In Irvine, There’s No Place Like the Ganish Home

City officials threatened to demolish it because it was a hazard to safety. Neighbors complained repeatedly to have it removed. The owner of a strip club once offered the services of his topless dancers to prevent its demolition.

Now, after 15 years of renovation and legal battles, the “Kron Street Castle” has been completed as far as the city is concerned. At least, technically.

Not everyone would agree that the house really is finished. Even on a good day, neighbors call it an eyesore.

This week, for example, sheets of plywood served as curtains in the baronial mansion and also as a makeshift fence. Portions of the exterior lack paint and the overall appearance is, well, that of a work in progress.

“Now, my definition of completed and your definition of completed may be totally different than the owner’s definition,” said Patrick Munoz, an attorney with Ruttan & Tucker, which represents Irvine.

Aesthetics aside, Munoz said, “the owners of the home have satisfied all of the safety and code requirements that they were given. That was our concern.”

A couple of years ago, Haym and Fern Ganish, owners of the 8,500-square-foot, rock-faced mansion, were told to complete the overall renovation of their home before their city building permit expired last month.

Although, even if it had expired, they simply could have applied for a new one.

“I can tell you that the exterior of the house is technically finished,” said Bob Storchheim, the city’s building and safety director. “As for the interior of the home, they can live in the areas that are finished.”

Storchheim said that while parts of the interior are not yet completed, everything meets city code.

The interior of the home, Munoz said, is “spartan, to say the least. There are no kitchen cabinets. The house doesn’t have carpet. It’s pretty bare-bones.”

In 1978, when Haym Ganish, an Israeli emigre, and his wife, Fern, and their three children moved in, it was a typical suburban ranch-style house.

A couple of years and many permits later, they had begun to remake it as a three-story Tudor castle, complete with turrets.

Numerous court fights then ensued between the Ganishes and the city.

Facing more than 100 code violations at one point, the family moved into a hotel after the city ordered them to vacate the property.

And as recently as 1995, a judge declared the house a public nuisance and city officials prepared to tear it down.

But in a bizarre twist, Mark Bailey, owner of a topless dance club in Lake Forest called Captain Creams, put up $65,000 so that the Ganishes could bring the structure up to code.

Five months later, after the owners had moved back into the home, Fern Ganish filed suit against Bailey, accusing him of fraud, conspiracy and “negligent infliction of emotional distress.”

She also sued Irvine but later dropped that lawsuit without explaining why.

“For the most part, everything has been resolved with the Ganishes,” Munoz said. “At one point, there were court orders, lawsuits, threatened lawsuits. We did have the authority to tear the house down. But obviously the city had no desire to do something that extreme.

“We just wanted the Ganishes to comply with the minimum code standards. Just the bare minimum standards. They agreed to do that. And although it took plenty of legal wrangling, they did bring it up to standard.”

Fern Ganish said she wishes the issue would just go away. “The city was overseeing the work that was done on our home,” she said. “We were not allowed to have anything to do with it. And a lot of damage was done to the home. That’s just something that we have to live with. I think the city just wanted to get the whole thing off its back.

“As to who is at fault, on one hand, I feel that the contractors are. But on the other hand, I think it’s the city’s fault [too]. But the money is gone and there is nothing at all that we can do about it. You can’t just keep nit-picking about every little thing.”

As for the lawsuit against Bailey, Fern Ganish said the matter was settled and that’s all she wanted to say.

Upon hearing that the Ganish castle had been brought up to code, Bailey laughed.

“That place is completed? No, I don’t think it will ever be really finished,” he said. “You know, I had no idea what I was getting into when I offered to help them.”

George McDermott, who lives a couple of houses away from the Ganishes, said he remembers being “stunned” when the Ganishes first started building. “I guess I’m still stunned,” he said.

McDermott said that he, like many of his neighbors, simply gave up on complaining to the city. “Once we realized they weren’t going to tear it down, that was that. Fortunately, there are trees between my house and theirs so that it blocks my view.”

Munoz said the city has no plans to revisit the Ganish home. “They complied with the requirements they were given,” he said.

“At this point, and after all this time, everything about this situation actually seems pretty copacetic.”