Special to the Town Crier
In the late 1970s it meant notoriety for Los Altos Hills - headlines in the San Jose Mercury News and features on the nightly television news. It was a tourist attraction.
Now the notorious "cat house" where Barbara Miley gave shelter to stray cats that eventually took over the property, is no more. The house at 25691 Chapin Road in Los Altos Hills has been sold and demolished.
Recently Miley, who now lives in Palo Alto, rented the house to Robert Scott Fisher, the son of former Los Altos Hills residents. With Fisher and a number of friends as its tenants, the deteriorating home become "the town crime center," said Los Altos Hills resident Frank Lloyd.
Lloyd said he took a tour of the house with Fisher a year ago. "It was in awful shape," Lloyd said. "Walls were ripped out, carpet torn up. The swimming pool was full of discards."
"The swimming pool had become a cesspool," said Suzanne Davis, associate planner for Los Altos Hills. "There were a lot of code issues with the property. The county health department said it was uninhabitable. The (Santa Clara County) sheriff was called there several times last year."
Davis said the town had been working with Miley in response to various code violations on the Chapin Road property. "They did some cleanup, removed some vehicles, then things would get worse again," Davis said.
After a year of negotiations, Los Altos residents Tom and Dana Quinn purchased the Chapin Road property. They plan to build a single-family home there for themselves and their children, ages 2 1/2 and 9 months.
The substandard lot - only .4 acres - presents some challenges, according to Davis. She said the Quinns are working with neighboring property owners on a lot-line adjustment to allow space for a septic system. She expects the design and application for site development to come before the town's planning commission at the end of May or early June.
"It's a challenging project, but we're enthusiastic about the potential," Tom Quinn said.