How can they take away our hard-earned view?

Arline Isaacs

This morning I cried.

I awoke to the sound of steel clanging outside our bedroom window.

Rushed to our living room and den windows to see what I couldn’t have

imagined in my wildest dreams.

The night before we had stood hugging each other in front of our

living room window, taking in the breathtaking view of our city’s

lights, which framed the white foamy surf. We had weathered four

years of Design Review and City Council ordeals.

The view was the culmination of all the agony. Four years of

intense work in which many things had to be repeated and changed

often because of the changing of the guard -- meaning new batches of

Design Review Board members, who didn’t agree with the original ones.

Little things like tearing down a wall that was just put up, etc.

Money down the drain. With nobody caring. Time wasted when the

inspector would only look at one thing at a time when he could have

saved us days by spending five more minutes. Things like that. Four

years to finally move into the home of our dreams.

Throughout the years, Dave and I built 189 homes and office

buildings all over Orange County and Mammoth Lakes, winning a Gold

Nugget award for best-designed homes in the West, as well as

Beautification Awards when we placed Seward Johnson sculptures. But

we were never able to build our own dream home.

We moved to Laguna in 1969. We had always vacationed here. I wrote

a book about Laguna which, because it was bought by libraries in

places like New Zealand, Australia and Alaska, to name a few, people

have come to see our city who never would have known about it. We are

life members of the Laguna Museum of Art and I was on the board of

directors for a few years. I started our Arts Commission, which

recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. And I chaired Laguna’s

first Beaux Arts Ball.

Four years ago, when we finally were able to build our own home,

we looked for and found the perfect lot. It had a view you could

search a lifetime for, and at our age you could say we did. It was

delicious.

We worked with our architect, Marcelo Lische, who brilliantly took

a four-sided home and angled it off to two directions. This way we

could take advantage of the view on either side of a humongous stand

of the Stansbury’s (non-fire-retardant) eucalyptus trees. On one side

we’d have an ocean view, on the other a white water and city lights

view up the coast. It is a design that took full advantage of the

lot. We were told when we bought the lot that Laguna likes to keep

hopes in a line so nobody’s deck is allowed to come out farther to

destroy anyone else’s view. How neat.

This was a time for us to finally enjoy the view we had always

built on for others. When we finally moved in, Dave bought me a

laptop. As a writer, that was the ideal thing for me to have. I sit

in our den daily and the muse comes to me as I stare our at the

miraculously godly sight I am so privileged to enjoy. I wouldn’t want

to ever take a sight like this away from anyone. And there is no

reason for anyone to take it away from us. The neighbor’s home needed

to be moved back, or at the very least not raised above their garage.

We tried to explain this. Somehow he convinced Design Review.

So why did I cry this morning? The steep frame that

realtor-new-neighbor is putting up will completely obliterate our

white water and city lights view . It is never too late to right a

wrong. We had to change portions of our house while we were building

it. They can do it as well.

* ARLINE and DAVE ISAACS are Laguna Beach residents.