Owner Cramped in Mansion San Marino Calls Plenty Big

Maybe cost is no object, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to “mansionize” a mansion.

Just ask Kamal and Turkya Batniji, who for more than two years have battled city officials over their request to expand their 10-room Orlando Road residence, which already has 7,366 square feet of living space.

“My family and I have the right to live in comfort,” said Batniji, a 50-year-old physician who wants to add two bedrooms, two bathrooms, an anteroom and an interior stairway totaling 403 square feet.

But San Marino, California’s 11th-wealthiest city, thinks the white stucco Mediterranean residence is quite comfortable enough as it is.

The city Planning Commission has repeatedly turned down the couple’s request for a conditional-use permit needed to expand the house. In July, the City Council upheld the commission’s ruling and sent the matter back to the commission, which in September denied the permit again. Now the Batnijis have appealed once more.

Built by architect Wallace Neff in 1928, the Batnijis’ house already exceeds the maximum of 6,593 square feet of living space permitted for a house built today in San Marino. In addition, at least one neighbor is against the proposed expansion.

George Boone, who lives behind the Batnijis, on Aug. 15 wrote a letter to the city protesting the proposed addition. He said it would mar the view from his back-yard sculpture garden and devalue his property.

“We want to be good neighbors, but the integrity of the area should be maintained,” Boone said, praising the Planning Commission for soliciting neighborhood comment.

“We get about four or five (home expansion requests) a year,” said Herb Worcester, the Planning Commission chairman. About 30% of the requests are followed by letters from neighbors for or against, he said, adding: “In Batniji’s case, there were no letters for.”

When Batniji first applied in 1988, city law allowed 8,193 square feet of living space. But the addition was turned down because it would have “been an overpowering structure, almost to the property line,” Worcester said.

Then Batniji, with the help of city-recommended architect Robert Wood, scaled down the size of the addition and redrew the plans.

But by then, the city ordinance had been changed to allow only 6,593 square feet of living space.

Batniji’s reworked application had so many changes in it that city officials considered it a new request under the new law. However, City Atty. Steven Dorsey noted that Batniji’s earlier application could be considered in the doctor’s favor.

Like its gated neighbors on Orlando Road opposite the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, the Batnijis’ house occupies about three quarters of an acre of land.

Set back from the street by a tiered Roman fountain in the center of a circular drive, it has wide Gothic arches, intricate wrought-iron trim and a Romeo and Juliet-style balcony suspended on all sides but one. In the rear, there’s a paddle tennis court and a waterfall added by the Batnijis behind the blue-tiled swimming pool.

Architect Neff, who designed homes for Hollywood stars such as Mary Pickford, Groucho Marx and Cary Grant, built the four-bedroom house for himself and his family. The Batnijis bought it in 1978.

They say they need the extra space to accommodate their five children. The house has four upstairs sleeping rooms, but the Batnijis maintain that only three are proper bedrooms, complete with adjoining bathrooms.

They also want a guest room: “I can’t put anyone to sleep in the library,” Batniji said.

Homes in San Marino--a city of 3.75 square miles with about 14,000 inhabitants--range from about 1,300 square feet to more than 12,000, according to local real estate agents, who say the Batnijis’ house is considered one of the city’s larger residences.

In some other cities, the term mansionization has been used to describe towering add-ons that allow once-modest homes to dwarf surrounding bungalows.

In San Marino, there are those who say the term does not quite fit the Batniji case. Worcester, for instance, balks at calling it a case of mansionization because “the house is already a mansion.”

But Councilman Paul Crowley disagrees. “Mansionization means that the home is built larger and more massive than before and then looks out of conformity with the neighborhood,” Crowley said. “The Planning Commission intends to protect the rights of the neighbors, and it doesn’t want to set a precedent (by allowing such expansion).”

Meanwhile, as Batniji prepares for yet another appeal, he says the city was against him from the start.

“If from Day One they told me, ‘You cannot have this, you cannot have that,’ probably I would have decided, ‘Well, either I will cancel the project or find some other, bigger place to live in,’ ” he said.