This 1930’s bungalow is so adorable. The living room is simply beautiful. I love everything about it–the bay window, the wall color and the fireplace. When it was remodeled in 2008 the homeowners worked with the Los Gatos Historic Preservation Committee. I’m so glad they did!
Bedrooms: 3
Baths: 2
Square Footage: 1525
Check out the virtual tour here.
Queen Anne Cottage
A charming Queen Anne Cottage, built in 1893, and fully restored by the current owners. Once the home of a Los Gatos grocer, the home features an unusual five-sided wrap-around front porch. Inside, you’ll see original windows, wainscoting, transoms and chandeliers.
Victorian Hunting Lodge
Victorian Hunting Lodge
This home was built in 1884 as a Victorian hunting lodge and summer home. The current owners restored the home, and with antique treasures from their travels in Botswana, embraced the hunting theme.
A Hawaiian Plantation Home
Hawaiian Plantation Home
This house was designed in 1912 after a Hawaiian plantation home to reflect the original owners’ fascination with Hawaii. The new owners kept the facade, but updated the rest of the home inside.
To win two tickets to the tour — worth $35 a piece — please leave a comment here or at the Lookiloos Facebook page and we will draw a name randomly on Thursday, Nov. 5. Please leave a valid email address so we can contact you with details on where to pick up tickets.
If you don’t win, but still want to support the Museums of Los Gatos and see these homes, tickets may be purchased at the Art Museum, 4 Tait Avenue in Los Gatos. You may also purchase tickets on line at www.museumsoflosgatos.org or call 408 375-7386.
UPDATE: The winner of the tickets is Michelle Bogdan! Congratulations. We know you will have a great time and hope to see you there.
(Photographs by Mert Carpenter)
Whenever I visit my parents at their home in Carmel, I often go out of my way to walk past this extraordinary Carmel cottage compound. I’ve been doing it for years, walking, lingering, dreaming. If I could choose the quintessential Carmel cottage lifestyle, this would be it.
Sitting on more than a half acre, the property is lined by Monterey Cypress. Roses tumble over grapestake fences and arbors. Crunchy pebble pathways wind through fountains and fireplaces. Green shutters. Carmel stone walls. A peek of bay. Fairytales.
For years I have peeked through the fences and looked up the drive, fantasizing what may lay within. Last week, on another of a countless walk-bys, I couldn’t believe what I saw: a For Sale sign.
As a “professional” Lookiloo, I’ve talked to a number of people who have told me their stories of home — of how they had always walked by a favorite property, dreamed that if it ever went on the market they would buy it, and indeed, they did. Ah, dreams fulfilled.
But with this Carmel compound — and a pricetag over more than $5 million — I had to keep walking by. But being a “professional” Lookiloo also has its privileges. I called Sotheby’s Realtor Steve LaVaute, and asked for a private tour.
“See you in 10 minutes,” he said.
And so, after years of just imagining what lay inside, I walked through the door of the main house — a 2,100 square-foot structure that was actually the caretaker’s house on a much larger property that was subdivided years ago.
What struck me was how authentic this cottage — that looked to have been built in the 1920s — had remained. The footprint appeared to have been unchanged. The living room was small with French doors to a courtyard. A charming limestone fireplace remained as the focal point. The kitchen was as small as a butler’s pantry and the eating area not much bigger. A narrow, steep staircase led to two small bedrooms upstairs with a separate bath. It’s amazing that the house hasn’t suffered a massive addition. There is no gigantic master suite with a walk-in closet or expanded kitchen with double ovens.
It is, in every way, a classic Carmel cottage. It is surrounded by beautiful gardens — that take $1,500 a month to maintain, LaVaute told me — and seven separate sitting areas tucked in here and there. A separate, smaller cottage on the property is a studio guest suite, also with a stone fireplace.
