House Arrest : Dream Home That Became a Nightmare Must Lose Its Top

For more than two years, the unfinished house has created an air of mystery along suburban La Costa Avenue in Carlsbad, its sun-bleached frame looking like the weathered hull of a silent old ship run aground.

In the midst of a building boom that has seen an endless tide of new custom-built homes in this North County community, Denis Hobson’s troubled little project has become an object of curiosity among locals and tourists alike--slowing traffic on the busy street, sometimes even breaking the concentration of golfers at the adjacent La Costa resort.

“Everybody wants to know what’s going on with that house,” said the 62-year-old Hobson in a sprightly British accent. “For some people, it’s like a mystery that nags at them--they just want to know why the blasted thing has sat there unfinished for so long.

“We get letters and telephone calls from other people who think I’m in some sort of financial trouble and want to buy the place for a steal. Whatever the reason, people keep asking.”

In January, 1988, the hammers, drills and saws were silenced when a couple who lived next door claimed that the budding frame was blocking their high-priced view of Batiquitos Lagoon and the ocean beyond.

Meanwhile, a local architectural committee claimed that Hobson had varied from his construction plans, building a larger three-car garage and adding a story to the 3,500-square-foot project.

The committee eventually obtained a court order to halt all building at the site, about 4 miles east of Interstate 5 until Hobson settled the matter in court.

Last summer, after losing thousands of dollars as the project sat idle, Hobson and his wife, Dorothy, learned they had lost the legal battle.

Now, they say, without funds to wage an appeal, they must pay more than $65,000 in attorney’s fees for all parties in the case, plus $35,000 for a job the veteran North County home builder finds the most distasteful of all:

This month, Hobson will begin dismantling the top part of the home--being built for him and his wife--to meet the architectural committee’s standards and keep from blocking his neighbors’ view.

“They’re making me take apart my own house piece by piece,” said Hobson, whose Denbar Construction company has built more than 60 homes in the La Costa area in the past 20 years.

“If I could come up with money to appeal, I know I’d eventually win. But how long could I afford to go on? You’d think that, once you’ve gotten the city’s blessing on a project, you’d be in the clear. I sure learned my lesson on that one.”

Hobson insists that his construction blueprints met city codes and even had the approval of the La Costa area’s architectural committee, until the local group suddenly changed its mind at the neighbors’ bidding.

Tony Mata, chief building inspector for the city of Carlsbad, agreed that the house met city codes, but said the architectural committee apparently had a legal right to set additional limits.

“Everything was OK as far as we were concerned,” he said. “Unfortunately for Mr. Hobson, he was building next door to an eccentric guy who didn’t like what he saw. And I guess he had every right to get a lawyer and go to court to stop it. The judge apparently agreed the builder was in the wrong.”

Mata said it is rare, however, for construction of a home to be halted in such advanced stages while disputes are settled in court.

Ruth Besecker, a member of the La Costa architectural committee, a board that enforces a code of loosely formed building restrictions in some areas of La Costa, said Hobson’s unfinished house has elicited numerous calls from curious passers-by.

“When we told them what was going on, many said, ‘Gosh, that place certainly is an eyesore.’ Some just shook their heads. The whole thing is regrettable,” she said.

Besecker said the committee has since begun disbanding and will leave future code enforcement to neighborhood groups.

Waldemar and Caryl Brehm, who live next to the weathered wooden shell, are relieved that the board was around long enough to help halt what they call “a disastrous piece of construction work.”

“In New York, they’ve made builders lop off the top five or six floors of skyscrapers because of view and height problems,” said Waldemar Brehm, an Encinitas orthodontist. “Actually, we were hoping they’d bulldoze the whole place down.”

Meanwhile, nerves have been rubbed nearly raw among the two neighbors in the area. The Hobsons, who have been living in another house several doors away, say they refuse to speak to the Brehms.

“Actually, there’s no mystery here at all,” said Caryl Brehm. “People always stopped to ask about the house and who was building it. We just told them it was the project of a maverick builder who thought he could get away with anything he pleased.

“But we wouldn’t let him. Frankly, we have no animosity toward the man. He just did a stupid thing.”

When the Hobsons finally move into their completed house, how will they get along with their new neighbors?

“We may live next to them, but we’ll never be neighbors,” Dorothy Hobson said. “We just won’t see them--even if we see them. Know what I mean?”

And, although the mystery of La Costa Avenue’s seemingly abandoned house will soon be solved, Denis Hobson says he’s working hard to maintain his sense of humor.

“You have to laugh at all the questions that house has inspired,” he said. “Once, while I was down at the golf course, following the Tournament of Champions there, the family of one of the leaders looks up at the house with his mouth open.

“ ‘That house has been there like that for the last three tournaments. The poor guy must have run out of cash,’ he said. I spoke up and said, ‘That poor guy is me.’

“Everybody laughed--including me.”