Photograph by Jeff Kearns
The house on stilts in Saratoga is no more.
And the walls came tumbling down... house on stilts gone
Neighbors, officials turn out for the demolition
An empty lot once again
By Kate Carter
The stilt house at the corner of Quito Road and Paseo Olivos Way is no more, bringing an end to an 18-month battle between city code officials and the property owner.
Nearby residents joined city staff, Mayor Nick Streit and passing motorists to watch the demolition crew from Randazzo Enterprises Demolition turn the suspended house into a pile of rubble within 15 minutes the morning of May 16.
"We've been waiting for this," said neighbor Lesley Tsai as she, her husband and their children saw the end of the eyesore that has drawn unwanted attention to their neighborhood. "It's a school morning, so we can't make mimosas. But there will be a champagne party."
By the end of the day, a cinderblock basement vault and the structure that had stood about two stories in the air over a large excavation were gone. This week, workers from Stevens Creek Quarry Construction will fill in the excavation with about 2,700 cubic yards of soil, and the site should be just another empty lot by the end of the week, quarry engineer Fred Ackerman said.
The unassuming lot won't tell the whole story of the site, though. Federal, county and city officials suspect the 4,000-square-foot basement excavation was intended to be used as a place to grow marijuana, with the house above it to serve as a base of illegal drug trafficking operations. Michael Costa, the owner of the property, who is charged with several drug-related, money-laundering and violent crimes, began the excavation about two years ago without applying for a city permit to do so, according to Brad Lind, city building inspector.
Costa eventually received a permit for the existing vault, and applied for additional permits to continue his construction, Lind said. But he didn't adhere to all the permit requirements for the construction, with the end result being a rundown residential structure resting on "temporary" steel bars towering two stories above the basement excavation.
The city issued a stop-work order on the property two Aprils ago, Lind said, but the house remained towering above the street and the neighborhood, and the excavation began to cause sinkage in the adjacent neighbor's backyard.
Last January, the city hired a civil engineer to inspect the property, and was told that the structure was unsafe. Lind stated that the building had just been set on the bars and not bolted down in any way. His first thought after the 5.2 earthquake that hit the South Bay May 13 was for the stilt house. The house was unaffected by it, however.
The city received permission from the Santa Clara County Superior Court May 2 to enter the property and demolish the structure.
"This has been a long ordeal for the city, for me," Lind said. "Nobody's seen anything like this."
The house came down to the satisfaction of the approximately dozen gathered neighbors, accompanied by approving honks from passing motorists. An 85,000-ton excavator was hooked by a cord to one of the vertical bars supporting the structure, dragging it down to land in a heap on the floor of the excavation.
But the house put up a fight of its own. The first heave collapsed only part of the supporting bars and left the house standing one story high, effectively bringing it to its knees. Then the excavator began to knock into the structure's walls, and in 10 more minutes it was all over.
The city is paying Quarry Construction about $74,000 to complete the demolition and fill in the hole. Costa is required to repay the city those costs; if he doesn't, the city can put a lien on the property.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
