Man Wins ‘Dream House’ Raffle

Talk about a bargain.

A La Habra businessman who plunked down $300 for two raffle tickets won a million-dollar hilltop mansion with sweeping ocean views Tuesday -- all part of a fund-raising gambit by the Palos Verdes Art Center.

Winner John Moungian, 54, wasn’t present when raffle officials drew his name, but his sister, Gloria Brass, of Rancho Palos Verdes was. “John! John! You won the house!” she shouted into her cell phone.

According to Brass, Moungian was eating dinner with his wife and a business client when she called. His first reaction was to yell, “We won!”

Relaying a question from reporters, Brass said her brother wasn’t quite sure if he would actually move in. “He’s still in shock,” she said. Brass revealed few other details about the winner, except to say that he and his wife have two children.

Buying a $1.17-million, white-columned mansion on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and raffling it off seemed like a gamble for the art center, but it paid off handsomely, officials said. Hundreds of ticket holders filled the food court of the Avenue of the Peninsula Shopping Center on Tuesday as raffle officials fished winning tickets from a transparent tumbler.

“I really felt like we had a chance,” said Albert Ramirez, 43, of West Covina. Ramirez and friend Otto Gutierrez, 48, of Reseda chipped in together to buy one ticket. Although they weren’t given the title to the mansion, they did win $300.

“It would be nice to be in that man’s place ... but $300 is good,” Gutierrez said.

The names of all winners will be posted on the group’s Web site: www.pvartcenter.org.

For Robert A. Yassin, the nonprofit’s executive director and the proponent of the “dream home” raffle, buying the three-bedroom, 3,250-square-foot home and raffling it off was a creative way to raise funds at a time of thin budgets.

“It was one of those ideas that came at the right time,” Yassin said. “My board, with great courage, agreed to give it a shot and it turned out to be a great success.”

The nonprofit had hoped to reach its goal of selling 16,000 tickets at $150 each by the raffle date, but the response was so overwhelming that by July 3 every ticket had been snatched up. More than 95% of the tickets were sold in California and the rest were bought in 42 other states, Canada and the Virgin Islands.

The art center, which holds art classes and showcases the work of local artists, expects the raffle to net about $900,000. The winner can go home to the newly remodeled house in Rancho Palos Verdes that features chandeliers, floor-to-ceiling windows and a foyer big enough for a baby grand piano. The winner has until Aug. 8 to decide whether to take the house or an $800,000 cash prize.

Besides the house, 159 other prizes with a total value of $103,000 were awarded, including a $25,000 second prize and 145 awards of $300 each.

The art center’s raffle was possible because of a law that allows qualifying nonprofit organizations to have raffles (“lotteries,” in the eyes of the state), as long as most of the proceeds go toward the organization’s cause.

Meanwhile, Yassin is already planning on a second “dream home” raffle.