One was burned by the arsonist on December 15 and is now a series of blackened concrete slabs and a lonely 30-foot chimney. The second, its neighbor, is at an advanced stage of construction. The house is ringed with a barbed-wire fence and security flood lights. Some of the lights point out at the hillside, some inward toward the house. The third is a freshly bulldozed clearing that's a couple hundred feet into the hillside.
Neighbors say the area has become an odd tourist attraction of sorts.
Curious passersby will stop and stare at the sites. The most recent construction probably draws the least attention from crime-scene rubberneckers and the most attention from neighbors. Several complain about the site, saying it's cutting off a horse trail that's been there for as long as anybody remembers. The trail isn't a city-sanctioned trail, however, just a path that locals enjoy hiking. This difference highlights the visual ambiguity between Preserve and non-Preserve land.