Some even resort to begging.

Is holding a home tour a good alternative?

Sign up for our newsletter

* indicates required

“Yes,” says Angela Brackbill, co-chair of last year’s 25th anniversary home tour, sponsored by the Lakewood Early Childhood PTA (LECPTA). “Everyone is so interested in what the neighbor  down the street  is doing to his or her house. Whether it’s the history or the decorating… it’s a big attraction.”

Co-chair Karen Selkey adds” “It’s an annual tradition that just sells – like Girl Scout cookies. It’s something people in our neighborhood have learned to look forward to.”

Sharon Wright, long-time volunteer and repeat chairman of the Hollywood/Santa Monica Homeowners Association tour, says her homeowners’ association started a tour 11 years ago specifically so they wouldn’t “have to go door to door asking for money all the time for our neighborhood projects.”

Cold hard cash isn’t the only goal. Sam Bebeau, who has chaired the Swiss Avenue Homeowners Association tour, says: “People like Virginia McAlster were interested in saving the neighborhood. So for Swiss, in the beginning, it was more a public relations thing to create awareness that we had something special, something worth saving.

“Twenty-eight years ago, they were mostly trying to get people interested in the real estate here again.”

About the houses

It’s true that you can  just pick a half-dozen houses in your area, and that’ll work OK – especially your first time out of the chute. But to draw in the optimum number of attendees, year after year, consider a mixture of architectural styles as well as decorating “personalities.”

“This year we had one new construction – a totally new ballgame for us,” says LECPTA president Kathy Watson, laughing. “They finished on Friday and the home tour opened that night. It was a all little stuff…but it was very stressful for the homeowners and stressful for us. It was a gamble – the first time we saw the house, the floors weren’t even in. But the house was spectacular, and it was such a big draw.”

Wright says they just weren’t up for that level of excitement anymore: “Except for houses that are deliberately chosen to be shown as works in progress, we pick houses that we are completely finished, tour-ready. We’ve learned the hard way that if people have extensive remodeling plans in the fall, the odds are they won’t be finished by April.

“Our first year, Judge Manny Alvarez’s home was on tour, and they had scaffolding and lights outside in the middle of the night.”

Barbeau says you shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking that every home on your tour has to be professionally decorated and full of lavish belongings.

“Our home was in really bad shape when we bought it – you couldn’t even see it from the street. So we opened it up to the tour as ‘a house under construction.’ Then the next year, it was on again as, well, a house after a years’ renovation.

“The interesting thing about going into individual homes is that the visitor sees a lot of different things. Some people build a museum to live in and others function like an active family.”

Troubleshooting

Hollywood has about 1,200 people going through six houses over a two-day weekend, and Swiss Avenue and Lakewood both host close to 4,000. With crowds like that, you need to have a crisis plan.

“Weather can be a big issue,” Brackbill says. “We’ve had years when there was just a a downpour, and you have to take precautions. You have to have ‘umbrella people’ so that nobody brings a dripping umbrella into a tour house. This person does nothing but take people’s umbrellas from the front door and leaving them by the back door to be picked up on the way out. You have to think about that and things like shoe covers, and even then you’re going to have some tracking in.”

She adds: “People also have valuable things – and not just money value, sentimental value. Some people won’t be on the tour because they can’t face having that many people in their home, and I can understand that. But in all these years, we’ve never had issues with theft or any kind of intentional damage, even though we do carry a liability policy for damage or injury – just in case.”

In addition to insurance, you’ll probably want to have an off-duty officer or two floating around. And tell them to be sure and wear their leather jackets.

Bebeau says: “One year when we had the tour at Christmas… you know, people on Swiss used to light the candles in the windows? Actual, real candles. Now people just go for the candle look with light bulbs, but one elderly lady near the park put out real candles in her windows on the last day of the tour – and caught her porch on fire. So here we ate, trying to wrap up the tour and everything, and a policeman is breaking into her window and putting the flames out with his jack. A big finale.”

Was it worth it?

Once the dust settles on the knick-knacks and leaves drift back around the front doormats, what’s left is this: having done something to help the neighborhood.

“I feel like anything that benefits the community of Lakewood benefits me as a member of that community,” Brackbill says. “There’s no feeling as good as sitting in that meeting and hearing the school’s wish list and being able to say: We have the money.”

Dani Babik, president of the Hollywood/Santa Monica Homeowners Association says: “I think a lot of our other neighborhoods could really show off what they have to offer by having a home tour – we use ours for newsletters, voice mail, keeping up Lindsley Park. It can really help you out.”