Rebecca and John Lane were avid fans of “This Old House” and looking for a new project when they first laid eyes on this 1905 Neoclassical Victorian.  The San Jose house with its Roman-style round columns and dentil moldings was in nearly original condition, but needed a lot of work. With the help of architectural designer Lynn Miller in 2007, they took the house down to the studs and began a four-year project that included every weekend of do-it-yourself projects, from refinishing floors to stripping and replacing moldings throughout the house. They tore out a carport and built a detached garage, with John custom-making seven types of molding to match the house. They graciously opened the home for the Rose Garden Homes Tour this fall.

Along the way, John, a mentor in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, taught teenager Devon Hunter the art of carpentry (and the fun of demolition.)

“He’s practically a member of the family at this point,” said John, who began mentoring 19-year-old Devon when he was just seven.

The Lanes left the front rooms in their original configuration, but opened up the back of the house, extending a breakfast nook onto an old porch area, and converting two bedrooms into a family room and stairwell. By excavating nearly two feet of dirt from under the basement, they turned the low-ceilinged space with exposed pipes into a complete living area with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, a wine cellar and a “secret door.” The couple was surprised to find that a trap door that led them to the attic revealed 10-foot ceilings above. Adding extra dormers, this became their master suite. Rebecca found vintage-style corbels to use as shelf supports for the luxurious closet. They shopped at antique shops for vintage light fixtures and recovered stained glass windows from John’s parents’ attic in Portland to use as transom windows in the kitchen.

They named the house “Villa Roseto,” Italian for “Rose Garden Estate.”

“It was a much bigger deal than we originally anticipated,” John said of the project. But the 4,000 square foot result, he said, is worth it.

Here’s the complete slideshow:

When Gretchen and Dominic Kotab first saw this 1930 Spanish-style home in San Jose, they thought it would be perfect for their growing family. The living room with its 15-foot ceilings and exposed rustic wood beams was ideal for their piano — along with all the lessons for their children to come.

“It just had a lot of charm,” Gretchen said, including original hardwood floors throughout.

 The kitchen faced the back of the house, so Gretchen could keep an eye on the kids in the backyard. The house was already graciously proportioned, with four bedrooms and three baths. But the kitchen and bathrooms hadn’t been touched in decades. The family lived in the house for five years before moving out for a substantial remodel when their oldest entered kindergarten at St. Martin’s.

“It was chaos,” Gretchen said.

Her favorite part of the project was a trip to Los Angeles to Mission Tile West, where she chose gorgeous, vintage-inspired tile for the kitchen and baths. The kitchen backsplash is especially fabulous, with a cream and green interlocking pattern. Their master bath is small, but Gretchen wanted to make it elegant, choosing Carrera marble. They expanded the front and back patios, covering the front with Spanish tile and the back with slate. With the children ages 3, 5 and 7 now, the house is just right.

They opened their doors this fall for the Rose Garden Homes Tour. Floral Designer Jose Ibarra worked his magic in nearly every room, from the dining room table and sideboard, to the branches on the living room mantle, to the front courtyard. A master at work!

Here’s the complete slideshow:

This house has been ahead of its time since it was built in 1950. Unlike most ranch houses of its era, it had a family room connected to the kitchen and walls of glass looking out to the back garden. For the past 34 years, it has been carefully maintained, updated and adorned by the current homeowners. The house had great bones to start, including gracious formal living and dining rooms and a burgundy and pink tiled central bathroom that remains in mint condition. (Take a look at the antiqued mirror-fronted bathroom cabinets. Original and glamorous!)

The homeowners opened their doors to the Rose Garden Homes Tour this fall.

One of the homeowners, a retired schoolteacher, is the artisan of the duo and took his talents to add color, texture and craftsmanship to the kitchen and bathrooms especially. An expert is paint finishes and detailed woodworking, he has transformed walls and cabinets. Peek at his detail work, including the Venetian plaster ceiling in the bathroom off the laundry room. Ask a docent to open the secret spice racks he built into the stove hood and the curved drawers for silverware in the island. The rear bathroom is another masterpiece, where he engineered a swinging bedroom door that doubles as a bathroom closet door. (When the bedroom door is open, the door then closes the bathroom closet. And notice the woodwork on the door he matched with the cabinetry.) He also fashioned a medicine cabinet using an oil painting, instead of a mirror, on the facade. The couple have collected antiques at shops and auction houses around the Bay Area, and also cherish their two Lalique statues, one of fish in the living room, and another of cats in the dining room.