And, hidden behind the wall of the guest house is what LaVaute calls a “secret dining room.” It’s a complete surprise, separated from the main house as it is. An open door revealed the space to be dark as a wine cellar, with stained concrete floors and a crystal chandelier, dimmed. A long, wooden refectory table is set for ten with candelabras fit for Liberace’s piano. “It’s for catered affairs,” LaVaute said.
In some ways, the whole place made me think of Marie Antoinette, and though she lived in splendor at Versaille, she had a peasant’s cottage built for her on the grounds. I wonder if it felt a little like this.
If you have $5 million to spend, email Steve at slavaute@gmail.com.
Here’s another fantasy house of mine:
Manderley Revisited in LaSelva Beach
Here’s the complete slideshow:
When Rick Partridge and Jack Black purchased the 1916 Arts and Crafts Bungalow in San Jose’s Hanchett Park in 2005, they finally found a home for the period Stickley furniture they had been collecting for more than two decades.
But the backyard was another story. An awkward triangular deck off the back bedroom was a safety hazard with steep stairs and an overgrown hedge along the driveway split the small backyard in two. The homeowners were big entertainers and wanted a space that worked for parties of 100, as well as an intimate space for two to lounge around the hot tub.
“Jack and I both grew up in the south, where you turn the AC on from March ’til October,” Rick said. Now that California was their home, they wanted to take advantage of outdoor living. (And they also wanted a place for their hammock.)
The solution? Bring in a friend and neighbor, architectural designer Steve Hinderberger of Hindesign. The first order of business was to rip out the hedges.
“That was the most dramatic,” Hinderberger said. “It opened up the space and you could see the potential.”
They decided to keep all the trees, especially the Chinese Pistache in the middle of the yard.
“It became a centerpoint and things radiate out around it,” he said. And that meant designing a series of outdoor rooms, from formal to casual.
He started by replacing the old deck at the back of the house with a new, larger one made of dense Ipe wood, and gave a sense of enclosure with brick planters. A few steps down is the semi-circular dining patio. Hinderberger unearthed some of the original stones that had sunken and re-used them for the patio.
Pavers were used along the driveway to make it feel more like a patio than a driveway, and a built-in barbecue was installed near the back kitchen door. (Another neighbor, interior designer Madeleine Randal, transformed the inside white kitchen from what Partridge called an “operating room” into an updated space with grey soapstone counters and seaform blue backsplashes.)
The focal point of the backyard is the arbor at the back corner of the yard surrounded by soft landscaping. During the Hanchett Park Home Tour in late May, Partridge and Black hung a bright red swing from the arbor (their answer to the hammock.) But the arbor also serves as a frame for an ever-changing feature.
“Even in the plans, we put ’sculptural element here,’” Hinderberger said. “It becomes almost a stage to highlight something of interest. They change it at least once every year, so it’s kind of fun to see what’s going to be there.” Partridge and Black have swapped out a fountain, a sculpture and a large planted urn under the arbor over the years.
“It’s kind of fun when you have a design concept, but what becomes really great is when the client embraces that and lives that,” Hinderberger said. “We were very in sync.”
Perhaps the most meaningful focal point of all came when Partridge and Black exchanged wedding vows in a ceremony surrounded by friends. Under the arbor were framed the groom and groom.
Hinderberger, of San Jose, can be reached at stevehinderberger@att.net.
(Photos by Desiree Northend)
Related stories:
Craftsman Bungalow Stays Tiny After Big Makeover
Spanish Style Bungalow Home
Gentle Remodel on Bungalow
Spanish-Style Bungalow Gets Soho-Chic Kitchen
Home with a Dining Room Fireplace
Rustic Kitchen Remodel
More Hanchett Homes on the Tour
Here’s the complete slideshow:
The 1920s Craftsman bungalow was 1,450 square feet when the family of three moved into the house. And after a significant remodel and another baby, it hasn’t grown a square foot. But with creativity and style, it works beautifully for this young family.
The biggest change Jamey Graham and his wife Sharon Kojima made was converting a family room and laundry room that spanned the back of the house into a master bedroom on one side and a master bathroom and closet on the other. With a central hallway dividing the two spaces, plus a glass door leading to the back yard at the end, visitors walking in the front door can see clear through to the back yard. For a small house, the light at the end of the tunnel goes miles in making the bungalow feel larger.
