I Saw the Light

After browsing the fourth different version of the Pottery Barn holiday catalog (sometimes I think they just rearrange the order of the pages and slap on a new cover every week), I decided that our porch needs a little update before Christmas.

I’m not talking about PB’s lanterns and garlands and light-strung topiaries and $90 wreaths. Not that I don’t admire those things – I really, really do – but a pair of poinsettias and some strands of C7s are more in my price range right now.

 No, I’m thinking of a more lasting improvement, like replacing our rusty, cobweb-encrusted porch light (though, ahem, touching up the trim around the door might not hurt, either).

A new light fixture is a relatively small update that will look extra warm and inviting in the winter, but will also add some much-needed class to our porch all year round.

 As usual, though, we can’t make up our minds. 

 Do we want to go for arts and crafts flair, like one of these lamps from Old California Lantern Company? On the one hand, it would be a perfect match for our new Craftsman door. On the other hand, these guys don’t come cheap.

 This one feels like something a 49er might carry down into a gold mine.

Then there’s the classic black arts and crafts lantern from Rejuvenation.

But I’m also drawn to this simple clear globe  from Pottery Barn – which just so happens to be on sale.

This coppery PB lantern isn’t bad, either.

Or how about Restoration Hardware’s elegant Victorian lantern, complete with faux candles?

 It’s hard to say. In the meantime, the plan is to wrap so many Christmas lights around the front porch that visiting friends and relatives won’t notice our tarnished light and nicked-up trim (fingers crossed).

Photos from Pottery Barn, Old California Lantern, Rejuvenation and Restoration Hardware.

Homes for the Holidays

I know it’s a tad bit early, but I’ve been doing some window shopping and I think I found what I want for Christmas.

 

What’s the only thing better than a restored 1906 Craftsman? A restored 1906 Craftsman located on an island in San Francisco Bay, of course.

Okay, so we’re not even in the market for a new house – let alone one going for prices like this. But I like to keep my eye on what’s out there in Northern California. I call it research – very important research. Here are some of my very important findings.

 The porch alone was enough to sell me on this one. The red door is just the icing on the cake.

If Craftsmans are my favorite, Dutch-Colonials are a close second.  

Of course, nothing beats a big ol’ Victorian in gold country. I grew up around here, and home is where the heart is.

 

Something tells me I’m going to have to settle for a new coffee maker this year. And maybe some warm socks. But it doesn’t hurt to dream, right?

Photos via listings on Realtor.com. Click on pics for more details.

Haunted California Coast

I was totally going to skip the classic haunted house post for a lighthearted write-up on cute little early 20^th Century beach houses. But with a dark and stormy afternoon at Half Moon Bay fogging up the lens of my point-and-shoot faster than I could wipe it clean, our recent weekend getaway – and my post plans – turned out to be a wash, no pun intended.

Exploring the famously pumpkin-happy beach towns just south of San Francisco was a treat despite the weather, but at times I couldn’t help wishing we’d just made a detour to the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose instead.

 As luck would have it, we stumbled upon another historic haunted building – the Moss Beach Distillery.

Photos from MossBeachDistillery.com

I don’t know about you, but when I think of speakeasies, my mind turns to Chicago and New York. But apparently one of the most successful of the illegal ventures was located right here, perched on the bank of a particularly rough piece of coastline best known for the annual big wave surf contest Mavericks.

 

Rum runners would lug booze up the steep cliffs and into vehicles headed for San Francisco speakeasies, all under the cover of fog and darkness. Of course, some of the liquor seemed to always end up in the basement of the little stucco building, then known as “Frank’s Place,” where owner Frank Torres mingled with silent film stars and Bay Area politicians. And thanks to his high-up connections, “Frank’s Place” was never raided.

 But not everybody had a good time. According to legend, one of the patrons was a young, married mother carrying on an affair with the bar’s piano player. On one of her many trips to and from the restaurant, she was killed in a car crash. Members of the restaurant staff claim to have seen the woman’s ghost, always dressed in blue, searching the restaurant for her lover. Occasionally, they report unexplained phenomena, like altered dates in the computer system, earrings that go missing from female customers and levitating checkbooks. The Blue Lady has even been featured Unsolved Mysteries – in fact, I remember seeing the episode at my grandparents’ house, where my brother and I always crammed in as many episodes of UM as we could (for some reason, our parents  just weren’t fans of the seedy storylines and cheesy reenactments).

We didn’t have an opportunity to eat in the restaurant. But I have dined at another supposedly haunted eatery – and stayed in the place’s haunted hotel.

The quirkily constructed chalet-style Brookdale Inn in the Santa Cruz Mountains is as famous for the creek that runs right through the restaurant as it is for the child ghosts said to haunt the premises (apparently they drowned in the stream).

Photos from Brookdale Inn & Spa

I don’t even believe in ghosts, and being left alone in one of the creaky, semi-rundown rooms in the 1890s building for five minutes gave me the creeps.Then again, everything in the overgrown redwoods surrounding Santa Cruz can feel a bit cobwebby and creepy.

And of course, there’s the granddaddy of all California haunted houses – the infamous Winchester Mystery House.

