$2.1 million house sliding down S.F. hill faces wrecking ball

Construction workers demolish the building located at 256 Casitas Ave. in the Mount Davidson area, Friday, Jan. 29, 2016, in San Francisco, Calif. The building, that was purchased just a few months ago, was demolished after it started to slide down the hill. less Construction workers demolish the building located at 256 Casitas Ave. in the Mount Davidson area, Friday, Jan. 29, 2016, in San Francisco, Calif. The building, that was purchased just a few months ago, was ... more Photo: Santiago Mejia, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Santiago Mejia, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close $2.1 million house sliding down S.F. hill faces wrecking ball 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

A $2.1 million home purchased less than four months ago that had yet to be moved into by the new owner was being demolished Friday after the city deemed it uninhabitable when it started to slowly slide down a hillside in a picturesque neighborhood near Mount Davidson in San Francisco.

Crews were leveling the home, which sat atop a hillside with a panoramic view of the ocean, as homeowner Ronald Martell watched.

Martell had yet to move into the 53-year-old house, which he purchased in October, but he and his family had been eagerly awaiting living in a place in which “we thought we were going to raise our kids.”

The 54-year-old biotech worker had been out of town over the weekend for his father’s funeral when he got a call from his next-door neighbor informing him that there was a new crack in his driveway. By Sunday the crack had grown, and by Monday it grew even more.

“I came home to find that in four short days it had slipped 14 inches away from the curb and 12 inches down,” he said of the landslide.

Engineers hired by Martell and city inspectors recommended demolishing the house on the 200 block of Casitas Avenue because it was in “imminent risk of sliding down the hill” and onto houses below, Martell said. On Thursday, the city sent an emergency order to bulldoze the home, ending all hope that it could be saved.

“We were really looking forward to moving in,” Martell said.

Martell is now focused on the safety of the crew leveling the house and his neighbors. At the same time, he is intent on finding out why the land is so saturated with water, which he said does not appear to be runoff from recent rains. He said he wants to learn if the land can be stabilized before considering any future construction.

The city has put five other homes — two adjacent to Martell’s home and three others below — on notice of the potential hazard “due to what appears to be hillside movement” on Martell’s plot, according to Lily Madjus Wu, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Building Inspection.

The five surrounding homeowners are required to retain geotechnical engineers to conduct surveys of their properties and forward reports to the city. They must also take any corrective action advised by the engineers.

One of those homeowners is Stephen Maghzi-Ader. He’s noticed his home beginning to settle, the stairway to the side of his home damaged, his front door no longer opening because it closes so tight and the soil behind the home moving.

“We don’t know what could happen,” he said.

Maghzi-Ader does not believe the cause is linked to recent El Niño rains, explaining that the “house has been here through deluges over all these years and there’s never been anything like this.”

He said he hopes to get to the bottom of the problem before his house suffers the same fate as Martell’s.

“We are hoping people will find out the cause,” Maghzi-Ader said. “We have to have some kind of hope and faith that we will find an answer.”

Hamed Aleaziz is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: haleaziz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @haleaziz