COSTA MESA : Sunday Home Tour Battles Blight Label

Some west-side residents are so tired of having their neighborhood described as “decaying” that they have embarked on an unusual campaign to improve the area’s image.

On Sunday, residents will sponsor a walking tour of 14 homes in the district, which is off 19th and Victoria streets.

The tour will detail the history of the neighborhood and highlight the lengths that some residents have gone to transform their cookie-cutter tract homes into distinctive living quarters.

Proceeds from the event will help pay for an upcoming volunteer effort to paint and landscape some of the neighborhood’s homes that need repair, which activists say gives the entire area a bad name.

“We want to explode the misconception that this is a run-down area,” said Mary Fewel, who helped organize the tour. “This is a nice neighborhood two miles from the beach. We want to show that people take pride in the area and care for it.”

Fewel and other residents said the west side’s bad reputation comes from a relatively small number of poorly maintained apartments and homes. The area is safe, they insist.

The neighborhood--located on bluffs above the Santa Ana River--was built in the 1950s by Freedom Homes. Most of the houses are about 1,000 square feet and contain three bedrooms and one bathroom. The lots are a spacious 7,000 square feet or larger--a luxury that residents have taken advantage of by building additions and planting lavish gardens.

Most homes resemble L-shaped boxes. “Mid-Century California Stucco,” as one architect described the design to Fewel. “In other words, no character.”

Residents admit their homes aren’t likely to appear in Architectural Digest, but they said the area is a nice place to raise a family. Some residents have added second stories with views of nearby Canyon Park. Others have created front courtyards and exotically landscaped back yards.

Later this year, residents hope to spruce up some of the more visible homes in the neighborhood by painting the exteriors and planting greenery. Neighborhood leaders are in the process of asking the owners of those homes for permission to make the improvements.

Fewel, like many newer west-side residents, moved into the neighborhood during the real estate boom of the late 1980s. Her family was renting in Newport Beach at the time and was looking for an affordable home close to the beach.

She said the neighborhood looks better today than it did five years ago, in large part because residents have joined together to demand improvements. They fought to have Victoria Elementary School reopened and to have some local roads widened and cleaned up.

The self-guided tour will take place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday. Tickets and maps can be purchased at the corner of Victoria Street and National Avenue and at the entrance to Canyon Park. Tickets are $5.