When Adnan Essayli set out to paint the outside of his La Palma home, he wanted a color resembling gold-toned travertine, like the stone-walled homes in his native Beirut.
He spent weeks searching for the perfect color -- with the same exacting attention to detail he had shown over three years of remodeling. Failing to find a color mimicking stone, he settled on a personalized mix of deep-toned golds, with red trim to highlight the windows.
For a year, he has been happy with the color, unaware that some of his neighbors were seething over the suddenly incongruous house in an otherwise coordinated, earth-toned neighborhood.
Here, in this sleepy, 2-square mile spot of suburbia, the Essayli home has become something of a lightning rod. Depending on whom you ask, it is either a symbol of rapid degeneration of American community or one of individual liberty in the best tradition of the nation.
In the face of complaints about the house, the city is now considering adopting an ordinance to regulate home colors. If it passes, homeowners would have to stick to a city-approved palette of colors when repainting.
La Palma -- called Dairyland until 1965, when the dairies had moved out -- prides itself on its quiet neighborhoods and low crime rate. It is a diverse community of about 16,000 residents -- 36% white, 44% Asian, 11% Latino -- though participation in city government is decidedly less diverse.
Last week, more than 100 men and women -- most elderly, many in Hawaiian shirts -- packed a motel conference room set out with cookies, punch and coffee for a heated discussion about the ordinance.
John Di Mario, the city's recently hired community development director, gently explained the pros and cons of a possible ordinance.
Nearby Cerritos has an ordinance that offers homeowners a selection of earth tones to choose from, he said. Other cities, such as Irvine -- well-known for tightly regulating everything from roofing to grass -- rely on restrictions imposed by homeowners associations.
To underscore the issue's complexities, Di Mario read passages from the 1965 children's book "Mr. Pine's Purple House" to the crowd.
"Mr. Pine lived on Vine Street in a little white house. 'A white house is fine,' said Mr. Pine, 'but there are 50 white houses all in a line on Vine Street. How can I tell which house is mine?' "
To make his house stand out, Mr. Pine paints his house purple, Di Mario told the crowd, and then everyone in the neighborhood repainted in bright colors.
