Costa Mesa gets to show off during upcoming holiday home tour
Five Costa Mesa homes decked out for the holiday season and Orange County’s new veterans museum will be in the spotlight during next week’s Home for the Holidays Home Tour — an annual event organized by the Costa Mesa Middle & High Schools Foundation.
Money raised during Thursday’s event will go toward programs and resources at Costa Mesa High School and help provide transportation for Orange County students taking field trips to the Heroes Hall museum, which is scheduled to open in February at the Orange County Fair & Event Center.
“I thought it would be a great partnership,” said Katrina Foley, chairwoman of the committee that organized the home tour. “It [Heroes Hall] is right here in Costa Mesa; it’s a home, in a sense, for veterans, so that’s why we decided to connect the two. It also just gives the home tour a little bit of a broader reach and promotes a really good cause.”
The third annual tour will showcase different styles of homes throughout Costa Mesa, with participants this year hailing from the Eastside, Mesa del Mar and Mesa Verde areas.
Those who volunteered to participate in the tour were paired with designers and decorators to help get their homes ready for prime time.
“We’ve been in this house for 19 years, so it was time for a little refresh,” said Diane Lux, whose Mesa Verde home will be one of the stops on this year’s tour. “It’s been a fun experience watching the rooms transition.”
Plus, the mother of a Costa Mesa High graduate added, it’s for a good cause.
Mesa del Mar homeowner Indi JeyaRajah, father to three graduates of Costa Mesa High, said he feels a “special bond” with the school and was happy to help out by participating in the tour.
He’s also itching to show off his home — particularly its loaded backyard, which boasts a 2,500-gallon koi pond stocked with 17 of the fish.
“We know all of them by name,” he said with a laugh, referring to the koi.
JeyaRajah said one of the things he enjoys most about Costa Mesa is how eclectic its homes are, especially compared with the more “cookie-cutter” type of neighborhoods seen elsewhere.
Lux said she’s spoken to many tour attendees, “and the one thing they’ve said they really like about Costa Mesa’s is that these are real homes that people actually live in.”
The home tour runs from 3 to 8 p.m. Thursday. Tickets cost $50, though military service members and veterans can get two tickets for the price of one.
For more information or to purchase tickets, visit costamesahometour.com.
Twitter: @LukeMMoney