Photos from WinchesterMysteryHouse.com photo gallery

You might already know the story. Sarah Winchester, widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester, visits a psychic after the death of her husband in the early 1880s. The medium convinces her that the Winchester family is cursed because of the lives taken by her husband’s rifles. Somehow, Sarah gets it in her head that she needs to move west and build a house to honor the spirits – and to appease them, she must never stop building.

Over the next 38 years, she uses her multi-million dollar inheritance to fabricate a sprawling, fantastical Victorian mansion with 160 rooms and seven stories (though the highest buildings were reduced to a measly four stories after the 1906 earthquake).

 

But this wasn’t an ordinary large house. Remember, she had to keep building, even if her blueprints didn’t exactly make sense. That meant adding 47 fireplaces, 17 chimneys, 10,000 window panes, two basements and three elevators.

It meant installing staircases that led to the ceiling

putting in doors that opened not to decks, but to multi-story drops

and using patterns that contained eery details and her lucky number, 13, whenever possible (this is the window in the 13th bathroom).

There was also the much talked about tiny upstairs Séance room, though some say her belief in the paranormal has been embellished – and it was relatively common for Victorian era society to hold séances and consult psychics.

In the end, continued construction couldn’t prevent the inevitable – Sarah Winchester died in 1922, after which time the behemoth residence finally came to rest.

Whether or not you believe in ghost stories, the Winchester Mystery House is one of the best examples of Queen Anne architecture on the West Coast. I’ve been on the tour twice, and I’m still itching to go back – maybe someday I’ll make one of the All Hallows’ Eve flashlight tours.

So that’s my haunted house/restaurant/hotel roundup. Hope everyone has a scary good Halloween!

Getting a Handle on Hardware

It’s all coming back to me now.

After spending weeks poring over magazines and swatches and brochures for my parents’ kitchen remodel, I’m starting to recall just how many little details it takes to make a blueprint a reality. Sure, there are the paint colors and cabinet styles – that’s the easy part. But do you want your cabinet doors to have a regular overlay, full overlay or a flush inset? Do you want your countertops to have a mitered or non-mitered edge? Will cabinet hinges be hidden or visible? So many choices.

It’s enough to make even the most prepared planner’s head spin.

The latest do-or-die decision involves hardware. Home Depot and Lowe’s have a decent selection of contemporary handles and knobs, but they don’t fare so well with the traditional end of the spectrum.

Fortunately, I’ve been able to introduce Mom and Dad to specialty companies like Rejuvenation, White Chapel and Van Dyke’s Restorers. (Fun fact: I just learned that Van Dyke’s is owned by Cabela’s, the hardcore hunting/fishing/outdoors superstore – weird.)

Anywho, I knew what I wanted before I knew where to find it: shiny nickel-plated Shaker bin pulls for drawers and latches for cabinets. Van Dyke’s selection fit the bill perfectly.

I’d be happy to see my parents go with the same, but I’m also excited to see the outcome of something different.

Like glass hardware that mimics the classic crystal door knob, for instance.

Or traditional arts and crafts choices like square knobs and dangling drawer pulls.

Then there are the medieval-looking strap hinges that conjur up images of a cute Tudor Revival cottage. I can’t believe I couldn’t find a photo of a kitchen with these guys.

I like to imagine those cast iron hinges on white cabinets – I love the contrast of black hardware in a light kitchen.

Hardware is sort of the icing on the cake – it’s not going to make or break the room, but it really adds a finishing touch. But enough about what I like – what’s your favorite old house hardware style?

Images from Kitchens.com, Van Dyke’s Restorers, Plain & Fancy Custom Cabinetry, Rejuvenation and CrownPoint Cabinetry. Click on photos for more info.

Home Business

I can’t count the number of times I’ve gotten excited over a cute little cottage with a for-sale sign in the front yard, only to realize it’s zoned for commercial.

Sometimes it seems like half the historic homes in my town have been converted into businesses.

And while I think a mom and pop coffee shop can make a charming resident for a little old bungalow, it seems like an old house’s character and quirks sort of go to waste when it becomes, say, a law or insurance office.

And does it get any quirkier than this one’s brick wall?

I guess I like to be able to picture myself living in an old place – and a parking lot out front and fast-food joint next door disrupt my daydreams.

Of course, I’m probably missing the point. Most converted houses are situated on busy thoroughfares– good for business, not so good for raising your family. Then there’s the historic preservation aspect. I’m thankful that I live in a city where businesses and planning departments had the fortitude to preserve many (though certainly not all) of our old buildings. Better that the houses be used than left vacant and, ultimately, torn down.

Still, I sometimes imagine myself buying one of these businesses and turning it back into a home. But you know what would be even cooler?  Converting a historic school, church or – believe it or not – a post office into a home. Wish I had the guts to take on a project like this one.

Michael Luppino/This Old House

 U.S. Post Office becomes first-class home

Tour Guide

Access to cool apps was the reason I bought my iPhone – yet I’m usually too much of a cheapskate to actually pay for them. But I may have to make an exception for some of the new historic architecture apps.

It started when I learned about FanGuide’s collection of mobile guides featuring stories, photos, maps, audio and video of Prairie School style architecture in Illinois and modern architecture in L.A.

