There’s a house for sale on San Remo Drive in Los Angeles for $22 million.

It’s a fabulous street. Leslie Epstein wrote a book about growing up there with Liz Taylor swimming in his pool and Gregory Peck next door.

I also used to live on San Remo Drive, but not the one in L.A. I lived on the one in Port Moody.

I bought my house there for $250,000. My neighbours were teachers and retirees.

My house looked almost exactly like the other 39 on San Remo — tall, skinny and jammed so close together that you couldn’t get between some of them.

No one has a real front yard. They don’t need them. Across the narrow street in front is a swath of public land that rolls down to the ocean.

I loved that street.

Almost the only people who drive down it are the people who live there.

We’d sometimes barricade it at both ends, drag out our barbeques and have a party in the middle of the road.

Every Christmas, we’d go caroling and then head back to Dave and Gillian’s.

Dave donned his Santa suit and presented everyone with a goofy gift he’d chosen specifically for them. Gillian, a trained chef, would feed us all.

Once, a guy mowed anti- government slogans on the public land in front of my house, but it was otherwise a civil, happy place.

The neighbourhood was great. My ’70s-era house, far from perfect.

Each was designed in the “California style” — with flat roofs, no overhangs and absorbent white stucco from top to bottom. An imperfect choice for one of the Lower Mainland’s wettest cities.

Despite the design flaws, there are strict covenants prohibiting anyone from changing the exterior. It has to be white stucco, brown balconies — and there’s a long list of other restrictions.

Our block parties were dominated by debates about the best paint for limiting mould; the winter parties by talk of floods and leaks.

Then, last year, all hell broke loose. Willy Martin painted her house. Beige.

She believes her property value is diminished because all the houses have to look the same. Others believe theirs will shrink, unless everyone conforms.

Eight residents have filed suit in Supreme Court against Willy and two other renegades . Willy’s crew have countered with their own petition.

Signs have sprouted declaring which side various owners are on.

Others have joined the fight by painting their garage doors in sympathy.

Goodwill has evaporated.

Instead of block parties, there are nasty notes and name-calling.

Few believe it will be restored when the court issues its verdict.

Liz Taylor doesn’t visit, and no house is worth a million dollars, but my San Remo had a rare value.

It’s terribly sad to imagine that, in the fight over what will add value to their homes, the neighbourhood has lost the one thing that made living there priceless — its neighbourliness.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 18th, 2007 at 1:01 am and is filed under Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.