Tile Wars : Thousand Oaks Cracks Down on Artist Who Creates His Works at Home

Tile artist Richard Thomas Keit was looking for a roomier place when he moved his home and studio from one part of Thousand Oaks to another a year and a half ago.

Since quitting his job at a computer company in 1980, Keit has devoted full time to making ceramic tiles based on Art Deco and old Malibu designs.

Keit’s much-admired tile work has been installed at celebrities’ residences and can be seen in public buildings at Glendale City College and on Santa Catalina Island.

But Keit’s move to the cul-de-sac called Sheffield Place has won him no admirers. Next-door neighbor Cindy Aldarette said she and her family are kept up at night by noise from Keit’s business.

“My husband and I work outside of our home, and we want a quiet atmosphere,” Aldarette said. “It’s a stressful situation because we have to listen to this all night long.”

In response to complaints from neighbors, Thousand Oaks planning officials have revoked Keit’s permit to make tiles at his house--a move that could force him to move to expensive commercial space that he said he cannot afford.

“If I lose my business, I lose my home,” Keit said.

City officials say Keit’s tile business makes too much noise. They have allowed Keit to appeal to the Planning Commission, but a hearing date has not been scheduled. Keit said he will sue the city if he loses.

In the meantime, Keit has filed a lawsuit against Aldarette and her husband, Phil, in Ventura County Superior Court, seeking as much as $250,000 in damages for lost business.

Before he bought the four-bedroom, $300,000 house in late 1988, Keit had operated for six years without complaints from a house on Beall Street, he said.

When he bought the house on Sheffield Place, Keit was looking for a bigger place to set up the kilns that bake the tiles used in his designs, he said.

The 35-year-old artist uses his 400-square-foot garage and two outdoor kilns in an operation that generates $300,000 a year in sales. Three women work several days a week helping Keit paint brightly colored Art Deco and Moorish designs on tiles that range from 2 to 7 square inches.

The work is time-consuming, which accounts for the high prices the tiles fetch when sold. About 400 tiles are produced each week at Keit’s house, most of it shipped to customers outside the city.

Some of his customers include celebrities such as director George Lucas, actress Jane Fonda and Joan Kroc, widow of McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc.

Keit is one of only a few tile artists in Southern California. His tiles are part of a restored 61-year-old mural in the historic Avalon Casino building on Santa Catalina, a lobby and staircase in the administration building at Glendale City College and in the Roxbury Park Recreation Center in Beverly Hills.

But in his hometown, Keit is practically unknown to all but city code enforcement officers.

According to a warning letter issued by the city in May, 1989, Keit violated city regulations by employing outside workers, allowing trucks to haul away tiles and operating noisy machines.

Home businesses operate on the good graces of their neighbors. The minute they disturb them, the businesses risk problems with the city, Deputy City Atty. Nancy Schreiner said.

Up to 1,000 home businesses operate without intervention from the city, primarily because no one complains.

At Keit’s business, Schreiner said, “There’s deliveries, there’s employees. That’s no longer the type of home occupation that’s allowed in a residential neighborhood.”

Keit contends that most of the complaints against him are exaggerated, although he acknowledges that he uses a mechanical saw on occasion and creates some noise loading and unloading the kilns.

He said his workers park far away and hop a back fence to prevent parking problems.

“I would have to be employing a three-ring circus and have them practicing every day in the front yard to be impacting the neighborhood,” he said. “The people who work for me are not impacting the neighborhood.”

On a recent tour of his neighborhood with city officials, Keit argued that delivery trucks from a nearby supermarket drown out the sounds from his business.

Keit blames most of his problems with the city on a feud with the Aldarettes. Cindy Aldarette acknowledged that there has been a battle between the two families, but blamed Keit for sparking it with the noise from his business.

“We didn’t make those complaints; all those complaints were made by the city,” she said. “If he loses his business, it’s not us.”

Both families have secured restraining orders to prevent mutual harassment, Cindy Aldarette said.

Meanwhile, Keit has circulated a petition signed by eight of his 15 closest neighbors agreeing that his business does not disturb them and asking the city not to shut him down.

One of his neighbors two doors away, Ernie Rawsthorne, signed it. His wife, Sue Rawsthorne, said she initially had reservations about fire hazards from the kilns but has since decided that the operation is safe.

Keit has been responsive to neighbors’ complaints, she said. “He’s solved the problems when we’ve said something to him,” she said.

But the feud has disrupted life in the middle-class neighborhood, where most residents have lived since it was built nearly 14 years ago.

Sheriff’s deputies make frequent visits to the Keit home in response to complaints, as do city officials checking on the tile operation.

The city is upholding its regulations to protect neighborhoods from being invaded by noisy, smelly businesses, said Don LaVoie, the city’s code enforcement supervisor.

“We want the kind of businesses that you can’t tell are in operation,” he said.