The only problem? “We violated Feng Shui” principles by being able to see through the house, Jamey said. But the couple installed a door to close off the master suite from the rest of the house — and keep the good spirits inside.
They installed hardwood floors into the two children’s rooms in the bedroom wing, and in the main living area, they tore down a wall that separated the kitchen from the dining and living rooms. Walk in, and you feel one big open, inviting, living, dining and kitchen space, plus a peek to the back yard. All were put together with quality and care by “Paradise Art and Garden” on Park Avenue in San Jose and J.P. Novotny Construction.
The San Jose house was the smallest on the Hanchett Park Home tour in late May. But it made a big impact.
Related stories:
Watch the Favorite Spots Regaled at Hanchett Park Home Tour
More Hanchett Homes on the Tour
Front Porch, River Rock Sells this Craftsman Home
New Craftsman Home, Just the Right Size
Craftsman in Los Gatos
Here’s the complete slideshow:
Suzanne Garcia and her husband, Rob Brackett, had spent many an evening wandering through the Hanchett Park neighborhood, taking snapshots of the old Arts and Crafts homes with broad front porches and side-gables.
They were ready to buy, but none of their favorites were ever for sale. So they decided to do the next-best thing and build their own Craftsman home a neighborhood over, using their photos for inspiration. They had reached the permit stage when their realtors told them about a vintage Craftsman for sale in San Jose’s Hanchett Park.
“They had told us it’s one of the houses in the neighborhood that has river rock,” Suzanne said. “When we drove up, we were — ‘oh gosh, I have a picture of this house in my binder!’ Who can believe it, right?”
Once inside, they were thrilled to see that none of the impressive woodwork from the 1916 home had been painted.
“Now that I’ve lived in it for a while, you get used to it, but people just stop and say ‘Wow, wow, you just don’t see woodwork like that!’”
The floor plan was mostly original and the biggest changes were to areas they planned to update anyway — the kitchen and bathrooms. And after their purchase in 2007, a careful renovation began.
“We wanted a real master bath with the luxuries of today, but with that vintage quality. So we did handmade subway tile from Fireclay,” in San Jose, she said. “We found some accent tile in recycled green glass.”
Inspired by her collection of Bauer pottery, the couple painted the downstairs rooms in rich colors.
While they added a clawfoot tub in one bathroom, they added a luxurious steam shower and jacuzzi tub in the master bath.
“Some people will say we should have been more authentic,” she said, “Others will say what a great way to blend the old with the new.”
People who got a glimpse of the home during the Hanchett Park home tour in late May got to make up their own minds. And it’s hard to imagine anyone would disagree that the house is a lovely blend indeed.
Here’s the complete slideshow:
Perhaps this woman on the Hanchett Park Home Tour summed it up best when she said, “It’s such a surprise to see all these gems all around.” The little known San Jose neighborhood opened five historic homes, from California Craftsmen to an Italian Revival in late May. Listen to what they liked best and check out photos of these unique homes. Also, stayed tuned to Lookiloos over the next few weeks as we profile each home in greater depth, with stories and photo shoots of great architectural detailing, interior decor, and intimate and grand gardens. Lookiloos had early access to one of the tour’s grandest homes. Here’s the story: Italian Revival Like Hollywood Movie Set
Related Stories:
New Craftsman in Los Gatos
Doings of a Mad Architect
It would be difficult to find anyone who could say that Vicki Petulla’s backyard was ever anything but elegant and lovely. From the modern-lined furniture to the graceful urns and vintage outside mirror reflecting the patio, this was always a stylish spot. But exit the mobile chiminea and insert a sturdy stone fireplace and voila! Something extra special just happened.
“We created this to be an outdoor room because those French doors are open all the time,” Vicki said of the doors off her kitchen and breakfast room. (A minute after Desiree took this photo, the three of us were sitting here sipping a crisp white wine. Now this is my kind of yard!)
