A creepy coincidence

Deepa Bharath

Mark Louvier held a yellowed, tattered newspaper in his right hand.

It was a Jan. 16, 1971, edition of the Daily Pilot.

Louvier and his wife, Leslie, moved into their Eastside Costa Mesa

home in March 1987. Last year, they decided it was time to remodel.

The Louviers did everything with their own hands -- the paint, the

walls, the fixtures and the hardwood flooring.

And that’s how Mark Louvier found that dilapidated relic from the

past. He was tearing down one of the bathroom walls when he saw this

old newspaper wrapped around a rusty pipe for insulation. He opened

it up to read -- as is his nature.

It seemed to have been a fairly newsy day. The top story was

jurors’ beginning deliberations on the Charles Manson trial. He

flipped over to pages two and three, which had news from Sacramento,

Washington, D.C. and all over the world -- from Mexico, Brazil and

Vietnam. But Louvier stopped when he saw his own last name on that

paper in big, bold print.

It was an obituary for his grandfather, Henry Louvier, a longtime

resident of Newport Beach.

“I went to his funeral,” Mark Louvier said. “I remember my

grandfather, of course. But I had no idea anything was ever written

about him.”

Leslie Louvier said she “got the shivers” when her husband showed

it to her. At first, she thought it was “kind of spooky,” but now she

looks at it with reverence and affection.

“It felt like it was a blessing from his grandfather,” she said.

“I still get goose bumps when we talk about it. I can’t just think of

it as some fancy coincidence.”

But her husband looks at it differently.

“It’s a weird coincidence,” he said. “Here we buy this house from

someone with no connection to our family. And [nearly] 20 years

later, we find this? What are the odds of that happening.”

Mark Louvier is not new to the old and archaic. He has a penchant

for collecting antiques. He also tries to preserve the character of

what he avidly collects. There’s a Russian cabinet in the dining area

in which he left the shelf liners because they were lined with

newspapers from that country. On their mantel is the top of a

lighthouse from Sidney, Australia -- a piece from the 1880s.

“I have an affection for things that are old because I see them as

having an intrinsic value,” he said. “Most of these things are

hand-made, and the time, labor and work that goes into producing

these objects never ceases to amaze me.”

Mark Louvier decided to leave something for posterity himself.

Before he closed up the wall in their living room, he left behind a

Newsweek magazine, a newspaper and a bottle of merlot. Both he and

his wife signed their little time capsule, inspired by their recent

find.

“We even signed the wine bottle,” Leslie Louvier said.

The note on that bottle that some future resident may find some

day will read: “Good luck to the new owners.”

* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at deepa.bharath@latimes.com.