FOX: A man who illegally demolished a San Francisco house designed by modernist architect Richard Neutra was ordered this week to rebuild it exactly as it was.
The city Planning Commission also ordered Ross Johnston to add a sidewalk plaque telling the entire saga of the house’s origins in the 1930s, its demolition and replication.
Johnston purchased the 1936 residence, known as the Largent House, in 2017 for $1.7 million.
Johnston had planned to remodel the 1,300-square-foot home in the Twin Peaks neighborhood and submitted his plans for the two-story house to the city, which mostly kept the first floor intact. His permit was approved.
However, as neighbor Cheryl Traverce discovered, Johnston had a much more elaborate modification in mind.
“I went to New York for about a week and half and came back, the house was gone, totally gone,” Traverce told KPIX 5. “I was shocked.”
Johnston later applied for a retroactive demolition permit and asked to build a new three-story house that would expand the size from 1,300 to nearly 4,000 square feet.
Johnston said he wanted to move his family of six into the larger home.
Traverce filed a complaint to the city over the demolition out of concern for what a larger remodel would do to the neighborhood.
“Demolishing a $1.2 million house and replacing it with a $5 million house only makes the affordability that much worse in the city,” Commissioner Dennis Richards said to KPIX said. “We’re finding there’s an epidemic of these kinds of things happening.” MORE HERE
Property rights? Property rights?
You don’ have any steenkin’ property rights!
Reminds me of ‘Hysterical’ downtown Savannah.
Not allowed to tear down a crap eyesore, the slum lords reign.
Now that is insane but funny!
So much for the old adage “it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission “.
San Francisco – nuke it from orbit – it’s the only way to be sure …
izlamo delenda est …
Oh it won’t be exactly like the falling down piece of shit he razed. New building codes require padded glory holes in each wall, butt plug and lube dispensers in each hallway and IoT cameras in the toilets. That’s “if” he fellates the right bureaucrats satisfactorily.
If that had been designated of some sort of heritage house or the work of a particularly important architect and the owner was aware of the fact he could not demolish it then he has nobody to blame but himself. It sounds like he knew exactly what he was doing and planned a sorry, too late defense but wasn’t expecting this result. Imagine if somebody had done the same to a Frank Loyd Wright house. Remember, this guy submitted a reno plan for the house that was approved by the city which would mean he had to know about the houses special status but then went ahead and demolished the place. He tried to pull a fast one and got got by a neighbor.
That’s what he gets for living in San Francisco.
@Uncle Al December 17, 2018 at 10:18 am
> You don’ have any steenkin’ property rights!
I hate to Dan Quayle a joke (that’s why I waited for the rimshot). But, seriously… The proof of absolutely, not even a pretense, of the ashes of Muh Constitusion! is The Party members in Good standing’s response. The idea that municipal cubicle hamsters can literally literally hire unionized gang bangers to literally literally put guns to your head, and tell you what public sculpture they want built, at your expense (including paying the unionized gang bangers for their service), on the land you rent from them, with no fear of even imprisonment, let alone a public Chinese corruption lesson, proves that it’s all been overthrown for so long that nobody’s even pretending, anymore. (Well, except for Muh Constitusion! burpers. But I don’t know that’s pretending, as much as just the sound they make when the gas escapes.)
Scr_north, I’m with you. I was on Johnson’s side from a property rights perspective, right up to the point where he ignored his approved plans and demolished the entire house.
Likewise, I was with the neighbor who filed the complaint right up to the point where she complains about a more expensive house ruining the affordability index. So we should build slums to keep neighborhoods affordable? Bite me.
What kind of an ass hole would ever allow his children to enter the confines of such a horrible, despicable city? Nosy neighbor and bone smokers at city hall are actually doing him a favor.
Racer: Exactly. No innocent people were harmed in the making of this cluster.
Greedy liberal developer ignores law. Nosy liberal neighbor complains on specious SJW grounds.
When is the next earthquake coming to level set property values in line with their moral ones.
Wouldn’t property taxes on a 4 times more expensive home ostensibly help the homeless after trickle down government takes its share.
An 8.5 really is the solution for that city. It would fix a lot of things.
Come to think of it, a 9.0 Cascadia followed by a 7.5 Seattle fault would fix things in the Soviet State, as well.
I’d like the latter to hold off so I can provision a 42′ ketch, however, and get the hell out of here.
Did y’all SEE that area? I’ve seen bigger homes and properties in the ancient village I grew up in. Stone houses, people.
If the house was sooooo important, why did the city allow it to be sold? Several times! It was remodeled several times, too. But if it’s so important (said with a lisp) why isn’t a landmark, roped off and turned into a library/ gift shop? Apparently, it wasn’t THAT big of a deal, right, San Francisco?
Oh and the next door lady. STFU, dipshit. If you plan on selling your own roach trap some day, the dude’s 4 million dollar price tag would benefit you and the other morons in the roach traps.
He bought it at a reduced price because of the home’s limitations as a historic building. So whether you like the idea of historic designations or not, he was taking advantage of it for financial gain.
Have to share this with a friend, she is fighting developers in Santa Monica who are constantly doing this – ‘Oops, I accidentally but now it’s too late so I will build what I want.’
Sell the lot to somebody and leave the state, permanently.
Back in the early ‘70’s, people in San Francisco could not tear down Victoria era outhouses because of their “historical significance,” but Art Deco buildings were being torn down as fast as people could do it.