Downscale Homes : Local Builders Have Fun Making 12 Playhouses for a Serious Purpose

SANTA ANA —  Orange County home builders are nationally known as leaders in the design and construction of large housing developments.

This summer, a dozen of them indulged their imaginations by building custom children’s playhouses in a project aimed at raising funds to aid the homeless.

The results, on display at two Orange County shopping centers through Nov. 14, are an array of fantasy playhouses that draw big smiles from children like 3-year-old Angela DeFazio of Tustin, and grown-ups like Angela’s mom, Cynthia.

“I wanna go in this one!” wide-eyed Angela announced as she bounced from a simple frontier watchtower to an elaborate miniature Victorian mansion with hardwood floor, skylight, an upholstered window seat and a brick fireplace. It even has running water and electricity.

Her mother held her back--deterred by the “No Admittance” sign on the door--and asked why all the playhouses were scattered on a lawn area at Newport Beach’s Fashion Island.

“I think it’s a wonderful thing to do,” she said when Project Playhouse ’92 was explained to her.

All but one of the dozen playhouses are to be auctioned Nov. 14, with proceeds going to HomeAid Orange County--a Building Industry Assn. program in which builders, suppliers and subcontractors donate money, manpower and material to build or renovate homeless shelters in Orange County.

The 12th playhouse, a replica of the soon-to-open Hard Rock Cafe in Fashion Island, will be the grand prize in a raffle that same evening--an attempt, organizers said, to make one of the homes available to a family that might not have the finances to compete in the spirited and expensive bidding on Nov. 14.

Raffle tickets, available at the playhouse exhibits at Fashion Island and the Tustin Market Place in Tustin, are $1 apiece. Each ticket entitles a child to vote for the playhouse he or she likes best.

The “People’s Award” winner will be announced at the auction along with the results of a playhouse design competition judged by industry professionals, said Donna Hahn, spokeswoman for the project.

Andrea Bertrand, vice president of Burrow Escrow in Santa Ana and chairman of Project Playhouse ‘92, said HomeAid hopes to raise at least $50,000 through the raffle and auction.

That works out to an average anticipated winning bid of about $4,000 per house. But just like in auctions of big people’s houses, something many of the participating builders are familiar with, successful bidders could get a bargain.

Most of the playhouses took far more than $4,000 worth of material and labor to construct. One builder acknowledged putting more than $12,000 into his entry.

Since it began in the summer of 1989, HomeAid Orange County has raised $2.5 million in cash, material and labor and has completed 11 shelter projects, adding 197 new beds for the transitionally homeless. This year, the program is involved in five new projects that will add 90 more beds at shelters for people who are temporarily homeless because of financial, health or personal problems.

Julie Newcomb, president of Costain Homes in Newport Beach, said people in her company have been involved in HomeAid for several years but developed a special interest in the playhouse project “because we found out that of the 12,000 transitionally homeless people in Orange County, half of them are children.”

Costain’s team--which included nearly a dozen subcontractors as well as 16 people from the company’s corporate headquarters--built a Victorian-era firehouse, complete with fire pole, rooftop play area, a built-in toy box and a brass fire bell. This playhouse is equipped with a pair of bright yellow slickers and fire helmets, a toy fire engine and a plush stuffed Dalmatian.

She said the project was especially rewarding now, in the midst of a recession and housing slump, “because at times like this it is difficult to keep people’s spirits and morale up, and working on this was something all of our people and suppliers and subcontractors could do as a teamwork project that did keep morale high.”

Of those working on the firehouse, Newcomb singled out subcontractor Don Brownlee, owner of S&B; Framing in Riverside, for special praise. “He and his wife volunteered their back yard for the construction site, and everybody worked back there for three solid weeks,” she said. Typical of other subcontractors on other projects, S&B; also donated framing and transported the playhouse to Fashion Island. The completed playhouse is an 8-by-10-foot structure and stands 7 feet high.

Other playhouses include the Hard Rock Cafe replica, a model of the stainless steel-and-glass Sporting Club Irvine; a lavishly appointed tugboat with curving mahogany deck and polished brass instruments; several castles; a plexiglass and steel beach house; a giant jumble of interconnected building blocks, a Cape Cod cottage and a “Wizard of Oz”-themed Kansas farmhouse.

More than 1,000 individuals and companies participated in the project, according to Bertrand.

She said HomeAid hopes to make it an annual event and to raise additional funds by selling sets of plans to the various playhouses.

Thinking Small

The custom playhouses to be auctioned Nov. 14 in a fund-raiser for HomeAid Orange County are the result of donations and volunteer labor by more than 1,000 people in the local building industry. Each team of volunteers was headed by an Orange County home-building company.

Team leader Project On display Aikens Tugboat Fashion Island Birtcher Construction Sporting Club Tustin Market Place Bramalea of California Watchtower Fashion Island Brock Homes Castle Tustin Market Place Calif. Pacific Homes Building blocks Tustin Market Place Costain Homes Firehouse Fashion Island Metro Cos. Hard Rock Cafe Fashion Island Presley of So. Cal. Castle Fashion Island San Juan Group Beach house Fashion Island Shawntana Development Cape Cod cottage Tustin Market Place William Lyon Co. Victorian mansion Fashion Island Wittenberg/Livingstone “Wizard of Oz” Tustin Market Place farmhouse

Source: HomeAid Orange County