SPRINGTIME Showoffs : Designers gussy up ‘show case’ houses to benefit Southland charities and attract clients. A few lucky owners get make-over for their homes in process.

Spring has sprung, and along with the roses and daffodils, a half-dozen designer showcase houses are in full bloom in the Southland, from Palos Verdes to Pasadena, Ventura to San Diego.

In these sumptuous showplaces, which are staged as fund-raisers by local charities, rooms and spaces are assigned to dozens of Southern California interior designers and decorators who show off their talents by creating drop-dead decors with swags of silk, expensive antiques and ankle-deep carpeting.

The showcase houses benefit a variety of charities ranging from the Los Angeles Philharmonic to the Whittier Historical Society, which gain a large measure of financial support from the entrance fees, usually about $15.

“These homes are big business,” said Betty Rossiter, chairman of the Pasadena Showcase House, which benefits the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Over the years the Pasadena Junior Philharmonic Committee has raised $4.7 million with their showcase homes. They took in $100,000 alone from the art that was sold on the grounds of last year’s project.

The Pasadena House is the oldest of the showcase homes. Marking their 29th year, the organizers say the house is the longest continuously running designer home in the country. When they put on their first one in 1965 it was a new concept.

This year more than 100 women volunteered to work on the event. Divided into a dozen committees, they choose the decorators and landscape designers, organize ticket and refreshment sales, design the program, take care of public relations and oversee “House Ops,” or housekeeping. There is also a committee that makes sure the home is staffed with volunteer hostesses.

Rossiter, who in the past decade seems to have worked on every part of the Pasadena Showcase House, emphasized the business aspect of the undertaking. Liability insurance is taken out in case of injury to visitors or volunteers; contracts with the designers, caterers and homeowners are reviewed by an attorney working pro bono . The agreement with the property owner spells out his or her responsibilities as well as how the committee will leave the house after the event is over.

And by the time they concluded last year’s showcase house, the women had welcomed more than 40,000 visitors, a far cry from the 8,000 who showed up during the first year or two. Then, recalled longtime volunteer Weta Mathias, they dug up donated flowers from the Santa Anita Race Track and planted them in the gardens of the design home themselves. Others painted, scraped walls and made gallons of coffee.

Experienced volunteers can look back on disasters and smile. But they were not so funny at the time. There was the occasion when Christine Varner and her fellow volunteers were standing outside of the house doing a lighting check. To their horror they looked up and saw a bathroom curtain on fire.

“We almost had a small coronary,” Varner said, remembering how a candle had ignited the bottom of the curtain. “You never saw so many people bound up stairs so quickly,” she said.

While the gussied-up manses are on display for only a short time, showcase homes are year-round operations. The search for the next house begins as soon as the previous home closes. Property owners who have either just bought their homes or are in the process of selling and want a quick and largely free redecoration often offer their residences for consideration. They are lured by the publicity of showcase homes or they may have visited them in the past and were impressed by them.

The style, history and attractiveness of the home, as well as its size, gardens and easy access to parking, are reviewed by the volunteer committee. Designer Jim Blakeley III, who last fall organized a showcase house in Bel-Air to benefit the Venice Family Clinic, said, ideally, the home should have 20 to 25 rooms and a tennis court.

“People want something spectacular for their $20,” he said.

And because food and art sales at the showcase houses are getting more important every year, Rossiter said, it is harder to find homes that are large enough.

Showcase organizers also are careful not to repeat architectural styles. “If you do a Wallace Neff Mediterranean home one year, you don’t repeat it the next year,” she said.

On the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Susan Carroll’s search for the perfect showcase home went on for months. She is a member of the 31-year-old Sandpipers, whose house benefits numerous South Bay charities.

After viewing a dozen houses, she and her fellow volunteers finally settled on a low-slung creation of glass, stucco and red tile perched on a bluff overlooking the ocean. A wealthy Hong Kong businessman bought the home and wanted it redecorated. His family will reportedly use the residence just a few weeks during the year.

As soon as the women saw the 6,000-square-foot, six-bedroom structure, which is surrounded by a series of charming, intimate gardens and koi ponds, they were sold.

