LAGUNA BEACH : Man Digs Deep for Boulder-Home Site
As far as Dennis Morin is concerned, the $650,000 he paid last week for a 9,800-square-foot parcel dominated by a huge boulder was a bargain.
After all, the rock will eventually be his home, he said.
“For a rock that size on the beach?” Morin said. “It’s a steal.”
Morin, 47 and single, is now the proud owner of the craggy boulder at Aliso Beach that sparked controversy--even catching the attention of the British and Russian press--when a Newport Beach architect revealed plans in 1992 to scoop it out like a pumpkin and build a three-bedroom house inside.
Morin, the founder of an Irvine computer software company who now lives in an Aliso Viejo condo with “stucco walls and a red tile roof,” said he was ready for a change when a newspaper ad about the Laguna Beach property caught his eye about a month ago.
“I just drove down there and climbed up on the rock and sat there and said, ‘This is great.’ I said, ‘This is it.’ ”
Morin said he plans to live by himself in the house, which should cost “a millionish” to build.
Plans to develop the boulder, which is alongside Coast Highway next to Aliso Creek at the south end of town, got off to a controversial start in Laguna Beach.
Opponents had balked at the design, calling it a “Disneyland technique,” while preservationists said the rock was a “cherished landmark” that should be left intact.
However, after about a half-dozen public hearings in the city, the Design Review Board cleared the plan in October, 1992. And last April, the project won unanimous approval from the California Coastal Commission.
As proposed, the rock will be hollowed out so the 2,800-square-foot home can be built inside. The boulder will be recapped with simulated rock and landscaped so that it will appear largely unchanged from some vantage points along Coast Highway.
The 27-foot-tall rock was previously owned by Mary Bowler, who said she and her husband, who is now deceased, bought the parcel for $36,000 about 35 years ago.
Although the city must still finish a final plan check on the property, Laguna Beach building official John Gustafson said Thursday that he foresees no problems with the project.
Morin could be living in one of Orange County’s more unusual dwellings by the spring of 1995, according to architect BrionJeannette.
During a meeting with an interior designer on Thursday, Morin said his new home will be “modern and contemporary but warm in feeling.
“The essential element is to bring the outside in,” he said, to create “a harmonious interfacing between the outside and the inside.”
