A recent homeowners association meeting at Ventana in La Jolla was all about saving a huge tree and updating the look of the gated community of 168 homes overlooking canyons and ocean atop Mt. Soledad. But not all residents were sold on a proposal pitched to them by a landscape architect who said what’s really needed is an estimated $200,000 makeover of the community’s entryway guardhouse. “I call it lackluster. It seems old and tired. This guardhouse really represents your community poorly,” landscape architect David Reed told a roomful of homeowners at a special meeting of Ventana Community Council on Aug. 14 at the condo community’s clubhouse at 1570 Alta La Jolla Drive. “You look at the other places, Crystal Bay and Emerald Cove — your adjacent neighborhoods that really compete with Ventana in the marketplace — they really have something much more. It’s all about curb appeal. And they have some things you don’t have.” Reed contrasted the superior sign identification and more elegant “presentation” with “lots of green” evident in the newer Crystal Bay and Emerald Cove developments’ entryways with what he described as Ventana’s “reverse presentation.” “You go downhill and away from the site, so you don’t get that instant picture,” he said. Reed said Ventana’s guardhouse needs a new door, better windows, a realistic interior and could use interior lighting as well. “When you drive up and you look in there, it needs to look like a finished space,” he said, adding the entryway’s current landscaping “is the wrong texture.” “You need to have big, colorful texture and walls on the side,” Reed said. Responding to a point raised that Ventana’s guardhouse is unoccupied, Reed said, “If you don’t need a guard, you don’t have to have a guard. But it needs to look like a guardhouse. It’s a presence and the entrance to your community and it needs to be upgraded.” Joe Carnucci, president of the five-member Ventana Community Council, told the audience members the proposal was still in the planning stages. “This is a proposal that David [Reed] has given to the board. The proposal has not been approved by the board,” he said Joe Carnucci. “We would like to form a committee of homeowners that can work with David and give recommendations to the board to proceed with this project.” Once the committee and landscape architect jointly work out a design proposal for a revamped guardhouse and entryway, Carnucci said, the board will “put a vote out to all the homeowners. We want homeowner approval on this project.” Carnucci and Reed both stressed that the condominium entryway remodel proposal will preserve the large existing entryway tree, which has become synonymous with Ventana. “You have the largest ficus tree around,” noted Reed. “I was given a mandate by the board to develop a strategic plan for the preservation of that tree.” Following the special meeting, Ventana resident Diana Amato spoke for many residents in expressing concerns about the bulk and scale of the proposed project. “It is an unnecessary expenditure at this juncture,” she said. “In today’s economy, you need to maintain a certain level of integrity with the real-estate market, and upgrading and remodeling the entryway is a necessary part of that. However, to put such money [$200,000] into an entryway when there are so many other infrastructure problems within the community … This seems a little premature at this point in time to put all the focus and all of the monies into an entryway. That seems like an extravagance to many residents.” It was also suggested at the meeting that the guardhouse itself is antiquated, and that it might be better to get rid of it all together and reconfigure the space to give it a more open and natural feel adding a fountain or doing something different. Reed and Carnucci responded favorably to that suggestion, noting that’s the purpose of the committee being formed, to have residents work with the landscape architect to come up with a plan that gives the gated community what it wants and needs in an entryway remodel.