14 Years of Work May Kill Dream House

Gordon and Mary Aughinbaughs’ new home in Palos Verdes Estates is nearly finished and it’s shaping up to be a beauty.

Styled after an 18th-Century French country manor, the 6,000-square-foot, three-story home sits on an acre lot with a large courtyard. There are ocean views from every floor and the attic includes a split-level chapel for Mary, a devout Catholic.

“There is nothing else like it,” said Gordon Aughinbaugh, 73, pointing out that, given the way the house is built, including 20-inch-thick exterior walls, “it will be standing 900 years from now.”

But despite that attention to quality, or maybe because of it, the house may soon not be standing.

The city’s homeowner association has received a court order allowing it to tear down the Aughinbaugh’s dream home because of its lengthy gestation period--the couple has been building the house for 14 years and isn’t finished yet.

In what may be the ultimate dispute between a resident and a homeowner group, the Palos Verdes Homes Assn. says that it is ready to call in the bulldozers because the Aughinbaughs have violated a strict association guideline about how long a home project may take.

It is the first time in the association’s more than 50 years that it sought permission to demolish a house, an attorney for the group said.

The couple, who lived in another house in the coastal city for 25 years, say that they are not to blame for the delay. While they admit that they are picky about every detail of their home, they say that the project’s lengthy duration is due to what they say were inept contractors and because of the association itself, with what the couple views as silly demands and red tape.

“It makes us sound like the bad guys,” said Sidney Croft, attorney for the homeowner association, but “all we are asking is that the Aughinbaughs comply with the same rules as the rest of our members.”

The association gained the legal authority to tear down the house after it sued the Aughinbaughs in 1984, alleging that the couple had violated an association bylaw that requires anyone building a home in the city to “proceed diligently.”

The bylaws list no specific time period, but the association felt that 14 years cannot be called diligent.

The construction “has been an irritant to the community over a number of years,” City Manager James Hendrickson said. “The work has not progressed in a satisfactory fashion.”

The couple, who estimate that they have sunk $1.5 million into the would-be dwelling since breaking ground in 1976, contend that they have encountered a slew of obstacles that have delayed construction of their ambitious project.

And they are contemptuous of the association. Its officers “are like little dictators,” said Mary Aughinbaugh, 57.

There is no dispute that the Palos Verdes Homes Assn. wields a lot of power in the small community, where the average price of a home is about $695,000 and the median household income is about $95,000.

Like other homeowner associations nationwide--one recent estimate placed their number at 130,000--it is the community’s taste police, acting as a quasi-governmental body with veto power over all exterior architecture and landscaping in Palos Verdes Estates and parts of Rancho Palos Verdes.

The group even has the power to select the color a home can be painted. In the Aughinbaughs’ case, the group has determined that beige--and only beige--will be allowed.

Over the years, the association has taken homeowners to court, typically for putting additions on their homes without permission, Croft said. As a result, many additions have been torn down.

But the association’s legal case against the Aughinbaughs is a first.

The case was decided four years ago when a Torrance Superior Court gave the couple until Dec. 1, 1988, to finish the home or face demolition. The judgment was stayed during an appeal and an appellate court affirmed the decision in November.

Under the court order, the city would be permitted to raze the house, and restore the property to its original undeveloped state. The Aughinbaughs would not be entitled to any compensation.

Croft said he soon will go back to court to seek a “writ of possession,” one of the final legal steps before the walls would come tumbling down.

The Aughinbaughs say the house is 95% complete. The roof and exterior walls are up and windows and floors are in. The inside walls are complete, though much finish work remains. The plumbing and wiring is done, but fixtures are not installed.

Before they can move into the house, the couple needs to obtain a certificate of occupancy from the city. But more work is needed before such a certificate would be issued.

Short of getting the permit, the Aughinbaughs could satisfy the association by hiring a general contractor who could quickly complete the work, said Harry Brandel, Jr., head of the association’s board of directors.

“We would rather not (raze the house),” Brandel said. “But we are going to if they don’t come through. Absolutely. We have to. We don’t have any choice.”

The Aughinbaughs, who originally thought it would take about two years to complete the house, say their predicament is largely due to contractors who they say botched the work.

Early on, they say, they were dissatisfied with the foundation work of their general contractor. That wound up in a messy, seven-year legal battle that brought construction to a standstill.

After that, Gordon Aughinbaugh said, “no contractor really wanted to come and take over.”

For a brief period, the couple tried unsuccessfully to sell, but six years ago they found another contractor who agreed to work on the house. They eventually fired him.

“I’ve had it with contractors” and their poor craftsmanship, Gordon Aughinbaugh said. “I’ve had it up to here.”

They have also had it with the home association, which they say has wasted their time and money.

Early on, the association ordered them to place landscaping in front of a wall at the house. Even though they protested that they had no water service and the plants would wither, the couple acquiesced. They spent an entire Fourth of July weekend working days and evenings planting 200 oleanders.

The oleanders later died of thirst.

The homeowners’ association says that version is true, as far as it goes. The wall was built without design approval, and the Aughinbaughs were told they could keep it only if it were camouflaged, said Brandel.

The current dispute appears beyond compromise.

The Aughinbaughs said they have no intention of knuckling under and hiring another contractor. The couple is now talking to a lawyer to find out if they can renew the fight in court.

In the meantime, the couple is working seven days a week on the house. Gordon Aughinbaugh predicts it can be habitable within “a couple of months.”

But the association is pressing its case.

“We are not bluffing,” Croft said. “We take these restrictions very seriously. . . . This is not like somebody painting their house the wrong color.”

Several weeks ago it dispatched George Perez, a demolition contractor, to the house to estimate how much it would cost to tear down.

Perez said that when he arrived at the house, he thought he had the wrong address. Although he could use the work, he decided to pass on the job.

“No matter how much they pay me, I don’t want to be involved in that kind of thing,” Perez said. “The house is beautiful.”