The days are numbered for one of Laguna Beach's celebrity houses, the former oceanfront home of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson.
Come October, if all goes according to plan, the three-bedroom, single-story house perched atop a bluff in the gated neighborhood of Lagunita will be razed.
Tony and Jane Ciabattoni, the new owners, will then begin building a two-story, Italian country house reminiscent of those on the southern coast of Italy.
Designed by Newport Beach architect Brion S. Jeannette, the 6,000-square-foot, three-bedroom home will feature an office, an exercise room, a hobby room, a game room, a wine cellar, a home theater, a small meditation chapel off a courtyard, and an elevator linking the two upper levels and basement.
The preliminary architectural plans, which have received the blessing of the Lagunita Community Assn., go to the city's design review board next month.
The Ciabattonis, who bought the Nelson house in May 1997 for $1.85 million, always intended to build a new home on the property. It was the setting--not the structure or its celebrity pedigree--that appealed to Ciabattoni, former owner of two office furniture companies; and his wife, a former teacher with the Capistrano Unified School District.
"It's a beautiful setting, but you take the history associated with the house and it makes it just more special," said Tony Ciabattoni, 53, who grew up watching "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet."
The Nelsons' Cape Cod Colonial home in Hollywood--the big, white two-story house seen in the opening credits of their long-running TV series--was unquestionably the more recognizable Nelson home.
But the smaller, low-profile house in Laguna Beach figured no less prominently in the lives of one of America's best-known show business families.
Built in 1955 as a weekend retreat, the Nelsons' Lagunita home is where the family came to relax during time off from filming the series.
It was Ozzie's love of the ocean that drew them to Laguna, Harriet Nelson told The Times in 1989. "I didn't care for it at first, but he loved it so," she said. "I learned to put up with it, and then, gradually, I learned to love it too."
A lifelong swimmer, Ozzie took a half-mile ocean swim twice a day and played volleyball on the secluded beach below the house.
During the 1950s, David and Rick's teenage buddies were frequent visitors, sleeping on the living room floor and prompting Harriet to later say, "I'd have to step over them to get to the kitchen in the morning."
