The "Propadirty'

My dad gave me some house plan magazines he had purchased, and I may have bought one or two myself.  We poured over the various house plans for many months.

My dad had built a split level home, and I had seen several others, and I liked the idea of building a split level home to live in.  They were more popular at the time.  My brother, Don, accompanied me to the lot, and we measured off the footprint to see how a split level home would lay out on the terrain.  We discovered that in the width of the house the slope dropped about 8 to 10 feet, and for some reason we came to the conclusion that a split level would not work.  So we decided we would need to have the lot graded to provide a pad to build on.

Eventually we found a plan we liked.  The magazines offered the opportunity to purchase blueprints from them for a very reasonable cost.  The plans even came with engineer stamps.  Unfortunately there was some hitch that we had to have a draftsman draw up the plans.  Perhaps the engineers were not registered in California, or something.

So as we discussed the plan with the draftsman, he asked what features we thought we would like in a home.  I mentioned columns in the front, and perhaps a big clock on the front, and the idea of a split level.  What came out of that, since we didn't have a deep enough lot for columns and a covered porch, we ended up with a pop-out on each side of the porch.  And below the center of the peek of the roof line, we have a big round vent (pseudo-clock), and we have a "split entry".

To get to the stage where we could build, we first had to get the grading done.  I engaged Lee Burch, who was a member of a merchant exchange group that I was a member of at the time.  I was able to do some work for him on an historic home he had moved onto his property and was restoring, in exchange for a portion of the costs involved in grading the lot.  Initially there was a concern that we might have to pump the sewer from the downstairs bathroom.  I mentioned this to Lee, and he said "don't worry about it.  I can bring in as much dirt as you need."

After going through a lot of hoops with the City of Lemon Grove, and lots of red tape, and paying big bucks, we got a grading permit so Lee could get started leveling the pad.  Through his contacts he lined up some free dirt, as well as some where we had to pay "half trucking", depending how badly the other excavator needed a place to dump, and how far away they were.

Of course the project was the center of many of our family activities.  We were always going over to "the property", or talking about "the property."  By this time Alan was a toddler, and when he would talk about "the property", he pronounced it "propadirty".  It was cute, and to this day we will often refer to a lot we are going to work on or look at as "the propadirty."