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The first time the Los Gatos house got a makeover, Betsy and Dan “Whizzer” White just needed a bigger house for their growing family. The house they bought in 1977 was 900 square feet and with one child and another on the way, they added a second story in 1984. In 1991, they did a major kitchen/family room remodel. Then on New Year’s Eve 2003 while Whizzer and Betsy were at a party, they got a call from a neighbor: “Your house is burning.”
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A lit candle left on her daughter’s bedroom desk had destroyed nearly the entire house. With the help of architect Phoebe Bressack of Bressack and Wasserman Architects in Los Altos, ) Chateau Construction (theirr builder for 30 years), interior designers Ann Sonnenberg of Palo Alto and Susan Hoffman from Los Gatos, the house was redesigned, rebuilt and redecorated. With all the loss, chaos and rebuilding, Betsy said, “The day I cried was when I found I could have the same tile in the kitchen,” that she had loved when she remodeled it in 1991.
As much as she loved her house before the fire, the third incarnation has it’s benefits. Along with increasing from a three bedroom, two bath, the house –built in a Bernard Maybeck craftsman style and shingled — now has four bedrooms and three-and-a-half baths. They reconfigured the downstairs space to add an office and laundry room. All the bonuses came inside an extra 400 square feet.
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The stair railing also saw an upgrade, from what Betsy affectionately called “barnyard chic” to an elegant iron railing with a leaf motif modeled after the magnolia tree outside the window. The couple enjoyed weekends at garage sales and antique shops to replace their furnishings and collected Mexican pottery and other crafts from one of their favorite destinations: San Miguel de Allende.
The house sits on nearly a third of an acre and the grounds are gorgeous, from a shady patio in front to a lush vegetable garden in the back.
While Whizzer’s wife considers her husband a “farmer,” because of his 60 tomato plants, chili peppers and other fruits and vegetables, Whizzer simply considers himself a “foodie.”
With his heirloom tomatoes, “I freeze 50 pounds a year for cooking and give away about 200 pounds,” he said. He’s also proud of his “pimientos de padron,” a chili pepper made famous by writer Calvin Trillin that is popular in Spanish tapas.
Whizzer is well known in Los Gatos for supplying the enormous squash for the annual march of the “Cucuzza Squash Drill Team” in the town’s Christmas parade. “We’re the successors to the Pigmy Goat Herders that were kicked out a few years ago,” he said. “They got too outrageous.”
And while Betsy still finds herself “going for light switches in places that were there for 20 years,” she loves the third makeover of her home. The couple have no plans to do it again.
Knock on wood.
Here’s the complete slideshow:
When I think of a Sunset house, I usually picture something a bit grand, perhaps on a hillside overlooking California oaks. So when I drove by the latest Sunset Dream Remodel in Los Gatos, I almost passed it. It’s small — a 1,550 square foot Mediterranean bungalow on the corner of a somewhat busy street. But the whole idea, in these tough economic times, is to showcase the wonderful things you can do in a small space. And when you look at it that way, this house really measures up.
“This project shows how big a small space can live if done right,” said San Jose builder, Mark De Mattei, who marks his sixth Sunset house with the renovation of this Los Gatos bungalow.
When De Mattei first bought the property, the house was even smaller — 1,300 square feet, and faced the busy University Avenue. To take full advantage of the corner lot, he lifted up the house, built a new foundation and turned it to face Town Terrace.
A side yard leading to the sidewalk and busy street was also put to best use with a deck right off the dining room. A
So she called in the pros. First, Steve Gilbert from Willow Glen Home and Garden suggested using the color of the pool as inspiration. He brought in bright turqoise cushions for the furniture and no fewer than 11 ceramic urns. To Kristin, it all looked “elegant and fun.” But that was a lot of urns to plant. So she called in her friend and container gardener Dhelia Fahrner of La Jardiniere.
and oranges with geraniums, lantana, verbena, petunias and alyssum of various heights and textures.
3. Choose a style — tight, loose, abundant, minimal — to fit your style or the architecture of your home.
Top on the list was replacing the brick on the curving path that was caked with old mortar, probably from a demolished fireplace. They handed the list to Suzanne’s longtime gardner, Carlos Arrioja, who owns the Los Gatos landscape business, “A Touch of Quality.”
The hand is a sculpture Carlos came across. He had to re-attach the broken thumb. And it has become the signature piece in the garden, adding a bit of whimsy.
I spied a cool exhibit at the Willow Glen Home Tour earlier this month–
The pots look like they have been carved out of stone. Urban Farmgirls uses cement, perlite and reclaimed fibers to create that wonderful faux stone feel. The pots are surprisingly light weight. So as I get ready to re-do my front porch, I will need to pick up a few of these. Pairing them with succulents seems too perfect.
This house actually has a Lookiloos provenance: I wrote about it in June 2003 in an essay about my open house obsession for the San Jose Mercury News. I wrote about Lookiloos like me — and this was some five years before I co-founded this website. (I’m true blue!) In it, I wrote this: “A wall of windows overlooking a courtyard of a Carmel open house makes me imagine myself a famous novelist with a salon of literay friends who drive down to Nepenthe for inspiration.” I called myself the “Walter Mitty of real estate.” Is it so hard to believe, I wrote, “that living in a great space can be inspiring and life-transforming?” I still believe that.
The house was designed by John Gamble, who designed a number of modern homes on the Monterey Peninsula. And now it’s for sale again, for $1.29 million. If you buy it, please let me know. Maybe you can invite me over.
When four girlfriends and I escaped our kids for the afternoon, piled into my mini-van, and headed out for the 
stenciling in the hallway–and eclectic accessories, many of which came from the Vintage Flea Market in Alameda. 
If I had a bigger lot, I’d consider a swimming pool with different lounging levels and contrasting materials like Kris and David Gambelin’s home. If couldn’t get such a lot and wanted to get really creative (or crazy), I’d move next to my sister, tear down the fence between us, and create one big, shared, drought resistant landscape like the Gilliand home. 
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