Charity Begins In Santa Monica

Boasting a marble hearth, a built-in family-room entertainment center and a view of the ocean, the two-story hillside structure will be the residence of the Salvation Army’s Santa Monica captain. Officials have spent nearly a year replacing an older house with a new one with a tile roof, cut-glass entry doors and extensive new landscaping. Some questioned whether the $430,000 construction project, on a lot worth an estimated $538,600, was out of character … “They tore down an asset worth $600,000 or $700,000 so they could have another room for the captain’s family” … Lt. Col. Alfred Van Cleef, the organization’s Southern California head, warned that donations could be off by half a million dollars.