Here’s the before shot:
What a change! She and her family now have a dramatic focal point to their San Jose backyard, made of Monterey stone and built by Martin Delariba. And they have a mantel on which to place — get this — a big screen TV. She and her husband and school-age son have movie nights in the backyard where Vicki will bring out a plate of broken chocolate and marshmallows. Now how wonderful is that? Add red wine and I’m there! (again!) Vicki said that just recently, the family watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” outside. I concur.
Here’s another shot Desiree took last fall of the outdoor dining area just off the French doors. Now I’m surveying my backyard looking for a spot for an outdoor mirror. Isn’t it fabulous?
Want to see what’s behind those French doors? When Lookiloos visited Vicki last fall, we wrote a whole story and included a wonderful photo shoot. Take a look: A Decorator’s Daughter
Desiree also just compiled photos of her favorite outdoor fireplaces for www.hookedonhouses.net. Take a look here: Outdoor Fireplaces
Here’s the complete slideshow:
Becky Fricke had fantasized that one day she would have a fireplace in her dining room. “I thought it was a pipe dream,” she said.
But destiny seemed set.
The couple were taking a walk through their Willow Glen neighborhood when they noticed the For Sale sign in front of a charming Spanish bungalow with a red tile roof and a brick-walled courtyard in the front. The house was empty.
She peeked in, and there it was. The curved plaster fireplace with green tile trim was nestled in the corner of the room. And an alcove next to it looked like the perfect size for their large credenza. They moved from window to window, looking into the large living room and master bedroom in the back.
“We knew it when we saw it,” she said. “It has Old World charm. The floor plan is great. We have three young kids. We just knew when we saw it it would work out for us.”
The couple has maintained the original floor plan, but added a counter-height breakfast bar in the nook. They replaced a modern jacuzzi tub with an old-fashioned clawfoot tub and finished the small basement, converting it into a cozy wine cellar/tasting room.
Just off the master bedroom at the back of the house is another stunning fireplace — this one in the backyard. The couple completely re-landscaped the small space, removing grass and building a patio, fireplace and fountains. A trellis behind the fireplace gives the yard total privacy.
The couple opened the house for the Willow Glen Home Tour in early May. Willow Glen Home and Garden shop on Lincoln Avenue helped get it ready in all its fine detail.
The house is not quite 1,900 square feet, but works just fine for this young family. The living room doubles as the family and TV room. With a flat screen TV from The Art of TV (www.theartoftv.com), based in San Jose, the screen appears as a beautifully-framed mirror when not in use.
(photographs by Desiree Northend)
You might also enjoy these stories:
Spanish Bungalow Goes Soho Chic
Spanish Bungalow for Willow Glen Woman
A Decorator’s Daughter Loves Small House Style
Gentle Remodel on Spanish Bungalow
Before and After – Rustic Kitchen Remodel
Small House Remodel Maintains Charm
Downsizing and Restyling: From French Country to Modern Neutral
Mid-Century Modern from California Ranch: A Town and Country Life
Here’s the complete slideshow:
Realtors are well-known for “expanding” the boundaries of popular neighborhoods like San Jose’s Willow Glen and Rose Garden. But the residents of the distinctive Hanchett Park neighborhood, a largely unknown enclave of period California Craftsmen, Italian Revivals and Prairie-style homes, are tired, quite frankly, of being referred to as “the lower Rose Garden.”
Hanchett Park’s graceful streetscape design, including European-like traffic roundabouts and original entrance pillars, was designed in 1907 by John McLaren who designed Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. The neighborhood is often referred to in a larger sense as the Shasta Hanchett neighborhood because Shasta Avenue is the main street that runs through it. But the historic name is Hanchett Residence Park and it is nestled between The Alameda and Park Avenue. Several of the Arts and Crafts homes in the neighborhood were once featured in American Bungalow Magazine.
