The downturn of the economy has a lot of people re-thinking, well just about everything. While the luxury vacation is being put on hold, staycations are gaining in popularity. This week we’re giving you a peek at a beach house rental that was featured on the 2005 Santa Cruz Architect’s Tour.

This home has 4 bedrooms and 3 full baths. Entering on the ground floor you will find a large family room, kitchen, 2 bedrooms and a full bath. Upstairs has a great room, another kitchen, dining room, 2 bedrooms and 2 full baths. The balcony off the great room and dining area has the most amazing white water views. The amenities are abundant.

• Outdoor Fire-Pit
• Outdoor Shower for surfers
• Large Gas Grill
• Hot Tub
• Wireless Internet
• 2 Fireplaces
• TV/DVD in every bedroom
• Large Library of book, board games, puzzles and poker chips
• Crib Available
• Handicap Accessible

And one of the best amenities is the location — just steps to the West Cliff ocean-edge promenade. Imagine strolling down to the pier or The Boardwalk with the ocean breeze bringing you the all important negative ions!

To rent this fabulous beach house check out rates and availability here.

Warning: Sunscreen Advised

Related stories:
Aptos Beach House
Manderley Revisited in La Selva Beach

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When San Jose floral designer Jose Ibarra set a stunning Easter table for Lookiloos, he promised that anyone could do it. Just pull out some old — and even broken — things from your cabinets and take some clippers into the garden and you, too, could elevate Easter brunch to a “wabi sabi” art form. That’s the Japanese way of finding beauty in imperfection.

So Lookiloos photographer Desiree Northend and I took him up on the challenge. We made a slight modification — instead of an Easter brunch, we set the table for a friend’s birthday brunch in Santa Cruz. But we tried to emulate the spirit of the table in every other way. You be the judge about how we matched up. Here’s what we did:

1. Broken Can Be Beautiful: Jose took an old broken urn and said he glued it back together. I went into my backyard and found the remains of a wire plant stand (with a broken top) and pulled it out from under a bush. Jose added texture with an old linen tablecloth. Desiree pulled out a vintage white tablecloth from her cupboard and I added a sheet of burlap from my shed.

2. Vary Heights on the Table: Jose started high at the back of the table with the tall urn, then stepped downward with a shorter planter, a vintage scale for scones, upside-down cups as risers for juice glasses, and stacked plates and fruit. Desiree found a strawberry pot to replicate the texture and height of the urn. I pulled out a shorter, galvanized metal planter from my sideyard. Desiree grabbed some little metal buckets she had left over, flipped them and mounted juice glasses on them. She also had a foot-tall, cast iron birdbath from her front porch for pastries.

3. Add Flowers: Jose had a huge bunch of fresh lilacs in the urn and white orchids in the smaller planter. Not wanting to spend money on lilacs, I grabbed a pair of scissors and tiptoed through a vacant lot for purple weeds, er, wildflowers. Desiree picked up a white hydrangea at Trader Joe’s.

4. Add Whimsy: Jose placed some classic yellow chicks on the table along with a vintage chocolate bunny mold. I violated the wabi sabi code when I found a weathered-looking bunny at T.J. Maxx and bought it for $6.99. The concrete snail with the broken ear under my orange tree could have worked, but that bunny was so cute!

5. Be Thoughtful: Jose wrapped eggs in egg carton containers and tied them with pretty ribbon. We found linen cocktail napkins emblazoned with the birthday girl’s initial, wrapped them around the silverware and tied with a pretty ribbon. Unlike Jose’s table, we added champagne. It’s a girls’ weekend, right?

How close did we come? You decide. Better yet, try it yourself and let us know how close you came.

(photographs by Desiree Northend)

You might also enjoy these stories:
Wabi Sabi: Where the Imperfect is Beautiful
Aptos Beach House
Valentine’s Day Decorating Tips: How to Make Paper Roses
Los Gatos: Bianco – A Home and Garden Shop All in White
St. Patrick’s Day Table Decorating Ideas: Going Green on a Budget
Wisteria Antiques and Design – Soquel
Carmel Valley Cabin – Back to Nature

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"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."

