For Medina, This House Is The Mother Of All Homes

The apparent record for really BIG houses in Medina goes to Peter and Sandra LaHaye, formerly of San Francisco.

If you live in the neighborhood, you've seen the house steadily growing, beginning in 1988. Now it's almost complete, including all seven fireplaces (some big enough to stand in), six bedrooms, several garages, a pool, special rooms to do anything you can imagine, little bathroom sinks that at the touch of a lever lower to a child's height.

The wood decor is an antique white pine from an East Coast tobacco farm; a painter was reportedly brought over from Italy to reproduce the same effect on other wood.

And now for the vital stats - try 22,520 square feet, the size of about 22 medium-range apartments, on 6.73 acres with 186 waterfront feet. Assessed value: $11.3 million

Of course, you're asking yourself what do these people DO?

They own LaHaye Laboratories, Redmond, which manufactures a vitamin-mineral combination marketed as a means to slow a degenerative eye condition.

An earlier LaHaye firm also developed the intraocular lens used for people with cataracts. That part of his business was sold to Johnson & Johnson labs some time ago for what was rumored to be more than $80 million.

IT'S THE SEASON . . . for the girl friend's first time out in public, according to a source who's an expert in these things. Couples, he points out, who have stayed married through the holidays are now in various stages of parting (and there are plenty of them this spring). So with the legal work under way, it's time to go public with a new leading man or lady.

Poncho, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary April 25, is still the place to watch for new mergers.

AN APPARENT PARTING, according to a source, is between Martin and Andrea Selig. Martin has moved into a Madison Park apartment where the parties are loud enough for the neighbors to leave notes pleading for quiet.

(And he has not made himself available for comment.)

AND THEN THERE'S Poncho board member Chris Kosmos, CEO of Forbes Westar Inc., who's been traveling in Europe with Marsha Stroum Sloan. He and his wife, Ann, are divorcing. Marsha, he says, is a longtime friend.

AMIDST THE SLINGS and arrows of relationships coming undone, first-time matches are being made. Third Avenue Production's Ryan Hatch (think KIRO chairman Ken Hatch's son) is to marry Teresa LaBay. The couple was in Maui last November for sailboarding when Ryan popped the question during a helicopter ride.

They're marrying next month at Overlake Presbyterian. Ryan's mom is Renee Newitt.

"LOVE IS LOVELIER . . . this time around," KOMO's Patty Payne says. Next month she's marrying Jan Louis Arps, a "biomedical technology guru," who's also a sailor with a boat called "Promises."

She met Jan at a Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce function. She's planning a cavalcade of 40 women - who in some way have touched her life - to walk down the aisle with her.

Included - The Times' Jean Godden.

DO YOU REMEMBER that weight-loss, fund-raising idea the Leukemia Society came up with last year? Ken Hatch, Gene Juarez and Dick Friel sought pledges for losing weight. Good intentions aside, no one lost an enormous amount but of the three, Hatch came in last.

He finally conceded defeat a couple of weeks ago by treating the other two and their spouses to a progressive, "mystery" dinner that began with a first stop at the lobby bar in the Four Seasons and ended with dinner in the kitchen at Fullers.

About Town by Nancy Bartley appears Sunday and Monday in the Scene section of The Times.