The Kron Street Castle in Irvine rose up from a dream and turned into a nearly 40-year nightmare

Long before the bitter battles with Irvine city leaders, the strip club owner showing up as a white knight and the urban legends, the Kron Street Castle was simply an owner’s dream.

Over nearly 40 years, that warm thought turned a suburban ranch house in the 4800 block of Kron into a half-finished-yet-still-imposing baronial castle that lingered in a neighborhood otherwise filled with well-appointed single-family homes – in a city defined by it’s intricately master-planned mini-communities.

And then, earlier this year, Haym Ganish couldn’t stop the razing of his castle.

Attorneys for the city had argued, with a judge in agreement, that the house had turned into a potential death trap.

But there was one battle left.

Could Ganish persuade an Orange County Superior Court judge to let him keep control of his property and start from scratch to construct a home that could pass city scrutiny?

Pushing 80 years old, a frail Ganish would prove as combative as ever in court filings, with his attorney writing that he was willing to take his chances at a rebuild – despite his fears that the city would never give him a fair shake.

Despite numerous attempts, Ganish’s attorney could not be reached for comment. Efforts to locate Ganish himself were unsuccessful. But a robust court record, as well as previous interviews Ganish and other participants provided reporters over the years, cast a bright light on the long and winding saga of the Kron Street Castle.

In the beginning …

In 1978, Ganish purchased the 1,400-square-foot home where he and his wife, Fern, would live with their three children. An immigrant from Israel and former mechanic who was on disability because of severely impaired hearing, Ganish, in 1982, received a permit to remodel the home.

The work proceeded in piecemeal fashion as Ganish was able to fund the construction. But as the abode began turning into what Ganish envisioned – a three-story, 8,500-square-foot castle – neighbors, and soon city officials, began voicing concerns.

Officials couldn’t just stop construction, though, with the house in a portion of the city free of neighborhood covenants, so the city began filing complaints in court, accusing Ganish and his family of living in an unsafe structure that violated building codes.

For a decade-plus there were threatened construction deadlines, which were repeatedly missed and extended because of Ganish’s poor health and money problems, and religious holidays and rain.

Reporters were granted tours of the property and described dome skylights and elaborate, spiraling staircases – and exposed wires, plywood and insulation and stacked drywall.

Irvine Mayor Christina Shea, who first joined the City Council in 1992, recalled the city “bending over backward” to try and help Ganish “remedy the problem.” City leaders recognized that he had rights as a property owner, Shea said, but they also believed the home had become a safety hazard.

“You own a property, but you have created an unsafe environment,” Shea said. “We were always told (by city staffers) to be very cautious about our approach. They obviously had a family.”

A 1995 court decision cleared the way for the city to move forward with demolition.

The once-quiet neighborhood evolved into a sideshow, reporters wrote at the time, with a parade of passerby motorists.

That year, a blear-eyed and exhausted Ganish told a Register reporter that his dream had become a nightmare.

“When you see this house, this is all we are: Our blood, our life, our minds, our pain, our goals, our hopes,” the then-53-year-old said.

Then help came from an unlikely source.

Strip club owner Mark Bailey, also known as Captain Cream, reached out to Ganish and offered to provide, apparently in a loan, the estimated $65,000 needed to bring the home up to code. No stranger to battles with city leaders, Bailey told reporters that he was just trying to help the Ganishes “participate in the American dream” by making sure their home avoided the wrecking ball.

A deal with the city was reached, and soon construction volunteers – most customers at Bailey’s adult establishments – went to work.

Dancers were drafted into the cause, with a Register reporter in June 1995 describing one woman, teetering on a scrap pile in three-inch-high cork-platform heels, throwing a slab of drywall into a dumpster.

Within months, the agreement between Bailey and Ganish fell apart, with Ganish’s wife suing the strip-club owner, alleging that the work he funded had become a home-improvement nightmare. For instance, the lawsuit alleged, drywall had been installed before heating ducts, forcing the ducts themselves to be placed outside the walls.

By 1997, city officials backed off, telling reporters that while the property was a work in progress, it now appeared to be up to code.

Looking back, it isn’t clear whether Ganish, his wife, or their children were living in the residence at that time. Fern Ganish appears to have left prior to November 1998 at the latest, when she filed for divorce from her husband, citing irreconcilable differences.

A decade later, in 2008, the Tudor-esque residence remained unfinished. A Register story described window panes that lacked windows, exposed plywood decks, and a grass-less front yard. Still, a city building official said at the time, there were no outstanding violations.

A home to urban legends

The grainy YouTube video begins with ominous music and a darkly-lit still photo of the castle’s exterior. Moments later, an unnamed narrator, armed with a camera and with two friends and at least one flashlight, enters the residence through an open window.

For nearly 15 minutes, the footage shows the three young men narrating their tour through the “creepy” unfinished home that held a mix of piled-up personal and construction items.