This house, built for the Zolezzi family more than a half century ago, remains in pristine condition today.

Here’s the complete slideshow:

In the 10 months it took to build this house from the ground up, a lot happened in the Wetmore family. Diane’s mother, the matriarch of the family, died, and her daughter got married. What she realized then was just how important it was that this new home become the center, the gathering place, for the family.

And to Diane and Ray, whose four grown daughters all attended St. Martin of Tours, that meant big, open spaces for entertaining, both inside and out. And that starts at the majestic front door, a work of iron art with wavy glass windows that open behind it, letting the California breeze blow from the front all the way to the glass doors that slide into the wall in the back. The family graciously opened their home for the Rose Garden Homes Tour this fall.

Ray is a commercial masonry contractor and the home that Diane describes as part Arizona, part Florida and part Hawaii needed some signature stonework. With the help of architect Chris Spaulding and designer Susan Powell, they created a stone alcove that can be glimpsed from the entryway as well as a stone-covered stove hood. Even the risers on the curving staircase are covered in a distinctive tile to add interest. The living room ceiling soars two-stories high, with windows upon windows to let light in. The front room was designed as a “mancave” with leather sofas, a wet bar, stone fireplace and vintage wine barrels. Limestone tile floors make a seamless transition from the living room through the wall of windows(that disappear when opened) to the covered patio, complete with a Tuscan-style dining table and plans for a full-service barbecue area.

With a gracious master bedroom downstairs, the upstairs is reserved for family, including a nursery for the Wetmore’s grandchildren.

“Everyone comes here and stays here,” Diane said. “It was built to bring the family together.”

Here’s the complete slideshow:

Feel that crispness in the air? It’s home tour season! And Lookiloos is giving away two pairs of tickets to the 2011 Rose Garden Homes Tour in San Jose this weekend, Oct. 14-15. See below how to win! And take a look at the facades of the homes on tour below, and just imagine what’s inside!

Don’t you want to go inside this meticulously-restored Neoclassical Victorian, shown above? There’s some amazing salvaged stained glass, high ceilings, and a spectacular master bedroom, which had been an attic. How about this one below, a 1930 Spanish-style family home with remodeled kitchen and bathrooms, inlaid with special vintage-inspired tiles?

Check out this one below” A newly-built Tuscan home with exceptional stonework and a wall of windows that slide open to the garden. It’s amazing.

The traditional ranch house below has amazing woodworking details and hand-painted finishes.

 These four lovely homes, plus an elegant Victorian garden  will be featured Oct. 15-16 during the 16th annual Rose Garden Homes Tour in San Jose, benefiting St. Martin of Tours School.

Gather your friends, put on your walking shoes and enjoy an afternoon in one of San Jose’s finest neighborhoods. Afterward, indulge yourself with a gourmet luncheon and browse through a gift boutique in the gardens of a rescued and lovingly restored Italianate Victorian.

 When: Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 15-16, 2011. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Where: Tour begins at 2017 University Way, San Jose

Tickets: $30 in advance. $35 at the door. Lunch tickets must be ordered by Oct. 11, $13.

Tickets may be purchased through the website at www.rosegardenhomestour.com , Not Too Shabby at 481 S. Bascom Ave. San Jose; Willow Glen Home and Garden on Lincoln Avenue,  and Vintage and Vogue at 241 E. Campbell Avenue, Campbell.

Benefiting St. Martin of Tours School, San Jose.

Website: www.rosegardenhomestour.com

 To win the tickets, leave a comment on our lookiloos facebook page (we’re having a technical problem here) and tell us why you want to go and we’ll pick a pair of winners!

Photos by Marie McEnery.

With help from Steve Gilbert of Willow Glen Home and Garden, the homeowners, Virginia and Brett Nicoletti, have created the kind of rooms you want to live in. They graciously opened their home to the 2011 Willow Glen Lifestyles home tour.

The front bedroom with the orange palette was one of my favorites. Don’t you just love the bedding?

And the youngest daughter also has a haven all in pink. I also love the vintage-style bedspread in this room.

