Elfin Forest Estates

This place is amazing we had a Ferrari Photo shoot here and couldn’t asked for a better place. The Owner Steve was very professional and we all had a great time. All the shots came together very well… It’s a great location!

This is a beatiful Paradise type venue. It felt like being in Hawaii and I am so happy with the professional treatment we recieved. I will hold some business retreats and a wine tasting party soon. When we visited this loaction I did not want to leave. First class all the way !

My family enjoyed a wonderful week at Elfin Forest. Its a lovely comfortable home with wide open spectacular views. We live in Illinois and were visting San Diego to see extended family that live anywhere from Point Loma to San Marcos. This home enabled us to bring everyone together for family bbq’s, lots of games, and a traditional bring your best chili, pot luck while watching college basketball. We will be back next year; everyone had a GREAT time!
Lynn S.

i 100% agree w/​everyone else’s reviews about steve and elfin forest estates. i was one of the bride’s who got stuck in the middle of this mess. luckily my wedding wasnt planned until july 2010 (and all this happened in august 2009). i was lucky enough to have plenty of time to start from scratch with my plans. stacey wanted to continue to be my wedding coordinator — yeah freaking right. if you associate w/​a business that isnt operating legally, why would i want to keep working with you on a professional level? absurd.

We were scheduled to get married there in October, 2009. In August, 2009, about 2 months before the wedding and after the invitations had been sent out, our caterer called and told us that Steve had been shut down by the city because he had been operating without permits. As one can imagine, I was TOTALLY stressed out and upset. Probably the worst part about it was that Steve KNEW that he was operating illegally and continued to do so without informing the several brides that continued making plans for the use of this venue. It took the efforts of the courts to recompense us for the considerable additional expenses caused directly by Steve and his negligence. My advice to anyone interested in this property is to ask to see that he has the appropriate permits to legally operate as advertised.

Wanted to give an update on this review… we did get a full refund from Steve Pike in time to use another wedding venue. The new wedding venue was SO SO SO much better… totally a blessing a disguise :)

I had my wedding reception at Elfin Forest Estates in 2009. We had a great day, but it was because I put it together myself. When we were first looking at places to have our reception, Steve told me he had a big list of vendors for all the necessities of a wedding, but that he would only let me have access to the list once I signed a contract. I liked the vibe of the house and that he said I could put on a «bling-​bling» wedding for about $ 13K. Also, he said we could go until 3 am if we wanted to because there was «no noise ordinance» in that area. Well, it was more than $ 13K as most weddings are and the «golden list» he spoke of didn’t exist. When I asked him for contacts I got NOTHING. I put mostly everything together myself and when I told him I was disappointed with his misleading behavior to get me to sign a contract, he got flustered and wanted to make it up to me so we could «be friends again» which I thought was strange since this was a business relationship, not friendship. [If he was my friend, I don’t think he would’ve charged me $ 3K to rent his house for the evening only, not even overnight.] So I asked him to give me names of a florist and a baker of which he had neither. I knew I couldn’t count on him for anything he offered except the house that day.
I definitely had some issues with the professionalism and quality that Cindy presented in her package. She called and told me she started working with Steve on wedding packages before I had secured any vendors so I was interested in what she had to offer. I asked her to email me her different packages. She said she wasn’t a big email-​er and preferred to have phone conversations. I thought that was ridiculous in ²⁰⁰⁸⁄₉ to be a «professional» who doesn’t email? When I did receive an email from her it was a messy, thrown together list of costs with no descriptions. I asked her what I would get for $ 700 of flowers from the $ 11K contract she was offering. It was something like: 1 bridal bouquet, 3 bridesmaids bouquets, 4 boutonnieres, and 10 – 12 centerpieces. After a fight to get her to tell me what the centerpieces would look like aside from her minimal description of «beautiful,» she said it was a round bowl with water and a few floating flowers with candles in it. For $ 700?! In my opinion, that’s not «beautiful» either… it’s tacky. Which was what all the descriptions of things and services she gave me had in common. I looked on the website of the DJ she uses and he seemed really cheesy, too. Sorry, guy, whoever you were, but the cheesy announcer voice and Kenny G music is not my cup of tea. I didn’t need the DJ anyway because my aunt was going to do that as our gift and Cindy told me I couldn’t take that $ 1000 off the package, even though I didn’t need that service. I told her that was ridiculous and she said, well OK, but it’s actually going to be $ 750 off since I take a cut from all the vendors. There were other things I didn’t need from her package, like the $ 450 12 passenger van that wasn’t going to even take my guests back to hotel. So that’s an unnecessary charge along with a bunch of others. Her package didn’t work for me and I didn’t see how it would work for anyone.
Luckily, I had signed my contract with Steve before he teamed up with her and I let her know on many occasions that my contract predated her association with him so any «requests» she made, like for the rentals to be through her, were just that, requests, and I could decide to do whatever I wanted. She didn’t like that, of course, and after yet another fight (this time at Steve’s house in front of one of my bridesmaids who was appalled that she would treat me that way) Cindy said, «I believe what comes around goes around.» It sure did, unfortunately for them.
The night of the reception we had the police come to the house around 9:15 pm during the wedding for a moment with no fuss or anything and we weren’t even loud, but the whole party was done by 9:45 anyway. I’m not sure if Steve had a hand in clearing people out of there, but it was a long day and I wasn’t upset that the wedding didn’t go all night anyway. I’m just glad I didn’t have any of the drama that people had later in the summer which I just heard about from San Diego relatives that said they were on the Turko files. I feel sorry for those couples and I hope they have an even better wedding than they would have had at Elfin.

