There were so many features I absolutely fell in love with. To start with the light fixtures over the casual dining table.  The homeowner told me she got them from flea market sale and that they had come from a See’s candy factory.  The shape is perfect, but the price was spectacular– $15 each!

Now of course another favorite was the artist studio.  My family might never see me again!  The rustic stone walls and the skylights just make you want to stop, stay and create.

The master suite was truly an escape with a large window seat and views of the city.  The master bath had all the bells and whistles from the marble counters to the elaborate dual sinks–nothing was left behind.

And, lastly one of my favorites had to be the guest bath The mirror over the vanity matched the plaster cut-out over the shower and toilet.  This remodeled home had so much thought put into the details. And,  I’m so glad they did!

This home is currently for sale. You can check out the Realtor’s virtual tour here. And if you’re in the neighborhood you should see it in person because it is one fabulous home.

Here’s the complete slideshow:

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)

When Manuel Lima was a teen-ager in the 1960s and worked at a motel on Beach Hill in Santa Cruz, he admired an old Italianate Victorian house next door so much that he sketched it — white ink on black paper. So when he came to work one day and found the Victorian had been demolished, he was devastated. That powerful emotion led to a lifelong passion when he bought his own Italianate Victorian home in 1973 in downtown San Jose. And as he worked to restore his own Victorian, he saved the rest of his neighborhood as well. “A house doesn’t make it without a neighborhood,” he said. “I wasn’t going to move the house, so I had to make the neighborhood better.”

Along with Lenore Porcella and a core group of other neighbors, Lima helped establish the Hensley Historic District. So instead of a sea of high-density housing that would have razed 200 historic homes, much of the neighborhood is still old Victorians being restored one-by-one.

“The neighborhood still has an edge to it,” Lima said,”but it’s coming along.”

When he first bought the house, though, “everyone I knew said, ‘what are you doing?’”

The house was situated between a rescue mission, the Salvation Army and railroad tracks. Broken bottles and trash littered the streets and railroad tracks. The 1879 house was old and dirty, but had maintained most of its character. And so Lima set out on a never-ending quest to bring the Victorian back to its former glory — and he’s essentially done it all himself, including putting on a new roof.

“I wanted something that I could not finish,” said Lima, 63. “I painted the outside of this four times myself. I’ve done most of the rooms at least twice.”

He knew it was wonderful when he bought it, “but I didn’t know how wonderful” until he worked on it and uncovered some of its secrets, including the tongue and groove walls in the kitchen hidden behind a 1950s remodel.

“No one did anything that wasn’t reversible,” he said. He was able to restore an old gas lamp in the kitchen.

One of the most dramatic features of the home is the wallpaper _ from Bradbury & Bradbury Art Wallpapers’ famed studio in Benicia. The company reproduces historic wallpaper designs from Victorians through Arts and Crafts, Deco and Modern. And owner Bruce Bradbury, anxious to have a show-house in the south bay, gave it to Lima at cost, Lima said. And, of course, Lima installed it himself.

“I would wallpaper from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. when no one could distract me,” said Lima, a landscaper by trade. “I needed to be left alone so I could do it as correctly as possible.”

It’s one of the first features you notice when you enter the home, from the entry hall and the “Turkish corner” with a lantern and fainting couch under the stairway, to the formal parlour and dining room. Delicate fields of color and pattern are interrupted by giant medallion flowers. Lima’s crocheted white window panels handmade by his mother and grandmother are graceful counterpoints to the paper.

This year marks the 36th anniversary of his ownership of the house, and there’s still more work to do.

“People marry other people,” Lima said. “This house is my wife.”

Related stories:
Manderley Revisted:La Selva Victorian
Los Gatos Victorian in All Its Elegance
Before and After Italianate Victorian

Here’s the complete slideshow:

It was 35 years ago when Ann and Tom Atkinson first laid eyes on the old farmhouse Victorian in Los Gatos. Almost a century old at the time, it had been home to numerous families over the decades and for a time was a boarding house. It needed a lot of work.

But this couple had vision and when they walked in, they said to each other quite simply, "Yep, this is it."

Their parents, on the other hand, "thought we were crazy," Ann said.

The house was built in 1886 on two-and-a-half acres by Grace and Levi Kimball and is considered bracketed farmhouse style. The entryhall is what first captivated the Atkinsons. The staircase is a 180-degree turned balustrade.

Over the past four decades, which included the devastating 1989 earthquake, the couple has lovingly restored and updated the gracious home. They remodeled the kitchen and family room and, when a new foundation was added after the earthquake, built a master suite above the family room.

"We call it 'Suck-A-Buck Manor,'" Ann said. "But I love this place."

The couple opened their house to more than a dozen decorators to transform the house into Christmas splendor for the Summit League Home for the Holidays tour in early December. (Here are the two other houses from the home tour, a turn-of-the-last century Craftsman and a contemporary French Chateau.)

Holiday Designers

Front Porch — Kelly Loughran, The Garden's Consultant, Los Altos

Entry, Downstairs office and Staircase — Nancy Keil, Fleur Fine Gifts & Interiors, Aptos

Dining Room — Brian Neel, Tiffany and Co., Santa Clara, and Anne Patrick, Flowers Ltd.