The 1992 home began an update when the Nicolettis bought it in 2000. They extended hardwoods throughout the house and antiqued the kitchen cabinets.   The result is an elegant space, upstairs and down.

Here’s the complete slideshow:

But once they moved in, how did these new urban dwellers decorate their own spaces? And more important for the voyeur in all of them, how did their neighbors decorate theirs, especially the guys in the penthouse?

Last week, homeowners in the 22-story “The 88″ on Second Street in downtown San Jose hosted their own “progressive design party” to show off their own places and peek in on others.

“I want to see how other people live,” says Karen Mandell, who had cheese and wine waiting for her guests in the unit she shares with her husband on the ninth floor. (Hint: There was more than one white couch on the tour.)

High-rise living is new to San Jose, a city known more for its suburban sprawl than hip downtown living. Beginning in 2007, just as the real estate market was tanking, the first of four towers were built downtown, starting with City Heights, then Axis and The 88 and finally the 360 Residences. The 88 is the tallest of the four. It opened in late 2009, is 65 percent full, and the homeowners couldn’t seem happier.

About 30 neighbors gathered first in the “entertainment room” on the fifth floor that opens to the spalike pool and grand, tree-studded terrace. And a surprising mix of neighbors it was, from European singles working in local high-tech to a young couple who traded a 3,000-square-foot in Denver, to empty nesters who left their Redwood City home of 33 years.

The Colorado couple are Karen and Evan Mandell. They moved to San Jose in late 2009 when Karen Mandell, 37, got a job as the research director for the Mineta Transportation Institute. She gave up her car when she moved here and walks the half-mile to work.

“It’s a very simple, clean, sustainable lifestyle,” she says. (Grocery shopping is easy with a Safeway on the ground floor, her husband says. “It’s like having the world’s largest refrigerator in the basement.”)

When they sold their big Denver home and were moving to the one-bedroom unit in the high-rise, they were faced with the quandary of what to do with all their heavily carved, marble-topped Baroque-style furniture. “We sold everything but the bar,” she says.

“You have to maximize your style when you only have two or three rooms to work with,” Evan Mandell, 38, says.

In came a new white leather sectional, a triangle-shaped dining table that seats six and a can of dark red paint to add drama to the living room walls.

While Karen Mandell gave up a lot of furniture, she didn’t seem to get rid of any shoes. She has floor-to-ceiling shelves of them in her closet, which she illuminated with a pink crystal chandelier; it was one of the most popular rooms on the tour. “Who are you, Lady Gaga?” her neighbor, Rosa Passanisi, asks, peeking in.

Passanisi, who works at the U.S. Postal Service with her husband and is nearing retirement, took a different approach to decorating. She simply moved all the furniture that would fit from their Redwood City home, right down to the oak ladder-back dining room chairs. Her house is comfortable, she says. “We don’t have a showcase house.”

Mohamed “Mo” Marleen’s 14th-floor space couldn’t be more modern, from the white couch to the bubblelike chandelier and arching globe light.

Rob and Laurie Howe moved much of their traditional furniture with an Asian influence into their 17th-floor home, adding walls of storage to accommodate the extras they couldn’t part with from the 4,200-square-foot home they gave up on a half-acre in Belleview, Wash., when Rob Howe took a job at eBay.

The tour’s big reveal was one of the penthouses on the 21st floor. Engineers Paul Teixeira, 35, and Jose Mendez, 28, own this 1,700-square-foot home with two bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, 11 1/2-foot ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows. “It’s like a glass box in the air,” Teixeira says.

Teixeira was happy to give up his four-bedroom, two-story house in South San Jose that kept him doing yard work on weekends for the penthouse with the views from the eastern foothills all the way to San Francisco. Both men take the light rail to work most days. About the only things Teixeira kept from the old house were his childhood piano with the varnish flaking off (“It’s rustic and kind of weird,” Teixeria says) and the massive sectional that fit perfectly between two support columns.

“It’s that modern rustic, a cross between Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware,” he says of the comfortable, low-profile couch. “Neither of us are ultramodern. We were trying to shoot for that clean modern look, but a little bit warmer.”

The bar with the LED-illuminated shelving is new — lighting up his liquor bottles in an array of colors — along with the outsized artwork on the walls.

