This guy lives in back of me and I was surprised to see house for sale:
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The way our properties are situated out back I hardly see or know the guy but he is a stone mason contractor. He is not in our development but directly in back of me. Properties do not touch as there is a driveway between us to the neighbor higher in the valley.
Reason I'm posting here is to point out that stone used to build the house was actually mined from the property, chopped out of the hillside twenty years ago. Only some of the arch stones were brought in.
A friend just sold his Mom's house in Los Angeles for $2MM.
What he actually sold is an overgrown half-acre lot with a 3-bedroom house and some out-buildings, all of which have to be torn down.
The Zillow listing didn't show a single picture of the interior. Instead, you got a bunch of these.
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The words in the description were: "Build the dream estate in one of the most sought after pockets in the area." and ""This is the location you want and the place where you want to build."
14 miles down the 101 from downtown LA.
Damn, that's a lot of stone from one location. I imagine he is selling it cheap since he got the material free from the land.
I can imagine how it was built. When I was a kid in the 50s, the parish build a new convent and then added a second floor to the church. They imported some masons from Italy and I watched them cutting and trimming the stones on a bench using a mallet and chisel. At the time I did not appreciate the skills they had.
Yes, but I think Ed's point is that each of those pieces had to be cut to the correct thickness and shaped to match on the face and fit together side by side and be flat enough on the back to be mortared in place.
That's what (I suspect) Ed meant by "cutting and trimming the stones on a bench using a mallet and chisel." That's a lot of work that takes a lot of skill.
That's what just about every other house in the neighborhood looks like. Big houses with fancy landscaping and pools. That's why the listing used words like "location" and "build". It was essentially being sold as building lot, not as a house.
The eventual buyer had "his people" come and look at the property so he could get an idea of the overall cost to demolish the buildings, clear the lot, get the proper permits to build, etc. Only then did he drop $2MM to buy the "lot".
I'm dying to know what the overall cost will be to end up with a house, pool, yard, etc. on the 1/2 acre lot. Other properties (complete with houses) in the area sold for well under $2MM, but they didn't have a 1/2 acre. That lot is one of the biggest in the neighborhood.
It'll fun to keep an eye on it over the years as Google Maps updates it's images.
I cannot recall construction 20 years ago but thought it was full stone but listing says stone façade. It is not all stone and back is stucco. Where the stone was dug from became his basement.
Interior details Bedrooms and bathrooms
Bedrooms: 5 Bathrooms: 6 Full bathrooms: 5 1/2 bathrooms: 1 Main level bathrooms: 2 Main level bedrooms: 1
Basement
Area: 0
Basement
Basement: Full
Heating
Heating features: Central, Propane - Owned
Cooling
Cooling features: Central A/C, Electric
Appliances
Appliances included: Propane Water Heater
Other interior features
Total interior livable area: 4,175 sqft Finished area above ground: 4,175 Finished area below ground: 0 Total number of fireplaces: 1 Virtual tour: View virtual tour
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