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It doesn’t appear to be the first major project that’s run into trouble for Mendiola. He and another architect, Jess Gonzales, led a development team that built a lavish manor called “Essencia” on La Jolla’s Hillside Drive, listing it in 2006 for $21.5 million.
San Diego Magazine gushed over the six-bedroom, seven-bath, spec house — meaning the developers built it with no particular buyer in mind — in a spread in 2007.
That wasn’t the only time the house made headlines. In a 2008 article, the Union-Tribune’s Roger Showley revealed that the home — by then a “beautiful white elephant” — had fallen into foreclosure.
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