When she was a girl, Bebe Cassin and her younger brother would be sent on a train from California to Illinois, where they would spend summers on their grandparent’s farm. After a day riding the tractor and helping with the wheat harvest, she would return to the simple farmhouse and settle in with a good book, her grandmother’s quilts and the smell of pies baking in the oven.

It left a lasting impression.

“It made me love anything country,” she said.

Now, the house in Los Altos Hills she shares with her husband, B.J. Cassin, is in many ways an homage to rustic Americana. And it is has become the communal gathering place of their five children and seven grandchildren that – as Bebe likes to say – aren’t allowed to live outside a three-mile radius of the family home.

From early American pie safes to antique sideboards to folk art on the walls, Bebe has spent a lifetime finding pieces she loves.

“Luckily, B.J. went along with my collecting,” she said of her husband of 48 years, a venture capitalist and philanthropist. “I’m glad he doesn’t like modern – it would never have worked out.”

While the house is not farmhouse in style like her grandparents’, it is a classic white Monterey Colonial, providing a fresh backdrop to her favorite reds, whites and blues. And the couple have graciously opened it to numerous fund-raisers, most recently to benefit the Los Altos History Museum.

A curving country road takes visitors up to the three-acre, manicured estate, dripping with oaks and hydrangeas. On first approach, the three-story rear of the house, bedecked with windows, reveals itself. Down below, a vineyard is ripening fruit, readying for its first year of production for the couple’s “Red Setter” label named after their favorite breed of dogs.

Winding around to the front of the house, past the caretaker’s cottage, swimming pool and tennis court, a whitewashed gate beckons visitors into the front courtyard. Wicker settees with fluffy Nantucket blue pillows and a Jasper Johns-style American flag painting hanging under the eaves welcome you in.

The couple purchased the property in 1990, when only their last child remained at home. They remodeled the kitchen and opened up the servants’ quarters into a large, vaulted-ceiling family room. In the loft above, Bebe keeps her collection of antique dolls, quilts and pull toys that are at the ready for her grandchildren to play with. In the house hang two folk paintings by Charles Wysocki. Bebe also acquired an old wagon that reminds her of her grandfather’s wagon on the farm and turned it into a coffee table in the sun room.

While the pool and tennis court used to be down below where the vineyard is now, they rebuilt the pool and tennis court on higher ground across from the front courtyard to take advantage of the sunshine. Downstairs, in what used to be the dressing rooms for the pool, the Cassins converted the space to a wine cellar with an antique round chopping block for tastings, and a playroom with a billiards table that is kid-central during the couple’s annual Christmas party.

Bebe keeps some of her favorite pieces closest to her. An antique secretary and a Lincoln rocker that belonged to her great grandparents ornament the master bedroom and her great-grandmother’s lavender quilt is nearby in the loft.

They remind her of her childhood in Illinois. And whenever she thinks of those days, “I just love that whole feeling.”

Update:

This post is featured in the San Jose Mercury News Home and Garden section here.

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Karen Knell is a mother of four big kids and with a 2,200 square-foot house, life got kind of tight. Take away the dining and living rooms — which were rarely used — and the house seemed even smaller.

Ever the organizer, Karen came up with a plan to maximize every square foot of her traditional home in Pleasanton’s “Gas Lamp” neighborhood, from converting the dining and living rooms to usable space and reconfiguring her hall closets to be models of efficiency. (She even created drawers just the right size for wrapping paper rolls. Now that’s my kind of woman!)

And here’s one more thing: she did it with style! (Insert applause here.)

Walk into the spacious entry hall and you’ll be greeted by tone-on-tone striped walls that let you know this is a family home with flair. The dining room on the left, which was only used twice a year, is now an office and study area with built in desks and two computers. But glancing in from the entry hall, it looks like a designer library, with a big white table (for projects and puzzles) as the focal point.

“We use it all the time now,” she said of the dining room. “There’s always at least two people in this room.”

Her four children range in age from 11 to 19 and it’s the 16-year-old who gets the living room as a bedroom. Now that’s not something Karen likes to brag about (”It kills me. I hate it.”) At least she can close it off with French doors. But that hasn’t stopped her from asking, “You want to go away to college, don’t you?”

But Karen is a practical woman, and used as inspiration the best-selling “The Not So Big House” for ideas on every inch.

From the broad, entry hall closet, she stole about a foot off the end and turned it into open bookshelves. In the hallway linen closet that faces the bedrooms, she converted the sliding doors into built-in cabinetry, with classic pull-open doors on top and sliding drawers on the bottom. (This is where she keeps her gift wrap and ribbon and the kids’ games.) Some of her neighbors were so impressed, they did the same.

But it’s Karen’s laundry room that is the real envy of the neighborhood. What used to have a side-by-side washer and dryer with a rarely-used sink, now has stacking appliances with a deep folding counter on top of a set of organizing cubby holes. Each child has their own cubby for their laundry.

“It’s so functional,” she said. “It’s like the best room in the house.” (Spoken like a true mother of four!)

But still, she finds the time and desire to fuss a bit with designer details. In the children’s bathroom, the family’s collection of heart-shaped stones is embedded into the tile backsplash. In her master bedroom, a neutral palette is spiced up seasonal with colorful pillows. “I have a problem with pillows,” she said, as she opens a cabinet full. She splurged on smocked curtains for her bedroom from the Warmth Company in Aptos. But many of her favorite finds come from the Alameda flea market and garage sales.

Her kitchen, which opens to the family room, is classic Americana. PG&E even chose it to film a commercial there. “It’s so normal,” they told her. “Who has a white fridge? No one has a white fridge.”

She tried to take that as a complement.

Karen loves her home. But that doesn’t stop her from dreaming about having her own retreat space someday. And that room behind the French doors might be the perfect spot.

“In my head I’ve got my living room all decorated and painted,” Karen said.

Ah. Don’t we all?

(photos by Desiree Northend)

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