I, luckily, got married at Elfin Forest Estates on 7.11.09… And with out repeating what pretty much everyone else has said, here are my key points:
– Steve is a great guy who just didn’t research and plan enough to know what it would take to run a business… He wants to be your friend more than your wedding venue owner. Yes, he was helpful and even gave us a few bottles of wine, but running a business isn’t exactly his game.
– Cindy Stacey is a FRAUD. She did far less than help at my wedding… and insisted we hire her «staff». Uh, her «staff» is definitely more-​or-​less her FRIENDS who are not professional at all. They didn’t even know what they were serving to my guests — constantly telling them the wrong thing. I never received a contract from Cindy and was somewhat forced to pay her the ridiculous $ 450 that she didn’t even come close to earning.
– Julie from Raphael’s Party Rentals was the most helpful person connected to Elfin Forest Estates. With out her, my wedding would have never been as great as it was.
That’s all from me, I guess. I could go on, but I’ll let this article complete the story:

I was scheduled to get married there in Feb. I was shocked when I read the story. I will have to say that Steve has been great. He has answered all of my phone calls and e-​mails in a timely manner. Steve has been very professional through this process. I have been refunded all of the money that I gave to Steve plus all of the money from the wedding coordinator. Steve was very apologetic for what happened. I wish him the best of luck!

An update from intial post:
Now that I have heard the real truth about Elfin Forest it all makes so much more sense to me. No wonder Steve was acting so shady the day before the wedding and the night of. He NEVER gave us any idea that he was getting in trouble (I heard through another vendor) and when I addressed my concerns with Steve in an email at the beginning of May, his response was «So we will work it out. All I want is for you to have the perfect wedding and great music.» when I went back and forth with him about my concerns. He had his out right there and then to be honest and forthright but he was not, probably because he had already spent our money as well.
No wonder he was on the property all night, turning the volume down, blowing out candles and taking down lights. He knew he was in trouble and was trying to keep a low profile, unfortunately to the expense of our wedding.
Blessing in diguise that your wedding is not there. I hope it all works out for those of you that have to rebook.

Offering a more detailed update to my original review:
I booked with this place almost a year ago. I think it was September 2008. What initially drew us in was the ability, according to Steve (the owner), to party outside late into the night with no restrictions on noise and no policies about which vendors to use for food, rentals, etc. He sold it as a space where we could plan an event pretty much however we wanted.
When we booked, the wedding date was still a long ways off (August 2009) so we didn’t re-​engage with Steve several months later. Apparently, in the span of a couple of months, Steve had partnered up with a wedding planner. Her name is Cindy Stacey and she runs her own business called So Cal Dream Weddings (or something like that). I was a little miffed to discover that along with this partnership Steve attempted to retro-​actively enforce a rental policy requiring all rentals to run through Stacey’s company. I, took objection to this policy and told her that we would only rent from her if she was able to beat the quote from an outside company that we had found. I think she understood and offered us a great deal on the rentals. This was probably my first indication that Steve was a little loose and inconsistent in the way he ran his business.
About a month ago, my fiancé was speaking with either Cindy or Steve (I don’t recall which) and was told that they would prefer/​recommend/​insist (I never could tell which word was used) that we move the music inside after 10pm. This was a pretty big surprise to me and I was gearing myself for a stand-​off when I got the call from Steve letting me know that he had been shut down and that we would not be able to have our wedding there.
This happened 18 days before the wedding. Needless to say, we were all in a panic. Luckily, we have since found another place and things are almost back on track.
Steve always seemed like a pretty nice guy to me. I think his biggest problem was that he was just oblivious to the work that goes into to running a business. I remember him telling me a story about a close friend or relative of his who had a big house somewhere and occasionally rented it out for weddings and parties and stuff. I think Steve heard about this and thought to himself, «Hey, I could do that». So he bought a house and put an add on craigslist (which is where we first found him, I think). In his mind, that was all that was needed to start a business: craigslist and a house. In the final days of his business, as he began to realize that all the promises he made about late and loud parties could ruin him, he went into self-​preservation mode and began to clamp down on his customers to try to get them to be quiet after 10pm. I think the noise and traffic was what initially drew in all the un-​wanted attention and then anyone from the county who cared to look a little further into his set-​up realized that this was a totally unlicenesed operation.
My biggest mistake in all of this was not to look into his background a little further. If I had, I am sure I could have found all of this out on my own.

I had a friend get married here just a few weeks ago and after the wedding her mother filed a complaint with the better business bureau. They had received quite a few noise complaints prior to my friend’s wedding and she only head about this through some of her other vendors, (not the owner of the property). She signed into the contract after being told the party could last as long as she wanted — just no overnight guests. But after hearing about the noise complaints she confronted Steve — who replied with «don’t worry about it… we’ll work it out, I just want you to have fun and the perfect wedding».
The night of the wedding he started in on the bride (yes he was harassing her during her own wedding) at 9:30 — about how the band needed to turn it down (they were not loud at all). We moved the music and all the dancing inside around 10:30 with the bride in tears since she expected everything to be kept outside. Not to mention she was constantly being harassed by Steve who had claimed he’d stay out of site for the entire event! During this time when everyone had gone inside, Steve started blowing out candles, taking down the lights we had hung before the wedding and packing up the chairs! Even though he had stated that everything could be left and picked-​up in the morning so everyone could enjoy the wedding. People’s purses and drinks were still out on their chairs and tables. It was ridiculous.
Yes — this venue is beautiful, but Steve completely screwed over my friend. Apparently he has also written a bunch of people into his new contracts — including a day-​of coordinator who hasn’t gotten good reviews either. Just beware…