Before moving in, the couple modified the kitchen, adding a huge granite-topped island that has become party central. To add color to the mostly black-and-white palette, they added a trio of blue pendant lights over the island.

They also made a centerpiece on their seldom-used dining table with a giant ceramic abalone shell and blue and green blown glass that practically glows when the natural light streams through it.

As much as the couple enjoys the inside of their penthouse, it’s what’s outside that made them fall in love with it. On a clear day, they can see the Golden Gate Bridge.

Here’s the complete slideshow:

Hiding TVs has been a chronic conundrum for designers, architects and significant others who once tackled the problem in the olden days by tucking them into with furniture-like wardrobes. But 60 inches across aren’t easy to conceal. That’s why Bill Cardoza of San Jose started a business called “The Art of TV,” transforming your flat panel into a beautifully-framed mirror or a stunning piece of digital art formatted to fit your wide screen HDTV when not in use. Mona Lisa on the living room wall, anyone? You can choose from a library of digital images and rotate them as well. A family portrait can also takes its rightful place –integrated into the TV screen. The Art of TV will create a boot that consists of a custom frame and special two-way glass. The boot fits right over your existing flat panel and the two-way glass gives you the option to the display digital art or the mirror. Since each is custom, the turnaround time can take two to three weeks.
And it’s not cheap _ it costs about $3,200 for a 37-inch screen. The TV is included in the price. So, you might say it’s worth it!
And with wives now able to enjoy the look of their husbands’ electronic monstrosities, Cardoza says, “it’s better than marriage counseling.”
For more information, go to The Art of TV.

Favorite Whitter Cheddar

This week we are having Mac and Cheese. This recipe is actually a blend of two—Martha Stewart’s and Ina Garten’s. I love Martha’s for the bread crumb topping, but not the elbow macaroni or the gruyere. I love Ina’s for the penne and all the different cheeses, but not the tomatoes. I’m not a tomato hater—in fact I love them—just not in my mac and cheese. So, I made it my own. I will serve this with a big salad and all will be happy.

Delicious Gooeyness

My Mac And Cheese
Serves 12

6 slices brioche pulsed in food processor
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for dish
5 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 1/2 cups (about 18 ounces) grated sharp white cheddar
2 cups grated Havarti
1 1/4 cups Parmesan
2 pound Penne

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 3-quart casserole dish; set aside. Place bread pieces in a medium bowl. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter. Pour butter into the bowl with breadcrumbs, and toss. Set the breadcrumbs aside. In a medium saucepan set over medium heat, heat milk. Melt remaining 6 tablespoons butter in a high-sided skillet over medium heat. When butter bubbles, add flour. Cook, stirring, 1 minute.

2. Slowly pour hot milk into flour-butter mixture while whisking. Continue cooking, whisking constantly, until the mixture bubbles and becomes thick.

3. Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in salt, nutmeg, black pepper, cayenne pepper, 3 cups cheddar, and 1 1/2 cups Havarti and 1 cup of the Parmesan. Set cheese sauce aside.

4. Fill a large saucepan with water. Bring to a boil. Add penne; cook 2 to 3 fewer minutes than manufacturer’s directions, until outside of pasta is cooked and inside is underdone. Drain penne and rinse under cold running water, and drain well. Stir penne into the reserved cheese sauce.

5. Pour the mixture into the prepared casserole dish. Sprinkle remaining 1 1/2 cups cheddar and 1/2 cup Havarti and 1/4 cup Parmesan; scatter breadcrumbs over the top. Bake until browned on top, about 30 minutes. Transfer dish to a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes; serve.

This is a great home in a really sweet neighborhood. When I arrived to photograph, the first thing I noticed was the warm curb appeal. It’s nice to see a neighborhood where all the homes are well cared for. This is home would be perfect for a young family. It has 4 bedrooms and 2 baths. The kitchen has been updated and I love the pendant lights over the kitchen counter. Another added bonus in my humble opinion, are the plantation shutters. The shutters really give each room that something extra! The backyard is filled with drought resistant plants and a crushed granite walkway. The large deck with arbor means lots of outdoor dining—perfect for entertaining. You can see the rest of the tour here.

Bedrooms: 4

Baths: 2

Asking: $625,000