Audrey Wells has things to smile about, not the least of which is Morgan, the great-grandson she sometimes baby-sits in the modest Escondido three-bedroom house where she's lived for 40 years.
Still, life has thrown her curveballs in her front, back and side yards. In biblical terms, she's the Ms. Job of homeowners. If it weren't for bad luck in real estate, she'd have no luck at all.
Moving her family from Massachusetts in 1967 into her home on Tanglewood Lane, Audrey had no idea that her front yard someday would be a stone's throw from Interstate 15, the freeway that decommissioned U.S. Highway 395 in the mid-'70s.
“You kind of get used to the noise,” Audrey, 73, told me in her living room while dandling baby Morgan.
Already located virtually in her backyard was Escondido Adventist Academy, a private school in operation since 1956. There was hubbub from the kids, of course, “but only during certain times,” Audrey said. “It was no big deal.”
In a word, it was home. Audrey and her husband, Robert, worked hard running North County Fence Co. In 1981, Robert died. Audrey eventually was forced to liquidate the business.
In 2001, she was diagnosed with cancer. She suffered a serious stroke in 2006. This year, she was diagnosed with cancer again and had surgery in April.
And while all that was happening, a fully loaded Lexus roared into town and parked in her backyard.
There's going to be a cutting-edge, three-story dealership, a monument to diversified commerce, on the school land.
Not a car lot, it would be a “lifestyle center,” with an upscale restaurant, conference space, a library and entertainment galore.
Another glitzy wrinkle: an electronic mural, as large as a theater screen, with changing images of nature scenes, art and sculpture. This subtle advertising posing as public art will beam right outside Audrey's bedroom window.
In 2006, Audrey began to dream about paying off her debts and moving into a mobile home (with air conditioning) near her daughter, Donna Morasco, an employee at Palomar Pomerado Health.
The timing seemed right. A development company offered to buy the row of four older homes, all zoned commercial, on the west side of Tanglewood Lane, adjacent to the Lexus project.
Audrey was offered $600,000, which she gladly accepted. But one day before escrow was to close, the deal fell through.
Audrey remembers when Judy Jones-Cone, owner of the new Escondido dealership as well as Lexus Carlsbad, dropped by for a neighborly visit.
“She was very kind, considerate,” Audrey said.
Jones-Cone's message was that everything would work out fairly, Audrey said.
Jones-Cone did not return several phone calls seeking comment about Audrey's property.
In 2007, as construction began in earnest, Lexus signaled twice that it would buy her house, Audrey said. In December, Lexus orally offered $380,000, and Audrey accepted.
Lexus already had purchased her next-door neighbor's house. Now surrounded by fencing, it is being used as offices and eventually the homesite might become an access road to Lexus, Audrey believes.
In the meantime, Audrey, whose house is on septic, had signed an agreement with Lexus to allow a sewer line to be run to her house. She didn't balk because she had been led to believe that Lexus was going to buy her house.
In January, a Lexus representative said that in light of the downturn in the real-estate market they had been advised not to buy. Audrey was out of luck again.
Then came what Robert Wells, Audrey's son, calls “the last straw.”
With the city's approval, Lexus will be pouring concrete from 2 or 3 a.m. until 7 a.m. on six mornings spaced out into August. Charles Grimm, Escondido's assistant city manager, said roughly 60 cement trucks will rumble in each night.
On Tuesday, the afternoon before the first pour, Lexus, evidently acting upon Grimm's urging, dropped off a letter at Audrey's house offering to put her up in a hotel on the nights the trucks would be operating. She didn't receive the letter until the evening, however.
“Being on a fixed income,” Audrey wrote in an e-mail to Escondido's City Council members, “I do not have the money to put out for a hotel, and then get a reimbursement. . . . It appears to be a mad scramble to satisfy an old woman.”
Should Lexus be shamed into buying Audrey's house?
Of course not.
This is a free, capitalist country. Some people make out, others don't. Dog eat dog.
Lexus can't be faulted for realizing that the value of Audrey's house is going down, both because of market forces and immediate proximity to a car dealership. Maybe they don't need her house for future expansion.
C'mon. This is business, not social welfare.
Next year, when Lexus throws open its doors, and the crowds flock in to gawk, Lexus and city officials will preen over the tax-generating monument to commerce.
What a proud civic moment it will be.
No one should be bothered in the slightest if a great-grandmother with health problems got the short end of the location-location-location equation.
Right?
Logan Jenkins: (760) 737-7555; logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com.
