COLUMN ONE : The Fall of the House of Ganish? : With its turrets and stairways to nowhere, an Irvine family’s dream home is neighbors’ nightmare. After years of squabbles, the city is set to reduce it to rubble Saturday.

In a city where similarity is part of the master plan, the house at 4822 Kron St. sticks out like a sore home.

Neighbors call it the “Kron Street Castle,” and their reasons seem clear.

It has turrets. Turrets are rare in Irvine, where neighborhood associations become dyspeptic over so much as an oversized mailbox.

It has a moat, or at least a dirt front yard that fills with mud when it rains.

But the baronial castle in which Haym and Fern Ganish have lived with their three children since 1978 also has stairs to nowhere, half-finished walls and exposed electrical wiring.

The house is not only different, Irvine officials say, it’s a deathtrap.

After more than 10 years of warring with the Ganishes over the most erratic and sporadic home renovation anyone can recall, city leaders say they are ready to storm the castle and lay it to waste.

The Ganishes have until midnight tonight to vacate their house, which is assessed at $130,000. Barring an unforeseen compromise, the wrecking ball is due to swing Saturday.

“I can say without hesitation that I have never heard of anything at all like this, unless I start thinking back to civil rights violations,” said Nancy Marzulla, president of the Washington-based Defenders of Property Rights. “That is the specter this raises.”

Everyone, it seems, has an idea about the Ganish house’s demise, an event preceded by pitched courtroom battles, a police raid and bitter accusations of law-flouting on both sides.

Some observers see it as an unprecedented climax to a clash between nonconformist free spirits and conform-minded Big Brother.

Others see a classic test of the 5th Amendment, which safeguards private property rights.

But city officials say they see nothing more exceptional than a public nuisance that begs for abating, and in November they got an Orange County Superior Court judge to agree.

Unlike past threats to destroy the house, Irvine officials promise, this one is no bluff. “The clock is ticking on demolition as we speak,” said Councilman Greg Smith.

Despite the political risks, despite the undeniable blow that would be dealt to a tax-paying family of five, Mayor Michael Ward vows to turn the house to dust.

“I can’t win on this one, but you have to do what’s right,” Ward said. “There are violations of the Uniform Building Code. There are something like 100 violations. So what am I supposed to do? I can honestly go to bed at night and say I have tried everything I know how to do.”

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The long, twisted history of the House of Ganish was ushered in 13 years ago with a simple permit.

Ganish--an Israeli emigre who says he does not know his birth date but claims to have lived in a tent until he was about 20--wanted to make room for his growing family by remodeling his $91,000 suburban ranch house. A former mechanic who collects disability because of severely impaired hearing, he contracted the work piecemeal, as his funds would allow.

Two years and several permits later, neighbors experienced a Jack-in-the-Beanstalk epiphany: Sprouting from the Ganishes’ lot, where once had been a 1,400-square-foot abode, was the start of a three-story, 8,500-square-foot, rock-faced castle.

Because the Ganishes live in a section that is free from neighborhood covenants governing the rest of the city, officials were powerless to prevent creation of the garish House of Ganish.

Officials could do something about Haym Ganish’s sluggish construction, however. In May, 1984, they filed a criminal complaint, claiming he was living in an unsafe, unfinished structure, a violation of the state building code.

Code violations are misdemeanors in Irvine, so Ganish pleaded guilty to avoid fines and jail. The city let him withdraw his plea after he promised to finish the house and move his family until he did.

Two years later, the house wasn’t finished. More important, the Ganishes admitted that they still were living there.

So in 1986, the City Council gave Ganish his sternest warning yet: If you don’t build it, we will come.

It was the first of many ultimatums the city would issue. But for reasons officials can’t fully explain, the Ganish problem didn’t vanish, but the officials did. As per the city’s orders, Ganish submitted a final set of plans, and Irvine let the standoff simmer eight more years.

Deals were made and broken. Deadlines were set and extended. Patience was exhausted and replenished.

Irvine’s handling of the matter angers even some city officials.

“The issue to me is how the heck the city allowed that house to get built to that degree, to that finality of where it is today,” said Councilwoman Christina L. Shea, who was elected in 1992.

With the city seemingly appeased, Ganish pursued his semi-solitary labors at his own pace. Irvine inspectors seldom, if ever, visited the house, while neighbors continued to complain.

Irene McDermott, who lives three doors from the Ganishes, said most neighbors no longer care about the castle. They simply want relief from the endless stream of turret-drawn tourists.

Asked why their project has taken so long, the Ganishes become annoyed. They blame the city for the delay, arguing that “harassment” and “police brutality” have drained them of money and energy needed to finish the job.

“It feels like a terminal illness to me,” Fern Ganish, 47, said of the long confrontation. “You don’t know what the next day will bring.”

Asked if some accord can be found to save the house, Haym Ganish makes a face in total disgust. He talks of complex government plots and politicians who “run like dogs.”

