Home tour brings in record amount

Andrew Edwards

Five homes, a $3,500-a-night hotel suite and 500 guests added up to a

record day for the Huntington Beach City School District on Saturday.

Organizers of the Open Doors Home and Garden Tour are still

counting how much the fundraiser brought in for schools. So far, the

count shows about $28,000 was raised.

“Pretty nice for one day, huh?” asked Cathy Meschuck, executive

director of the Huntington Beach Education Foundation, which put on

the event. “That’s the best we’ve ever done.”

The tour of Surf City’s more stylish abodes was organized by the

foundation with help from the Huntington Beach Art Center, where

guests stopped for lunch. The tour was entirely self-guided, and

visitors were provided with a map to let them visit the homes at

their own pace.

The tour included the presidential suite at the Hyatt Regency

Huntington Beach Resort & Spa, a Downtown condo with Mediterranean

stylings, a traditional Craftsman-style home, a newly built Victorian

that looks like it has been preserved for 100 years, a Tuscan-style

family home and a villa in the Bluffs.

The two-story condo owned by Charlie and Margie Bunten is nestled

in a courtyard built on top of Plaza Almeria. The entryway features

ivory-colored marble floors, and wooden stairs lead up to the family

area and kitchen. Pictures of the Bunten family on vacation at

faraway monuments like the Great Wall of China and pyramids adorn the

walls.

Guests at the Bunten home included teacher Pam Sheldon, one of the

home tour’s original organizers. This was the first year Sheldon did

not help put the tour together.

Saturday was the first time she encountered the Buntens’

above-ground neighborhood.

“It’s such a different lifestyle than what you have in Huntington

Beach, I never knew this place existed,” she said.

The Craftsman, belonging to Steven and Lorilee Inlow, exuded an

old-fashioned feel. The home’s piano, traditional China cabinet and

stone fireplace all contributed to the house’s sense of Americana.

The home also featured a wilderness-themed game room adorned with

hunting trophies and crowned by a sun deck on the roof.

“It’s one of my favorite ones on the tour so far,” said visitor

Rene Howell, who added the home showed “function and beauty

together.”

The Victorian home on Park Street looks as if it is old enough to

have stood witness to just about all of Surf City’s history, but was

only completed last autumn. Linda Sackin, who owns the home with her

husband Paul, worked with an architect to design the home from the

ground up.

“The design was mine and I’ve done all the decorating myself as

well,” Linda Sackin said.

Victorian-era portraits are hung in the living room, which also

includes a Tiffany lamp and an antique rocking horse. To the rear of

the home is a workshop where Linda Sackin sews quilts.

The money raised from the tour will be given out to schools as

grants, and Meschuck said teachers have already begun applying for a

share of the money. The recipients will be announced before the start

of next school year.