SAN DIEGO — You never know when someone might look you up on Google and give you a call. In this Zevely Zone, I met a family trying to preserve their North Park neighborhood. "It's been a very mysterious house to say the least," said North Park homeowner Maria Piechota. For years, neighbors whispered about a vacant house often occupied by transients in their community. "When you look it up on the county tax record there's no baths, no beds, no square footage, so it was kind of like this phantom property," said Kevin Piechota.
The husband and wife live across the street from the eyesore. For years, they talked about buying the property and fixing it up when the strangest thing happened. "Yeah, standing on my front stoop about to walk in the house," said Kevin. His phone rang. The person calling him was from Oregon in charge of selling that very house. "I said great, what it the address? She says 3705 Granada and I slowly spin and I'm like looking at it and she said 'Kev, you just gave the chills what do you mean and I 'm like I live across the street," said Kevin.
The owner of the property had died. The house needed to be sold and Kevin wanted the first look. "With permission can I crawl in the house, and see? So, the same window that some of transients would use I crawled in through the back window and I am about six feet tall and the trash throughout the house no exaggeration was about four feet high," said Kevin.
Kevin teamed up with two contractors from Elements Design and Remodeling and made an offer. "My first question was that house?" laughed Maria. The mother of a toddler with another child on the way got onboard quickly; mainly because of concerns a developer would tear the old house down and build an apartment complex so close to their home. "You choose a neighborhood for the neighborhood feel and that whole feeling of charm of warmth of knowing your neighbors," said Maria.
Kevin Piechota is a licensed real estate agent. He'd like to make a profit on the project, but he says there's easier ways to make money. "Absolutely, a lot less trash, a lot less work," said Kevin but he wanted to preserve his tight knit community. They competed against four other offers, but their bid for almost a million dollars was accepted.
Kevin gave us a tour of the remodel that is underway. "Here is where that gigantic green bush used to be where people camped out," said Kevin. It took six days to fill six dumpsters with trash but slowly the 1916 Craftsman style house with a detached unit is coming back to life. "It's moving along quicker than we thought," said Kevin. "I fell on the grenade, the very expensive one."
All because of a house call that came out of nowhere and a lot of luck. "It's still hard to believe it still makes me wonder how the stars align. I knew it was meant to be," said Kevin.
The former owner of the house was a teacher. Kevin and Maria made a charitable donation in her honor to the San Diego Unified School District.
To contact Kevin for more information about the property or others click here.
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