“I know how the county is broke,” he said. “I know how they continue trying to take anything away from anybody.”

And asked what the family will do if the city demolishes the house, they won’t discuss it.

Contractor Fred Smith remains one of Ganish’s most ardent defenders, even though Ganish has played George Steinbrenner to Smith’s Billy Martin, firing and rehiring him as the lead builder several times.

Ganish will not comment on the cost of remodeling. When pressed, Smith says completing the house will take nearly $65,000, while city officials estimate that the house is $100,000 away from meeting codes.

Smith says the long delay has been neither diabolical nor negligent; it merely is a result of Ganish’s burning desire to see his dream house done right.

“He’s kind of a perfectionist,” Smith said. “I know you wouldn’t believe that from the look of what’s there.”

Indeed, city officials could not believe their first look when they executed an unusual search warrant on May 11.

With police officers confining the family to the kitchen, (the Ganishes allege that the police held them hostage), building inspectors videotaped the castle’s labyrinthine incompleteness.

Many violations inspectors found then still exist. Massive stacks of drywall stand amid piles of debris. Spiral stairways without banisters or balusters lead to unlit, unfinished landings. Starlings flit in and out of rafters, while pet cockatoos waddle across concrete floors, through unheated rooms and down drafty hallways.

“They’re . . . different,” one city official said of the family.

But an essayist in the conservative National Review magazine argued in a recent issue that the city has no right to nit-pick.

“Most of us would not want to live under the conditions that the Ganishes are willing to tolerate,” Brian Doherty wrote in spirited defense of the family. “Still, it’s their home.”

Haym Ganish says he was terrorized by the city’s intrusion. As a boy, he says, he hid from the Germans in North Africa during World War II. He says memories of the day when soldiers nearly abducted his family were stirred by the raid.

With video evidence of alleged fire, health and safety hazards, including one Ganish-built room where even Smith was afraid to stand, council members held a public hearing July 12. The meeting was most memorable because of tearful testimony from the Ganishes’ middle child, 18-year-old Gilad.

“You may feel like, ‘Let’s tear down this house,’ ” he told the council. “The next day it will be over for you. You will still have a home to go to.”

Council members voted 5-0 to knock down the house if it was not finished in 120 days.

The Ganishes sued the city, and a judge brokered a deal in November. Setting a series of construction deadlines, the judge blocked the city from demolition unless the Ganishes missed a deadline.

They missed the very first one.

“The city has been left with no alternative means of bringing resolution to this matter, other than to demolish the structure,” Deputy City Atty. Patrick Munoz wrote in a final request for a court order.

Sitting at her unfinished kitchen table in her unfinished kitchen, Fern Ganish stared at the eviction notice and said: “This is crazy. This is what they think (is) their last alternative? There are 20 million alternatives.”

At least one city official has come to agree.

“When the Constitution was crafted,” said Councilwoman Shea, “I don’t believe our forefathers, in regards to private property rights, said, ‘OK, now, when people are nasty and irresponsible, and you can’t deal with them, you have the right to take their home.’ ”

Two weeks ago, Shea formally rescinded her demolition vote.

Although Councilman Smith shares some of Shea’s concerns, and rescinded his demolition vote as well, he said he thinks the city is backed into a corner. Some people characterize the Ganishes as property owners whose rights are being trampled, but Smith says their neighbors also have rights:

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“People who live in the Ganish neighborhood have the right to live in safety. They have a right that the house next door is not going to catch fire or fall down.”

Officials met with the Ganishes late Tuesday, searching for another last-minute compromise. Walking into a meeting room in Irvine’s new City Hall, Ganish snarled at framed photos of the five council members.

City Atty. Joel D. Kuperberg told the Ganishes that they could save their house by placing $100,000 in an escrow account and deeding the property temporarily to a third party. The Ganishes refused, but Fern Ganish later said she was seeking a way to meet Kuperberg’s demands.

“Bear in mind that (the Ganishes) are paying for these representatives of government,” said Marzulla, of the Defenders of Property Rights. “They’re paying in their taxes for the attorneys that are dealing with them. They’re paying for the wrecking ball.”

In the middle of the meeting, an exasperated Haym Ganish walked out of the room, saying his impairment prevented him from hearing anything Kuperberg said.

While his wife continued negotiating, Ganish sat outside with his daughter, Dorit, 14, who said she wants to be a judge when she grows up. Through the long day, Dorit wore a pained, worried expression, wishing aloud that her parents’ nightmare would end.

After a time, Ganish stood and inspected City Hall, carefully assessing its meticulously landscaped grounds, which feature hundreds of birds of paradise arrayed around the rim of a flawless green lawn.

“This is my first time coming here,” he said bitterly, taking in the high ceiling and tall windows, noting the great width of the winding staircase. “Look at the luxury they’re living in.”