$7-Million Tear-Down
What sound does $7 million make?
Snap, boom, crunch.
At least it does when a 27-ton track loader is gnawing and stomping its way through a two-story tear-down to make way for a bigger, more expensive home in an exclusive Newport Beach neighborhood.
Like a giant termite gone mad, the bulldozer first took out the three-car garage, then headed for the rest of the house Tuesday, brandishing its scooper at anything that got close until it ate its way almost to Newport Bay.
Tear-downs are a way of life on Harbor Island--almost expected in a 31-house colony that counts among its residents soon-to-be-ambassador George Argyros, where Irvine Co. chief Donald Bren is preparing to break ground on a new abode and where each house has a dock.
Even this house, a 4,688-square-foot monument to ‘70s modern architecture with its sharp angles and bone-colored stucco, couldn’t be built until its predecessor came tumbling down. But that had been just an unpretentious two-story beach cottage, less than 2,000 square feet, that was built in the ‘30s or ‘40s, back when classical violinist Jascha Heifetz had a home at the tip of the island. That house eventually was torn down to build two others.
You may not be able to find vacant land along the Southern California coast, but if you’re rich enough, what difference does it make?
The Harbor Island tear-down will be replaced by a 5,465-square-foot house with an attached 874-square-foot garage and a one-vehicle carport. Architectural style yet to be determined.
The owners, Todd and Debra Johnson, who recently moved from Colorado, bought the house last June. They already have a vacation house on Balboa Island. The couple, who provide nursing staff for hospitals, declined to discuss their new home.
Talk is that the house sold for around its listed price of $7 million. On Harbor Island, that’s not so expensive. “Harbor Island is the most exclusive property in Orange County, bar none,” said Realtor Bill Cote, who sold a $14.5-million home there two years ago to Robert McNulty, former chairman of Shopping.com Inc.
But this still ranks among the most expensive tear-downs around, Realtors said. Of course, it pales when compared with the $10.25-million Bing Crosby estate in Holmby Hills that TV producer Aaron Spelling bought in 1982 only to tear it down and build a home for upward of $60 million.
Sometimes people buy the house next door and knock it down to make their lot larger.
“If you’re spending $7 million, that’s enough already,” said Cecelia Waeschle, a broker at Coldwell Banker in Beverly Hills. “You usually want a house for that. You don’t want to have to tear it down.”
The Johnsons’ house was built in the early 1970s by John and Elaine Bond, then owners of Road & Track magazine, recalled architect Bill Ficker. As purveyors of Ferraris and other sports cars, the Bonds were interested in modern architecture.
“Most people on Harbor Island probably didn’t like the house,” Ficker admitted. “It’s an intrusion on a rather nondescript palette of architecture. It’s like a piece of modern art. You’re not going to have everyone admire it.”
When the house was almost complete, the Bonds took Ficker, his wife and daughter with them to England aboard the Queen Elizabeth II and then to Denmark, where they selected all the furniture for the house.
There have been several owners since then, each of whom added touches.
Inside and outside, the four-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bath house was a mix of opulence and 1970s shag-rug chic.
The construction was solid. The walls were plaster. “The studs inside the walls, I can’t buy stuff of that quality now,” said Baxter Alex, a partner in Prestige Builders, which is supervising construction of the new house.
In the courtyard was a fountain. Steps out the back led to the dock, which also will be replaced.
The staircase banister was made of white oak without knots, as was the home entertainment unit upstairs.
The kitchen floor was covered with hand-painted Mexican tiles, and the doorknobs were solid brass.
The bedroom carpet leaked into the hall where it ended in midstream. The rest of the hall was covered by short-pile shag carpet in burnt orange with splotches of brown.
With the OK of the Johnsons, neighbors had carted away whatever they wanted from the house, from the outside plants to the garbage disposal to the gates to the shower enclosure.
Finally, demolition man Tom Sherman pounded the bulldozer into the house Tuesday, tearing through bedrooms, kitchen and bathrooms, then ripping out a tree and bending a steel beam as if it were rubber.
With only 10 feet between houses, Sherman made sure the walls and debris fell inward instead of onto the neighbors’ property. “This is like surgery,” he said.
But in this case, the operation was successful when the patient died. At 1 p.m., after six hours of work, all that was left of the house was a pile of rubble to be scooped into dumpsters and carted away.