Rustic walk-in bird cages are placed near the front entrance but they are now empty. Carroll, who is co-chair of the project, said they hope to get some live birds but, added with a laugh, “If they aren’t available, we’ve talked with a taxidermist and maybe we can get them that way.”

As she guided a visitor through the empty structure workmen were renovating the kitchen, painting bathrooms and wallpapering bedrooms. As with many showcase homes, the Sandpipers, in conjunction with the homeowner, review the decorators’ design proposals and coordinate a harmonious color palate that will flow throughout the entire house.

The property owners were also consulted on major changes such as the re-staining of wood paneling in the master bedroom, for which they will pay a nominal charge. In addition, they will be able to buy--also at a reduced fee--the furnishings and accessories supplied by the designers. Permanent alterations such as paint, wall coverings and carpeting are usually free.

And while the changes in this year’s Sandpiper home are largely cosmetic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic group has a reputation for gutting and redoing kitchens and bathrooms, according to John Fremdling, a designer who has participated in the Pasadena House for 16 years.

Charges for that kind of work and who pays how much are a matter of negotiation between the homeowner, the designer and the suppliers who may donate--for a credit in the program--everything from major appliances to the kitchen sink.

And so, Fremdling said, it is possible for a showcase homeowner to end up with a $100,000 kitchen, free of charge.

Thus with visions of new carpeting and wallpaper dancing in their heads, John and Anita Halliday moved out of their Victorian home in Whittier to make way for a small army of workmen and 28 designers who would create a showcase house sponsored by the city’s historical society.

As a design home organizer observed, “It’s not like moving out; it is moving out.” Over two weekends the Hallidays carted their furniture to the garage of Halliday’s aunt and moved into his mother’s home for the three months it would take to complete the redecoration and run the showcase house.

Between the two of them, the middle-aged couple has eight children ranging in age from 16 to 28 years. Those who were still living at home found refuge with friends. Even the family pets had to go to temporary quarters, explained the weary, but cheerful couple, who had just completed the move.

As Anita Halliday walked out of her spacious yellow house with her mop and bucket, volunteers were heading in. “They didn’t know me. Maybe they thought I was the cleaning lady with my pail of cleaning items,” she said, laughing.

The Hallidays were approached by the historical society and once they were assured that the new decor would reflect the Victorian design of their home, they went along with the project. John Halliday, who is a high school teacher with a penchant for “wild colors and floral prints,” said he has liked the designers’ proposals so far.

“But,” he added with some reservation, “the new formal dining room, family room and living room aren’t going to lend itself to kids coming over and plopping down. There will have to be a change in our life style.”

The volunteer committees assemble their corps of decorators well in advance of the actual renovation. Designers are invited to view the house, choose a space they would like to work on and submit proposals.

The rub, of course, comes when unknown decorators apply or when several designers all want a major space, such as the living room. Then, Blakeley said, “You tend to go with someone whose work you know” and unknown designers may be relegated to less conspicuous spaces, such as a guest powder room or hallway.

Many decorators want to work on showcase houses because they know there is no better advertising. For while they may spend thousands of dollars to decorate their showcase rooms, they can count on having thousands of visitors traipse through their creations, viewing their work firsthand. That is more effective and less expensive exposure than even the best full-color magazine advertisements, they said.

And while a showcase room is considered a plum by decorators, volunteer committees may also court certain well-known designers. Nancy Lennartz, project coordinator for a fall showcase house that benefits the Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance, said some people will drive for miles to see the work of certain decorators.

“This year we’re trying to lure an L.A. design duo whose minimum job is $1 million. Their work is really beautiful,” she said. “There are four or five other really top names we would love to get. It’s an extra draw.”

A regular on the showcase circuit is June Towill Brown, a Studio City decorator whose rooms tend to the large and exuberant. One of her showcase projects, for instance, was a 20-foot-by-40-foot library. Her plush entertainment suite in this year’s Pasadena House will include a television screen that drops from the ceiling and compact disk player that holds 300 disks.

In these design homes, “my client is the public,” said Brown, who added that visitors revel in the posh fantasies of a design home. They can always dream about the $25,000 dining room sets, for instance, but at the same time they ask themselves, “Could I live here?”

For the Hallidays, it is a real question. It will be a letdown, they said, when the expensive furnishings are removed and they bring back their more modest possessions. Then, real life will once again intrude.