Master Bath — Gigi Hardy, Tapis Rouge Design, Boulder Creek

Master Bedroom — Dianne Van Voorhis, Design & Interiors, Los Gatos

Upstairs Bath — Lynne Johnson, Petale, Los Gatos

Children's Bedroom — Coleen Hickey, Saffron and Genevieve, Santa Cruz

Upstairs Office — Jan Corrie and Lorri Kagan, Collaborative Design, San Jose

Intimate Weekend Retreat — Stacey Costello Design, Scotts Valley

Living Room/Sitting Room — Patricia McDonald, Marcia Moore & Monica McAllister, McDonald & Moore Ltd, San Jose

Kitchen — Ann Timm Interior Design, Pescadero

Family Room — Judy Carollo, Presentation Designs, Los Gatos

Back Porch — Flowers by Jose Ibarra, San Jose

Laundry Room — Linda Arietta, Country Essences Flowers, Watsonville

Here's the complete slideshow:

"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)

Here’s the complete slideshow:

The Problem: Where to begin with this 1870s Italianate Victorian in San Jose’s College Park neighborhood? No foundation, only redwood sills on dirt. Pigeons in the attic. Plaster crumbling off the walls. Holes in the roof. Abandoned for five years. And, on a midnight tour by the new owner, a homeless man sleeping against the wall.

Neighbors were so thrilled to hear that Gail and James Beard planned to rescue the house,  they arranged a welcome party on the front patch of dirt with a banquet table of appetizers and wine.  The year was 1997 and the Beards had a toddler son and a baby daughter on the way. Without a foundation, the couple had to pay cash for the house. James’s boss at the time, Bobby Greenberg from Prism Technologies, believed in the Beards and believed in the house and gave the young couple a loan.

The Solution: When James first saw the house, it reminded him of his grandmother’s house in Kentucky. “I swear to God it has the same banister I slid down a thousand times as a kid,” he said.

It took two years of work _ about one year building the foundation _ before the Beard family could move in in 1999. They hired George Serpa, a general contractor and “a fantastic carpenter, which is just what this house needed,” James said. The siding was made of actual two-by-fours from old growth redwoods that termites hadn’t touched. The paint was stripped, the extensive woodwork repaired, the gutters and roof replaced and the disintegrating plaster pulled out and replaced with drywall. The Beards changed little of the original floor plan, only removing a wall between the kitchen and butler’s pantry and adding an upstairs bathroom. They built a period garage on the property and, without much of a backyard, added a wrought iron fence around the front for the kids to play. To this day, neighbors still thank them. And you can see why.

If there is such a thing as destiny, Linda and Joseph Pepper and their Blue Victorian are living proof. The house that will be one of three featured in the Autumn in the Rose Garden Homes Tour this weekend (Oct. 18-19) seemed tailored just for them. But they almost missed it. Four years ago, the Peppers were around the corner, actually, waiting for their realtor to show up to make an offer on another house. They had a little time, so they took a walk.

And there it was, the blue Victorian …

with the graceful front porch and Gothic window above. They asked for a tour and their jaws dropped every step of the way.

These Florida transplants _ Joseph is the nephew of the late U.S. Sen. Claude Pepper _ had never seen a real pepper tree. And here centered in the backyard was a grand old one with a trunk the size of patio table.

Linda is a passionate member of the Jane Austen Society _ and there stood a white gazebo under the pepper tree perfect for afternoon tea and a good read. She is also a Bible school teacher _ and hold your breath now _ a mysterious chapel with a gothic-arched ceiling was tucked into the second floor. After much investigation, they discovered that the house had once been home to priests from the nearby Greek Church.

“Some things are just meant to be,” Linda Pepper said.

Their home features antiques and china from the late senator, as well as furniture and paintings. A pair of century-old George and Martha Washington lamps adorn the master bedroom.

The house is listed on the historic registry as “The Blue Victorian.” And even if they wanted a change, the Peppers couldn’t paint the house anything but blue.

But the backyard needed a little sprucing up, so landscape designer Shannon Swain came to take a look. Like the owners, she was struck by the huge ancient pepper tree smack in the middle of the yard. She was thrilled to see it.

“So many people go in and chop down old trees,” said Shannon of ShannonGardens Landscape Design. “They’ve honored the old age of the house by leaving it and having the garden grow around it.”

She focused on the sunny raised beds and set about planting a sustainable garden, with vegetables, herbs and flowers, too.

Placing a ceramic pot in the center and adding wooden teepee poles, Shannon planted string beans and snap peas, then kale, broccoli, red cabbage and an artichoke. A cutting garden of sun flowers, daisies and chrysanthemums was also added.

“You can have a vegetable garden and still have a beautifully aesthetic garden, too,” she said. “It’s what I like to think of as a French country garden. They always integrate flowers and vegetables into garden settings.’”

The garden now is not only beautiful, it’s sustainable.

The other homes on the tour include a 1930s Georgian house with a secret stairway, a new home with every luxury, and an estate garden where a tea and luncheon will be served.

When: Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 18-19, 2008. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: Tour begins at 1262 University Ave, San Jose
Tickets: $30 in advance. $35 at the door. Lunch tickets, $13.
Benefitting St. Martin of Tours School, San Jose.

Here’s the complete slideshow: