Lewis Offering Leases in Villa Capri Housing

Even yuppies get the blues, but an Inland Empire home builder has a solution for their housing-related ones.

If they can’t come up with the down payment on a new house in upscale Rancho Cucamonga, young families--or anyone else who qualifies, for that matter--can lease a duplex or a detached single-family house from Lewis Homes, Upland.

The 70 units in the first phase of the 150-unit Villa Capri project opening today in the master-planned community of Terra Vista will rent from $850 to $1,100 a month, according to Alice Oakley, marketing coordinator for the family-owned builder.

The rent includes front-yard landscape maintenance and back-yard fencing. The two-level units have two or three bedrooms and 1,123 to 1,358 square feet, attached two-car garages and all the benefits of living in a planned community. There are two duplex plans and three detached ones.

“This is a pet project of Randall Lewis (the firm’s marketing chief) who modeled it on a similar Lewis Homes project in Chino Hills,” Oakley said. “The houses are not for sale: We expect them to be leased for at least 10 years, but the people who lease in Villa Capri are eligible for our company’s rent-to-own plan.”

Under that arrangement, anyone who rents a house or apartment in a Lewis Homes project can deduct $100 a month or up to $2,400 from the purchase price of a Lewis Homes for-sale house in any location, she said. For instance, a family that rents for a year can deduct $1,200.

Move-ins are scheduled for November. The leasing office is at 7683 Broadmoor Place, just off Church Street between Base Line Road and Foothill Boulevard.