I can’t wait to try out the Los Angeles app, but, while I appreciate Frank Lloyd Wright as much as the next girl, it got me wondering if there were any programs focused on the kind of older architecture that’s more my forte.

Turns out New Orleans, Charleston and Savannah (all on my vacay wish list) have walking tour apps centered on historic homes, buildings and districts. There’s also a similar app for Montreal.

On the west coast, What Happened Here? offers up historic trivia based on sites in San Francisco and L.A. (for instance, did you know the first electronic image was transmitted from the bottom of Telegraph Hill, marking the birth of TV? Or where Robert Louis Stevenson lived and wrote in San Fran?)

It’s a little early for Halloween, but Wicked Walks provides information about supposedly haunted old houses and locales across the U.S.

Finally, Historic Places is a more general app that searches your current location for districts, sites, buildings and objects with historical significance.

So that’s the run-down for now. I’m crossing my fingers that some techie Craftsman fans are hard at work on a few bungalow neighborhood tours at this very moment.

Humboldt Gingerbread

If there’s a dream job for an old house lover, it’s got to be running a bed-and-breakfast like the Gingerbread Mansion, a famously ornate Victorian home in Ferndale, Calif.

As it turns out, the position might be available. We noticed the inn was closed during our annual visit, and locals confirmed that the mansion is now bank-owned – and could soon be up for sale (for around 900K, we were told).

Personally I don’t know that I’d make a good inn owner since I’m not the best at making small talk with strangers. But it might be worth a shot to live in a place like this.

The Victorian Inn down the street – our usual lodging – isn’t too shabby, either.

Photo by tmvogel/Flickr

Of course, even the Gingerbread’s gingerbread looks like store-bought cookies compared to the ornamentation on another local stunner, the Carson Mansion.

Possibly the most outrageous Victorian building in California – well, except for the storied Winchester Mystery House – lumber baron William Carson’s green-shingled castle is a NorCal coast landmark.

Just across the street, Carson had a humble little abode built for his son as a wedding gift. Today it’s known as the Pink Lady.

Ferndale (pictured below) has been called the best preserved Victorian village in California by the Los Angeles Times, and This Old House voted Eureka one of the Best Places to Buy a Queen Anne in the U.S.

I’m not sure why Humboldt County has done such an unusually amazing job preserving its historic architecture. Maybe they didn’t have the economic means to bulldoze and rebuild with the rest of the state, considering Eureka’s median income is roughly half the California average. Maybe the arts and culture-focused residents saw the unique beauty in their whimsical old buildings when everyone else valued sleek, modern and new. Maybe there’s just something magical about the fog-shrouded communities bordering redwood forests, Humboldt Bay and the mysterious Lost Coast, an area of the Golden State that is – remarkably– still untouched.

Whatever the reason, the result is a trip back in time.

Victorian Gardens

When the thermometer inches towards 100 degrees and my garden is looking sad and wilted, I dream of the lush, green gardens of Ferndale.

Every summer we spend a weekend in the remarkably well-preserved Victorian village on the Northern California coast.

Ferndale yards epitomize the old house garden – you know, the kind of garden your grandma had. Think big bushy hydrangeas, dahlias the size of your head, climbing roses, shaped shrubs and tucked away patios with tiny tables and chairs – formal English garden meets whimsical cottage garden, if you will. Of course, Ferndale is better known for its old houses, dairy cows and some of the movies filmed here than it is for its landscaping, but I’ll get to that another day.

When we get there, we always park under these guys, the gumdrop trees.

Plants of all kinds thrive in the town’s temperate coastal air.

One of the bed-and-breakfasts, the Gingerbread Mansion, is known for its Victorian gardens, full of fuschia, fountains and hummingbirds.

But my favorite garden in town is a lot more informal. It’s the farm garden at Fern Cottage, built in 1886 by the pioneering Russ family and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Never mind the hose in this photo. It’s a working farm – see the wooden chicken coop in the back?

My thumb isn’t green enough to recreate these landscapes in the climate at home, but that’s just an excuse to keep coming back.

What style is my old house?

So maybe you recognize that Victorians were built during the Victorian era, but you’re still unclear about how to distinguish between Queen Anne and Shingle-style (or Folk Victorian and Italianate, etc). Maybe you’ve determined that you live in a California bungalow, but wonder what differentiates it from a standard Crafstman (well, other than the fact that yours is probably located in California) or a Spanish Revival bungalow. Or maybe you own a newer home and wonder whether it has any style at all.

Fortunately, just as there is a field guide for every kind of North American flora and fauna you can imagine, there is a guide to America’s architecture. Actually, there are several, though A Field Guide to American Houses by Virginia McAlester is arguably the most well-known. Others include The Visual Dictionary of American Architecture, American Houses: A Field Guide to the Architecture of the Home, and, for those of you with one of the aforementioned newer homes, A Field Guide to Contemporary American Architecture.

There are also some excellent online resources, my favorite being the Home Style Guide at About.com: Architecture. It includes loads of gorgeous photos along with a wealth of information, not just about home style but also renovation, building plans, history and more.