Home/California Court of Appeal/Lincoln Savings & Loan Ass'n v. Riviera Estates Ass'n

Lincoln Savings & Loan Ass'n v. Riviera Estates Ass'n

7 Cal. App. 3d 449, 87 Cal. Rptr. 150, 1970 Cal. App. LEXIS 2178
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 8, 1970
DocketCiv. 33961
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 7 Cal. App. 3d 449 (Lincoln Savings & Loan Ass'n v. Riviera Estates Ass'n) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lincoln Savings & Loan Ass'n v. Riviera Estates Ass'n, 7 Cal. App. 3d 449, 87 Cal. Rptr. 150, 1970 Cal. App. LEXIS 2178 (Cal. Ct. App. 1970).

Opinion

Opinion

STEPHENS, J.

Plaintiff appeals from an adverse judgment in a declatory relief action. The subject of the action is a narrow strip of property (hereafter termed the driveway or the subject property) in lot 56 of the Riviera, an expensive single family residential area of 150 homes in the City of Los Angeles. Each home site in the tract has a frontage of 100 feet or more. With the exception of four vacant lots, the home sites have a middle value of $130,00.0 while some have a value as high as $200,000. The home owners in that tract are the members of the Riviera Estates Association, a nonstock corporation. The association and several individual *453 home owners are the defendants herein. Plaintiff, the fee owner of the driveway seeks a declaration that it may use it as a driveway to provide ingress and egress for two lots it owns immediately outside the Riviera tract. Hereafter these two lots will be referred to as Parcel 2 Coleman and Parcel 3 Coleman. The driveway opens upon Amalfi Drive, a public street within the Riviera. This proposed driveway would extend a distance of more than 126 feet from Amalfi Drive to the two parcels, and be of a width of 21.03 feet. The defendants contend that such a use of the subject property would violate the recorded subdivision restrictions of the Riviera tract.

As of April 14, 1925, the Riviera Corporation, the assignor of the rights of the Riviera Estates Association, was the owner of all the land known as the Riviera. On that day the Riviera Corporation recorded a “Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Charges” in the official records of the County of Los Angeles. The declaration affected all of the property. All of the conditions, covenants and charges set forth in this declaration were to continue in force until November 1, 1964, and could be extended from time to time to all or part of the property for periods not exceeding ten years, by the assent, evidenced by appropriate agreement, of the owners of more than one-half in area of the property in the Riviera. On January 27, 1960, a declaration signed by the owners of more than one-half in area of the property in the Riviera was recorded in the official records of Los Angeles County, whereby it was agreed that the provisions of the original declaration would remain in force for a continued period of ten years commencing November 1, 1964 and expiring October 31, 1974. The plaintiff and plaintiff’s predecessors in title to the subject property did not join in the execution of this latter agreement.

Clause 4 of the original declaration provided in part: “No store, grocery or mercantile business of any kind shall be maintained or carried on upon said property; nor shall any of said property (except the streets, parks and open spaces intended for the general use of the owners of the property shown on said map) be used for any purpose other than residence purposes; nor shall any building be erected or maintained upon any lot or parcel of said property except a private dwelling house not more than two (2) stories in height exclusive of finished attic, if any, and with or without basement or cellar, and outhouses hereinafter permitted. Each such dwelling house shall be designed and intended for occupation by not more than one family; flats, double houses, apartment houses, tenement houses, hotels and public boarding or lodging houses being expressly prohibited. . .

Clause 6 of the original declaration provided in part: “No building, fence, wall or other structure shall be erected or maintained upon any building site, nor shall any alteration for which it is" necessary to secure a *454 permit from the [B]oard of Public Works of Los Angeles be made in the exterior of such structures, unless complete plans and specifications therefor showing the nature, kind, shape, height, material and color scheme thereof, and block plan indicating the location of such structure or of such altered structure on the building site, and, when specifically requested, the grading plan of the building site to be built upon, shall have been submitted to, approved in writing by, and a copy of such plans and specifications, block plan (and grading plan if requested) as finally approved, deposited permanently with The Riviera Estates Association. . . .”

Clause 8 of the original declaration provided in part: “No more than one dwelling-house shall be built upon any one building site without the written permission of the Riviera Corporation or, with its authority, The Riviera Estates Association. A building site shall be either a lot as shown on said map, or a parcel composed as follows:

“(a) of a portion of any lot, other than a corner lot, provided that such parcel shall have a frontage of not less than one hundred (100) feet; or
“(b) of portions of any two or more contiguous lots other than corner lots, provided that such parcel shall have a frontage of not less than one hundred (100) feet; or
“(c) of any two or more contiguous lots, or of any lot or contiguous lots and a portion of, or portions of, any lot or lots other than a corner lot and contiguous to said lot or lots. ...”

All of the rights of the Riviera Corporation under the original declaration were assigned by it to the Riviera Estates Association on February 8, 1937.

On July 8, 1925, the Riviera Corporation conveyed lot 56, containing the proposed driveway area which constitutes the subject property, to Mark R. Daniels. After a series of mesne conveyances, the property was purchased by Elisabeth M. Lawrence on April 9, 1932. Elisabeth Lawrence thereafter purchased additional property adjacent to lot 56, but outside the Riviera. This latter property included the two lots now owned by plaintiff, Parcel 2 Coleman and Parcel 3 Coleman. Her purchase included that portion of lot 56 subsequently known as Parcel 4 Carter, which was within the tract. Lot 56 and the adjacent property were purchased by Occidental Life Insurance Company on August 21, 1939. On January 24, 1940, Occidental conveyed all the property to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and his wife, Mary Lee Fairbanks.

Mr. and Mrs. Fairbanks occupied the entire parcel, lot 56 plus the adjacent property outside the Riviera, as a home, with improvements consisting of a residence, a tennis court, a swimming pool, a bathhouse, and a pagoda tree deck. On January 18, 1957, Mr. and Mrs. Fairbanks conveyed *455 the property to Dorothy K. Durney. Mrs.Dumey and her husband occupied the property in the same manner as had the Fairbanks until December 16, 1958. Between December 16, 1958 and March 24, 1961, Mrs. Durney conveyed small portions of her property to third parties. On January 31, 1962, in subdividing her property, seeking to create legal building sites pursuant to Los Angeles Municipal Code section 12.03, Mrs. Durney executed and recorded three documents. Each was entitled “Covenant and Agreement to Hold Property as One Parcel” and was approved for recording by the City of Los Angeles, Department of Building and Safety. The first and second documents are relevant to the instant case. The first document described Parcel 2 Coleman, together with the southerly one-half of the proposed driveway. The address of this property was described in the document as 1517 Amalfi Drive.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
7 Cal. App. 3d 449, 87 Cal. Rptr. 150, 1970 Cal. App. LEXIS 2178, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lincoln-savings-loan-assn-v-riviera-estates-assn-calctapp-1970.