Comments on: Home Tour Advice

By: Jeanine Naviaux

Jeanine Naviaux — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 03:46:28 +0000

I actually organized a Home Tour in our neighborhood of Bird Rock in La Jolla two years ago. It was an amazing experience for me because I was able to recruit four other neighbors for the tour in addition of my own home. I couldn’t ask other people to open their homes if I didn’t too. We opened our homes to raise money to build a gate to our local park. The night before the Home Tour I brought a bottle of wine to each homeowner and thanked them for opening their homes. I could not believe the response. We had over 400 people buy tickets (not all came) to support our neighborhood. What appealed to everyone I spoke to was that the money we raised stayed in our neighborhood. Also, I thanked every single person who bought a ticket. People were so gracious and came back at the end of the tour and said how well it was put together. I can say that at the end of this summer, Bird Rock will have a wonderful new entrance to our neighborhood park. I can’t wait to see it!

By: Becky

Becky — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:06:18 +0000

Hi Terry, we are practically neighbors, I live in Va-Hi, about 1/4 mile from Morningside. So glad to here that you kept your house in the old neighborhood scale. If one neighborhood seems to have been hit worse than mine on the McMansion front, it’s Morningside (as I say this, they are grading the tiny lot next to me in preparation for the $1.2 million faux Craftsman they are going to build next door, which is wedged between me and the huge fakey faux stone brick tudor monstrosity built a few years ago.). I walked Hillside the other day and so much of the new construction was just so appallingly ugly. I hope this real estate slumps stops the ugly tasteless spec houses for awhile!

becky

By: Terry Kearns

Terry Kearns — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:33:13 +0000

Our house was on the 1990 Morningside Tour of Homes. We aren’t designers or real estate people. We are proud of our place and flattered to be asked.

We weren’t at the the house during the tour. Memories:

1. Gordon, our designer friend, worked so hard to get it together. He know what to do. We all worked until 4am the morning before before the tour.

2. The folks who “sat” our house took great care of it. They passed on lots of nice compliments.

3. Ours was the best house on the tour in the sense that it was obvious that a family of 5 with 3 small children lived there. It seemed normal and scaled with the old neighborhood.

4. I guess the tour is a bit of prestige when we sell. We framed the tour yard sign.

5. We’d do it again if we could get a pro to clean and stage it.