Manderley is the exquisite estate by the sea made famous in the opening line of "Rebecca," a classic 1938 romantic thriller by British author Daphne Du Maurier. And when I first drove up the country lane toward La Selva Beach last weekend, through the eucalyptus groves and farm fields, and laid eyes on the gleaming white estate perched alone on a hilltop overlooking the sea, that famous line coursed through my brain.

Even the name of the lane _ Sanderling Hill _ has a Manderley ring to it. It might not look like Du Maurier’s Manderley, but to me it feels like it _ a house that was as much a character in the book as Rebecca herself. In the novel, Manderley holds dark secrets. On Sanderling Hill, the setting sun envelopes it in a golden glow, but it still has a sense of mystery around it. It’s a house that has the bearing of a building that has withstood the fog and the wind and the sun and the salt for generations. It is an 1872 Italianate Victorian and has stories of its own, including the fact that it was literally quartered and moved from its original site in Watsonville just a decade ago to its present location down the road from Seascape and closer to Santa Cruz.

In all its 136 years, it has only been owned by three families: the Palmtags who owned a Watsonville brewery and built the house, the Muzzios who held great parties there since the 1920s, and the Bowens who rescued it in 1998. And perhaps soon, a fourth family may own it. The house is for sale, along with the four acres of farmland and a newly-built carriage house.

My friend, Maria, first spotted the house returning from a camping trip to the beach. She grabbed a flier and, like me, has been obsessing ever since. It’s listed by Sotheby’s for nearly $2.7 million, a lower price than either of us expected, but still the stuff of fantasy.

"I want to have my family for Thanksgiving dinner in that dining room," she said.

Now I dream of it, too.

The house had been condemned after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. And as much as Marina Muzzio hated to leave the house she grew up in, the plaster was crumbling off the walls and the brick fireplaces had been reduced to rubble. The neighborhood along the banks of the Pajaro River had also deteriorated and investing hundreds of thousands of dollars or more to restore it didn’t seem to make sense. The city of Watsonville acquired it and offered it up for $1 to the family with the best proposal to relocate and restore it.

Julie and Dayle Bowen, who had two young sons and already restored a Victorian in Santa Cruz, were awarded the Palmtag-Muzzio Mansion.

They purchased four acres of farmland in La Selva beach, hired a house mover, and replanted it on the hilltop with its handsome balcony facing the lights of Santa Cruz across Monterey Bay. The kitchen and huge dining room look out to the ocean. The living room parlour looks down the sloping hillside over the organic row crops. The exterior of the house remains at is did in the 19th century, although the interior was relatively unadorned at the time. The Bowens assume the Palmtags might have run out of money to do the finishing touches. So when the Bowens stripped down the crumbling plaster walls to move the house, there was little ornamentation to preserve. When they put the house back together, they added picture rails and crown molding and widened the entrance to the living room. A fifth bedroom upstairs was converted to a bathroom, and the master bedroom was downsized a bit to include a master bath. The floors upstairs are original. Many of the windows still have the old wavy glass.

Julie Bowen restored the old house as a project. Now, she’s itching to do another one. Maybe she will look back and dream again of Sanderling Hill. Maybe the next family will buy it to live in for the next 100 years. No matter who comes to live here and what stories they will bring, this much is certain: this house has a character of its own.

(Photos by Marty Forsyth)

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What happens when a former buyer for Asian-inspired Gump’s in San Francisco, who manages a French-inspired home and garden shop in Aptos, buys a nondescript tract home in Freedom?

Something special, you can be sure.

With the orange and blue colors of Imari porcelain, personal collections of mother of peal compacts, a French end table, and a room painted in none other than “Gump’s red,” Temia Demakopoulos has created a unique sanctuary in an ordinary box.

She loves her Greek Orthodox heritage, and has adorned a wall in her master bedroom with religious icons. But when it comes to her overall decor, Asian wins every time.

“Once the Asian bug bites you,” Temia said, “you can never get beyond it.”

She fell in love with all things Asian as a child growing up in Palo Alto next to a Japanese family. She served tea to her family and collected wooden Kokeshi dolls _ the kind that open to reveal a series of smaller dolls.