By 2010, false stories were online about murders having taken place in the castle. Posted photos show at least one group of what appear to be teenagers climbing through the home and standing on the roof.

The property had “frequent break-ins,” Irvine officials would say in court filings, and the house was coined the “Haunted Mansion” and the “Abandoned Mansion.”

In 2017, a code-enforcement investigation of the property turned up a multitude of violations, including broken windows, graffiti, discarded or unused lumber, trash and debris as well as evidence of squatters, according to court filings.

In July 2018, the city filed a civil lawsuit against Ganish, requesting a court-ordered receiver be appointed to bring the property up to code. In the meantime, the property was red-tagged; city inspectors had deemed it uninhabitable and a public nuisance.

Two months later, attorneys for Ganish fired back, alleging the city was “actively thwarting” his efforts to get onto the property to determine its condition.

Red-tagging the property had turned it into a “beacon” to local youth, and, “as youths do, the property was used for mischief,” Ganish’s attorneys wrote. “The city is not concerned with due process in any regard, and would rather point to allegations from more than 20 years ago to support its current wish to demolish the property.”

A year ago, an Orange County Superior Court judge sided with the city, agreeing to appoint the receiver.

In several reports to the court, the receiver concluded that the cost of repairing the property would exceed the cost of replacing the house: Just making the property structurally sound would come with a price tag of $700,000.

According to court records, Ganish fired his original attorneys, engineer, contractor and architect as the case moved forward, representing himself at points. He continually argued that the property could be salvaged, though the judge noted that he didn’t provide an estimate as to how much it would cost.

Early this year, a judge allowed the demolition of the unfinished castle to move forward.

The receiver estimated the value of the land without improvements at $450,000, and the cost to demolish the property at a little more than $50,000.

By summer, all that was left was a chain-link fence with green-mesh material mostly blocking the view of a dirt lot that once held a rising castle.

One last fight

On a July afternoon in the main Orange County Superior Court building in Santa Ana, Judge James J. Di Cesare explained to Ganish and his attorney the options.

A potential buyer was lined up. Ganish would be on the hook for the costs accrued by the receiver, including the demolition costs, but if a sale went through, the court-appointed receiver estimated, he would walk away with $150,000.

But Ganish’s attorney, Joel Pipes, told the judge that his client wanted to hold onto the property to build again.

The judge replied that he didn’t care what option Ganish took, but he wanted to make clear his concern that they were only in this position because Ganish repeatedly failing to live up to his promises, and that Ganish was aware of the uphill battle he would face.

Ganish remained silent, but his lawyer told the judge that he had repeatedly explained that to his client.

Attorneys for both Ganish and the receiver seemed optimistic they could reach an agreement. The judge said he wanted Ganish to place funds to pay the receivership costs into escrow, to show he was serious about keeping the property.

Ganish’s attorney, in his own court filing, responded that Ganish wasn’t able to commit his life savings until the court could determine whether the fees requested by the receiver were reasonable.

The accusations in the court filings once again became heated. Ganish’s attorney accused the receiver of attempting a “money grab.”

“People have a right to keep their property regardless of … whether a court-appointed receiver thinks you are good for the neighborhood or not,” his attorney wrote. “Mr. Ganish lived in this neighborhood for over 40 years. He has no criminal record, he has not been arrested, and he will continue to live as a law-abiding person. …

“Mr. Ganish will rebuild on his lot, he will obtain all required permits and abide by the law,” the attorney added. “Mr. Ganish is concerned that the city of Irvine will not deal fairly with him and will deny his attempts to rebuild. Mr. Ganish will accept that risk.”

An attorney for the receiver responded that Ganish had changed his mind multiple times about whether he wanted to sell the property, and alleged that in the past he had harassed workers and a real estate agent at the property, forcing them to hire on-site security.

The receiver also worried that if Ganish retained control of the funds in the escrow account, as he demanded, there would be no assurance he would actually pay the receivership costs.

The judge sided with the city and the receiver, and on Aug. 19 the judge signed an order confirming the sale of the property.

The receiver had already identified a private buyer willing to pay $591,000, describing her in court records as a “responsible homeowner with the funds and means to build a house for her sons, which would be better for the neighborhood than an indefinitely empty lot.”

Irvine officials confirmed that the sale went through.

On Kron Street, neighbors declined to discuss their feelings about the battle over the property, citing a fear of lawsuits by Ganish.

Mayor Shea said that, in retrospect, she believes the city should have moved quicker to get a receiver.

“Forty years later, it is really a bad example of what problems we can get into with government and homeowners,” Shea said. “It was just one incident after another he was able to maneuver around.”

What about Ganish’s future?

In court filings, his attorney wrote, Ganish has been “devastated by this process and has lost most everything he has accumulated throughout his life. He is almost 80 years old, seriously disabled and now homeless.”