Now, a grass roots group, calling itself the Hanchett Park Heritage Project, hopes to rebuild the historic gateway pillars with pergolas at key entrance points around the neighborhood, including Martin Avenue at The Alameda. They’re hosting their first home tour, featuring five historic houses, on May 30 to raise money for the project.
“Hanchett Park is one of only two residential parks in San Jose. The other is Palm Haven and no one has ever heard of us,” said Hillary Savage, a neighborhood resident who is helping plan the home tour. Residential parks were some of the first “subdivisions” at the turn of the last century that were planned with utility poles running at the back of the lots, decorative lighting and landscaping to “retain a park-like atmosphere.”
One of the most enthusiastic supporters of the project and the neighborhood is Larry Camuso, who has restored his 1926 Italian Revival home into a stunning showplace and earned it a city historical designation. The house, which was originally built as a one-story home in 1908 then radically remodeled in 1926 with a second-story and Palladian windows, echoes the Hollywood glamour and style of its day.
And Camuso, with his partner Kirk Wentland, is getting it ready for the tour. Camuso, 49, is long a fan of the classic “Sunset Boulevard,” where the Hollywood mansion is a much a character as stars Gloria Swanson and William Holden.
“I discovered that movie in my 20s and thought that was what I was all about,” Camuso said. “That whole period of time, the style, design, art and decoration, it created a vision for me.” In fact, the look of the upstairs master suite, including the custom-made water spout in the bathroom, came right out of an Art Deco movie set book. Interior designer Paul Rokovich brought the vision to reality throughout the house.
“I’m stuck in the 1920s living in this house,” said Camuso, who is semi-retired from his antique and collector car parts business. (The house was built with a detached three-car garage, including a repair “pit” in one of the bays. “Sold!”)
Like many homeowners in the neighborhood, Camuso embarked on a historically-correct renovation. Though the house was in good condition when he bought it in 1991, he began five years later to restore its original footprint and fixtures. And he marshaled the memories of one of its original inhabitants, Lucretia Martin Schlueter, who was raised there until 1954.
“By way of old pictures that Lucretia supplied, I was able to put it back the way it was,” he said. Camuso threw an 80th birthday party for the house in 2006, and invited Lucretia, who is in her 90s and lives in Carmel, as the guest of honor.
“The house had great bones, but was never fully realized as far as its aesthetic values.” He removed a bathroom and closet off the main entry hall and returned the space to its original purpose — a rear hallway that separates the living room from the study. He also replaced the replacement windows — in other words, any flat glass that had been installed to fix broken windows over the years was replaced with vintage wavy glass that Camuso tracked down at Anderson C&M Used Building Material on Montgomery Street near downtown San Jose. He had nearly every one reglazed.
“It’s like a shimmering show of wavy glass,” he said.
Along with Camuso’s home, several turn-of-the-century Craftsman bungalows will be on the tour, including one with original stone columns in front. Also on the tour is one of the first homes built in the subdivision, considered the model home of its day. The large, shingled house was designed by the well-known Wilson-McKenzie architecture firm, which designed many homes in Naglee Park near downtown.
Outside the downtown core of Victorians, “this was considered modern, in terms of 1908,” Savage said.
Preparation for the home tour has been a neighborhood preoccupation over the past two years, as several homeowners have hosted cocktail and garden parties to raise money among themselves for the event.
The city of San Jose’s Redevelopment Agency is helping with funding to build the first set of pillars at The Alameda and Martin that were removed in the 1960s, probably because of disrepair. But residents want to rebuild the pillars at other key entry points as well, including at Park and Tillman avenues, with an estimated cost of $40,000 each.
“We have to have a lot of home tours,” Savage said.
Tickets for the Saturday, May 30th tour, may be purchased for $25 the day of the tour at 1265 Sierra Avenue, or $21 in advance through hanchettpark.org.
(Story by Julia Prodis Sulek. Photos by Desiree Northend.)
Update: 
This post is featured in the San Jose Mercury News Home and Garden section here.
Here’s the complete slideshow:
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