She studied art history at U.C. Berkeley, then got a job at Gump’s in San Francisco as a buyer of Asian antiques, where she stayed for 15 years. She still catches her breath when she remembers the loads of colorful Japanese porcelain piled high across the Gump’s work table at 250 Post Street. “That was it,” she said. “That was it.”

She has collected antiques for 30 years. So when it came time for her to buy a house in 2002 not far from her job at Wisteria in Aptos, “I bought the house to fit my furniture.”

With collections from Gump’s, street fairs, flea markets and dealer sources, she turned the 1,600 square-foot, white-walled house into an elegant, interesting, colorful space.

While she has large Asian pieces, like old Tansu chests and table lamps, most of her collections are smaller and easy to rotate and fit into her small space.

She enjoys her etchings of Ryohei Tanaka, her dolls and compacts, and for the fall, her collection of artistic persimmons.

Other than painting the walls, she hasn’t modified the interiors much. But she did swap out the carpeting for wood floors. Oak, you might ask? Guess again. Temia chose bamboo.

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Walk into Center Street Antiques and Interiors in Soquel, and hang a quick left. Among the 23 dealers sharing space in this home and garden cooperative is a space of such scale and texture you practically stop in awe.

Antique garden statuary, a giant palladium window-turned-mirror, rustic Greek amphoras, blue-striped linen sacks. This is the space of Trinidad Castro, who calls his French import business Atelier de Campagne. If you go to his website, you can be added to his email list for invitations to his container sale from his warehouse in Freedom, near Watsonville.

At his space at Center Street Antiques (at 3010 Center Street at the corner of Soquel Street), you feel the history of his pieces. Old gray French amoires, shimmering chandeliers. There’s no real bargain here, though. Chipped red bistro chairs are $250 a piece. The Greek urns are $2,095. The linen sacs are $95 a piece. But they are authentic, and they feel and look like it.

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Lookiloos met up with staging guru Sylvia D’Anna owner of Staging Artists and learned that there is more to staging than meets the eye.   Check out the before and after pics on their site.

Q. Why is staging so important?

A. In today’s competitive real estate market, …

… which strongly favors buyers, staging has become a necessity for selling a home quickly and for top dollar. For a property to stand out and win the hearts and minds of buyers, it needs to look its best.

The rise of online virtual tours makes staging all the more important. If potential buyers aren’t impressed by what they see online, they are likely not to visit the property at all.

Q. Should all homes be staged?

A. In the case of unoccupied homes, which are unfurnished or only partially furnished, the answer is absolutely yes. Most fully furnished and occupied homes also need staging, although the extent of the needed re-design will vary from one property to another.  I haven’t encountered one yet that couldn’t benefit from the recommendations of an experienced stager.

Q. How do you choose the style for each home?

A. Several factors contribute to this decision, including the architectural style of the home, the fixtures installed in the home, and the demographics of prospective buyers. For example, a contemporary look may work well in a stylish townhouse but not in a Mediterranean style villa. Here’s where the judgment and resources of a proven, experienced stager become critical.

Q. Do certain colors work for staging?

A. If applied wisely, colors can be very important. Garish or eccentric colors for walls, rugs and window treatments may need to be replaced. While neutral colors work well in these areas, accents of bright colors such as red or teal can add "pop" that impresses in-person buyers and stands out in Internet photos.

Q. What was your most elaborate staging project?

A. When you’ve staged hundreds of homes, as we have, many different projects come to mind. They include a medical office being converted to family home, special suites for testing home video conferencing products at Cisco Systems, and several estates of 10,000 square feet or more that listed for upward of $6 million dollars.

Q. With all the homes you stage, how do you keep each one looking unique?

A. Every home is indeed unique and requires its own solution. We maintain a large inventory consisting of thousands of items of furniture and accessories, and for some clients we will customize artwork. An effective stager will always find the best solution that fits the home—not a cookie cutter solution that fits the limited inventory or budget of the stager.

The internet is an amazing place.  Today I was wandering around looking at blogs of home design and came across Hooked on Houses.  Hooked on Houses is sponsoring a virtual open home tour.  What a great idea! Wonderful homes from all over open to view….a true Lookiloo find!

We at Lookiloos are happy to share a wonderful beach house with 10 acres of beach front property. A very rare find, but California style at its finest.  Check it out here.