From the sloping road just blocks from downtown Los Gatos, it’s easy to miss the grand estate called La Estancia. Condos are above and condos are below. And even if you know which gates the house hides behind, you’d still be lucky to catch a glimpse of the servants’ entrance.
But on a summer night, you can hear the place. The music rises up from the loggia. There’s chatter and laughter and dancing. And on some nights, David Stonesifer — in his signature round-rimmed glasses — sits at the baby grand piano and plays.
The home of Stonesifer and Larry Arzie — former owners of the Los Gatos Porch interior design store — has been a storied estate for more than 100 years. And in the hands of Arzie and Stonesifer for the past 27 years, it’s become a community gem whose gates have been opened for countless nonprofit fundraisers from the San Jose Symphony to the Los Gatos Police Auxiliary. Parties and weddings for their friends have become legendary.
“The place represents a collective tribute to good taste,” said Peter Carter, a former advertising executive and photographer who had his wedding reception for 800 guests at La Estancia nearly 20 years ago. “It’s a real treasure.”
The house was originally built by Frank McCullough in the 1880s as a Victorian on a 200-acre prune orchard. The main entrance at the base of the sloping hillside was marked by substantial stone columns facing Pennsylvania Street. But when the McCulloughs sold the property, the new owners sold off all but 60 acres. When the McCulloughs repurchased what was left of it some years later at the turn-of-the-century, they hired Willis Polk — the famed architect who would one day design the Filoli estate in Woodside — to transform it.
Mrs. McCullough adored the California missions and asked Polk to revive the style on her property. The story goes that Polk wanted to tear down the Victorian and start over, but the McCulloughs wouldn’t allow it. Instead, the house with two pitched roofs was pulled apart by mule, a loggia and living room were built to straddle the two sections, and a stucco and tile exterior refaced the entire building. The remodel was complete in June 1905 — and was considered one of the first Mission Revival homes in California, Arzie said. It is on the National Historic Registry.
Dr. Horace Jones bought the property in 1939 and brought the building up to date. But with new owners in the 1960s and ’70s, more land above and below was sold for condo developments. The house fell into disrepair. It was scheduled for demolition in the 1970s, but local preservationists stopped that effort.
It had been on the market for about two years when Arzie and Stonesifer decided to buy it in 1981. The two had met in the art department while students at San Jose State in 1962, and went on to establish one of the most successful interior design businesses in Los Gatos. They ran Los Gatos Porch for 32 years until they sold it in 2002. Stonesifer still works as an interior designer and painter.
He remembers when he first saw the house “sitting back at the end of a dirt patch.” It was covered in ivy with plaster missing.
“Take me through the house before it falls down or burns down,” Stonesifer told his realtor. And after insisting they also be allowed to purchase an adjoining acre scheduled for condo development, Arzie and Stonesifer became the new owners and began a grand renovation of house and grounds.
Arzie, who grew up in Hollister “with a hammer in one hand and a shotgun in the other,” hopped on a tractor and began terracing and re-landscaping the property. He built a pond and fountain and new terrace out front, and vegetable gardens. Blood oranges were planted around the pool. A trellis graced the front of the guest house.
Inside, they uncovered secrets of the old Victorian, including a hidden fireplace in a guest bedroom. As sought-after decorators in Los Gatos, they filled their home with antiques from their shop and their travels.
“Most decorators’ homes don’t look like what they decorate,” Arzie said. “They just assemble instead of thinking it out. It’s a montage of things that happens in your life.”
At La Estancia, it’s a collection that evokes Old World splendor in a setting that harkens back to an era of grace and beauty, where the host plays the piano for entertainment and if he’s lucky, some of his guests will get up and sing.
And in this cherished, lively house, they often do.
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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