put in the home,” she said. “It’s fun showing it to others.”

Real estate broker Robert Wardell, whose home was on the yule tour, said people offer their homes out of “pride of home, pride in the community and, hopefully, being able to contribute to the community itself.”

Wardell admitted that he was very reluctant to say yes at first because of the loss of privacy. “Gee, you open your kimono to everyone, baring everything, saying this is the way you live.”

But Wardell’s wife, Kay, who is an interior designer and has done her own decor based on antiques from the East Coast, said she did not have to be persuaded when the church asked her. “I thought California people would enjoy the furniture. We’ve done so much work.”

Several people said they had to overcome their concern that a tour-taker might come back as a burglar. As a matter of routine, valuables are locked away on tour days.

Must Trust People

“The business of having people you don’t know come in really sobers you,” said Margaret Miller, whose English-style home was on the choral society tour. Ultimately, she said, you just have to decide to trust people.

Sheila Papayans, whose home was on the yule tour, said she had a few twinges about safety the day before the tour, but they faded when a real problem presented itself.

An animal got under her home early in the morning and the odor soon left no doubt that it was a skunk. Doors and windows were quickly opened and a bowl of aromatic spices boiled in the kitchen during the tour, just in case.

Curiosity clearly is what draws people to home tours and there are so many seasoned viewers that tour organizers have no trouble selling tickets.

“People are curious to look at someone else’s house and see how they live,” said Joan Borodkin, a Miraleste PTSA officer, who said her group’s tour stemmed from the need for a new fund-raiser.

Vicarious Pleasure

There also is vicarious pleasure in getting behind the big front doors of the rich: “People want to see what a $1-million house looks like,” said Long Beach interior designer Garry Sandlin, who is participating in next year’s Design House.

Peering toward the Pacific through the windows of a 35-foot-high living room on the yule tour, John Wilcox said, “You see how the other half lives. We have a house in Palos Verdes Estates, but it’s not up in this class.”

Wilcox and his wife, Vi, said they have been in about 100 homes in 20 years of home touring.

Committees that select homes for tours look for what is striking, be it spectacular location or decor, to tempt people to pay the $10 to $20 that tour tickets cost--which sometimes includes lunch.

“We want people to buy tickets,” Saunders said.

Selecting contrasting homes and never repeating them seems to be a rule of thumb.

On the Yule Parlor Parade, for example, the homes included the imposing place with the 35-foot-high, glassed-in living room; an intimate Monterey colonial furnished in Early American antiques; a Southwestern-style hillside home built on several levels around a half-acre of grounds, and an airy new home, accented by flowers, atop the Peninsula.

Borodkin said the Peninsula has become a natural locale for tours because of the large homes that have space for parking and can accommodate hundreds of people smoothly. High incomes also allow art collections or special interior decorating.

“It takes a certain income, unless you’re into (decorating) yourself, to afford to decorate in a manner that people would want to come in and see,” she said. “People don’t want to see a tract home.”

Celebrity names don’t hurt, and in the past, the Miraleste tour has included homes of L.A. Rams owner Georgia Frontiere--whose Rolling Hills home at the time was up for sale for $3.5 million--and karate movie star Chuck Norris.

3,500-Square-Foot Minimum

The Sandpipers are specific about the homes they choose: They must have at least 3,500 square feet, preferably with an ocean view, be in an accessible area and contain a large number of rooms for designers to work with. The Alzado mansion has 25 rooms--from master suite to a wine cellar.

On other tours, typically, no special work is done on the homes--other than cleaning and straightening--before they are opened to the public. Some owners, however, say they are motivated to do long-delayed remodeling projects, whether it be putting on new doors, remodeling a mantle piece or hanging a chandelier. Sometimes there are flower arrangements, or table settings supplied by Peninsula merchants, who are credited.

The Sandpipers Design House is different, however, because each room is decorated specifically for the tour. The houses chosen usually have just been built or purchased by a new owner. Since so much time is taken decorating and showing the home, owners frequently live elsewhere while it is going on.

“It is advertising for the designers, and the homeowner gets everything at cost,” said Teresa Snyder, chairman of this year’s house. “People . . . have fun going through and seeing what the rooms are.”

After the showing, owners may buy all, or as much of the decor, as they wish. There is also a public sale of items the owners do not keep.

Cost Is Worth It

Designer Sandlin, who is doing the trophy room in the Alzado home, said he expects to spend $40,000 to $45,000 on custom-made items, including a cocktail table that rises on a hydraulic lift to become a conference table.

“You don’t lose money, because the advertising and public relations well pays for it,” he said, adding that he got a $100,000 job on the Peninsula from a family that liked a study-library he did in last year’s design house.

Walteria interior designer Jennifer Potvin, who also is doing a room in the Alzado home, said the Design House is exposure to people who may become future clients. “It lets you do what you want to do in your own realm of design work,” she said.

Borodkin of the Miraleste PTSA says it is getting harder to find people willing to volunteer their homes for tours, largely because of security concerns.

“People don’t want several hundred people to come through and see what’s inside their house,” she said. “We have to ask 10 to get four or five homes.”

Recall No Incidents

Peninsula law enforcement officials said they recall no incidents of burglary or robbery that could be traced to home tours. Police, however, receive lists of homes and tour hours and patrol those areas frequently. Palos Verdes Estates and Rolling Hills, the most popular cities for tours, require special permits.

The Sandpipers provide their own security officers. And on every tour, there is a hostess in each room. Her job is not only to describe the room, usually by reading descriptions written by owners, but also to see that things are not touched or taken.

Some who have been involved in the Neighborhood Church tour for decades said they know of no crimes connected to the tour. However, no one is permitted to take photographs inside the homes.

“You never know who’s casing the place,” said Margie Caterson, who was a hostess on last week’s tour.

Usually, owners do not like to stay home on tour days, because they do not want to run the risk of hearing someone criticize their house.

‘I Don’t Like This’

Many people do not hesitate to give opinions, Sandlin said, adding that doing so is their right when they buy a ticket. “The majority are really nice, but some come right out and be blunt and say, ‘I don’t like this.’ ”

On the yule tour, for example, decors got a variety of reviews: “I don’t like that painting at all,” “They need a lamp over there,” “The room is too heavy but the view is spectacular” and “I love the decorating.”

Mary Garner, a librarian who has been on many Peninsula home tours, said homes sometimes are sterile and don’t look lived in. “I like to see a few newspapers thrown around,” she said.

Cobabe was on hand the day her home was open for the kitchen tour, and didn’t like everything she heard.

“The home was still under construction and the people who came in didn’t know I was the owner,” she said. “They would talk about my crazy-quilt pattern on the entryway carpet. The entry is going to be marble, and there’s been a temporary carpet of different colors. And I was asked why there was a bare light bulb in the living room. It is going to have a crystal chandelier.”

Enough was finally enough and Cobabe stepped away for a few moments. When she returned, she put up a hand-written sign that said, “The house is still under construction.”