His Home Is Their Hassle Charlie Lee Loves The Whimsical Art Studio He Added To His Home In The Orchard Avenue Area, But Some Of His Neighbors Say It’S A Big Eore

For almost a decade, Charlie Lee has been working on what he considers a masterpiece.

Lee says his 35-foot lighthouse art studio on East Bridgeport Avenue is eclectic. Beautiful. Unconventional.

He’s attached a boat to the back of his house, built a spiral staircase and perched a third-story art studio atop what once was a single-story home.

But work on his masterpiece has dragged on four times longer than it took to build the Eiffle Tower.

For Lee, a 43-year-old professional musician, and his neighbors this building has been a nine-year battle.

“I wanted it to be done Christmas 1995,” Lee said. “It irks me that (Spokane county building officials) took a lot of extra effort out on us.”

It all began in 1990 when Lee and his wife, Paige, a painter and sculptor, took out a permit to build an art studio onto their home at 7518 E. Bridgeport in the Valley’s Orchard Avenue neighborhood. The two wanted to build up, not out, to preserve their small back yard.

That’s when neighbors cried foul.

The two-story addition was too tall and too close to the property line, neighbors said. They also said the radical style hurt their property values.

And after eight building permits, two restraining orders and dozens of visits from county inspectors, the addition may finally be finished by next year.

But ill feelings from the neighborhood battle may never heal.

Two weeks ago Spokane County building inspectors returned to the Lees’ home after a neighbor complained that their porch was too close to the property line. The inspector said he found no code violations.

Maria Johnson and her husband, Jeff, who live next door to Lees, said plan to move.

“There’s been so much controversy and a lot of problems,” she said.

The Johnsons claim the Lees’ house is an eyesore that didn’t meet county codes.

The Lees’ project has been the talk of the Orchard Avenue neighborhood for years. Some have called it a “spy tower.” Others say it’s an interesting addition to the neighborhood.

“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” said neighbor Bill Koker. “It’s different, but who cares. If they ever leave him alone enough to get it done, it might look pretty good.”

County code says Lee can continue to work on his house indefinitely as long as he complies with his permit and he requests a county inspection every six months, said codes administrator Tom Davis.

“Some people may take 30 years to build a house,” he said.

Over the years, there have been dozens of calls to county planners, Davis said. Supervisors, inspectors and code compliance specialists have all been pulled into the project.

County inspectors are required to respond to any kind of construction complaint because of worries about safety, he said.

`It’s just one of those situations,” he said about the number of calls they received from a neighbor. “Here you’ve got a neighborhood thing going on.”

Lee said he received a permit to build the two-story addition and had support from most of his neighbors.

He worked on the project in 1992 and says he was told he couldn’t apply for a variance because there were too many objections.

He was then required to to move the third story away from the the fence.

Lee said he moved the third story west six feet in March 1993 hoping to appease the neighbors and any county concerns.

But the battle never subsided.

County inspectors continued to visit, citing junk cars in the garage, boats leaning against the house and a neighbor’s woodpile, Lee said.

He said he was told there were numerous complaints, but believes they were lodged by only a few neighbors.

“It’s very tense,” said Allan deLaubenfels, the zoning enforcement official who worked on the project at the time. “It has more to do with personality that it does with the house.”

Rueben and Barbara Peterson, whose back yard abuts the Lees’ yard, said they don’t like the project because of its height, saying it will decrease their property value.

However, the house is within county code and the project continues, so the Petersons have planted trees in their yard to answer some of their concerns.

“We would have liked not to see the third story. Now we just want to see it done,” Barbara said.

Lee said he had to rework his designs after moving the top story so it would blend better with the house. He said he plans to finish the exterior and interior work by the end of the year.

At the end of the conflict and battles with neighbors and the county, Lee said he’s complying with county code and has no worries.

In fact, he said, the battle has strengthened his marriage and he’s written four songs about the house for the band he plays in.

“We were the worst-looking property before we started. We wanted to improve the quality of the housing in neighborhood, so we wanted to do something nice and not eat up the whole yard,” he said. “Isn’t it funny how something so simple could screw up everything else?”

Only time will heal wounds, some say.

“What he did attaching the boat to the house could have been treated as a place of interest. It’s not offensive. It’s unique,” deLaubenfels said. “In the long run, peace is probably the most important thing rather than open conflict.”