Long-distance building

Rather than build a new home from scratch, local couple has one trucked in from Arizona.COSTA MESA -- Last Thursday was a typical day on Monte Vista Avenue, as residents left for work and children headed to school. The mail truck came through and made its usual deliveries. Then, in midmorning, a construction vehicle drove in and delivered a new house.

By the end of the afternoon, the vacant lot, which had been protected by a locked gate for the past year, featured a brand-new two-story home -- carried in on a crane and lowered onto the property with cables.

“This is one of the few ways we could afford a home in the pricey Newport-Mesa area,” said Nick Komar, the owner of the house, who stood on the sidewalk filming while the crane did its work. “It’s slightly cheaper [than buying an existing property], but what’s important to me is that it’s a better-constructed house.”

A year and a half ago, Komar and his wife, Katie Hughes-Komar, purchased the lot on Monte Vista with the intent of transporting a house onto it. A former employee of a power-tool company, Komar got the idea for a modular home from reading trade magazines and seeing a model at a 2004 builders tradeshow in Las Vegas.

For the last five years, he and his wife, a former Newport Beach schoolteacher who now works in Mission Viejo, have shared an apartment on the Eastside. The lot that they purchased on Monte Vista had little excitement until Thursday, although Komar occasionally came by to tend the land.

“Almost every time I was mowing the lawn, a Realtor would come by, give me a card and tell me to give it to the owner,” he recalled.

In the meantime, the Komars were busy purchasing a ready-made house from Genesis Homes in Chandler, Ariz.