Editor,
One of the most bizarre Laguna Beach City Council meetings in history took place April 17 when four city council members voted a stop work order, to take affect April 18 at 7:30 a.m. on a permit issued by the planning department to allow the new owners of the Richard Halliburton “hangover” house in South Laguna to demolish parts of Laguna’s most famous residence, and council member Kelly Boyd refused to vote for the stop order (“Work Frozen on Halliburton’s House,” April 20 edition).
Richard Halliburton, world renown traveler, writer and lecturer built the all cement modern house 400 feet above West Street Beach in 1936 and reportedly mortgaged it to pay for the construction of a Chinese “junk” boat in 1938 which he and friends disappeared from in 1939 after leaving Hong Kong intending to sail to the San Francisco Exposition.
An architect who specializes in historic homes told the city council the house could easily qualify as a national historic site and Ann Christoph couldn’t believe the city had issued a demolition permit without considering the history of the house.
Councilman Kelly Boyd is writing history, too, going down as one of the dumbest city council members in the history of Laguna Beach city government.
Roger Carter, Laguna Beach
