Lookiloos Inside Stories

Inspired by Childhood Farmhouse, Monterey Colonial House is all Americana

When she was a girl, Bebe Cassin and her younger brother would be sent on a train from California to Illinois, where they would spend summers on their grandparent's farm. After a day riding the tractor and helping with the wheat harvest, she would return to the simple farmhouse and settle in with a good book, her grandmother's quilts and the smell of pies baking in the oven.

It left a lasting impression.

"It made me love anything country," she said.

Now, the house in Los Altos Hills she shares with her husband, B.J. Cassin, is in many ways an homage to rustic Americana. And it is has become the communal gathering place of their five children and seven grandchildren that - as Bebe likes to say - aren't allowed to live outside a three-mile radius of the family home.

From early American pie safes to antique sideboards to folk art on the walls, Bebe has spent a lifetime finding pieces she loves.

"Luckily, B.J. went along with my collecting," she said of her husband of 48 years, a venture capitalist and philanthropist. "I'm glad he doesn't like modern - it would never have worked out.''

While the house is not farmhouse in style like her grandparents', it is a classic white Monterey Colonial, providing a fresh backdrop to her favorite reds, whites and blues. And the couple have graciously opened it to numerous fund-raisers, most recently to benefit the Los Altos History Museum.

A curving country road takes visitors up to the three-acre, manicured estate, dripping with oaks and hydrangeas. On first approach, the three-story rear of the house, bedecked with windows, reveals itself. Down below, a vineyard is ripening fruit, readying for its first year of production for the couple's "Red Setter" label named after their favorite breed of dogs.

Winding around to the front of the house, past the caretaker's cottage, swimming pool and tennis court, a whitewashed gate beckons visitors into the front courtyard. Wicker settees with fluffy Nantucket blue pillows and a Jasper Johns-style American flag painting hanging under the eaves welcome you in.

The couple purchased the property in 1990, when only their last child remained at home. They remodeled the kitchen and opened up the servants' quarters into a large, vaulted-ceiling family room. In the loft above, Bebe keeps her collection of antique dolls, quilts and pull toys that are at the ready for her grandchildren to play with. In the house hang two folk paintings by Charles Wysocki. Bebe also acquired an old wagon that reminds her of her grandfather's wagon on the farm and turned it into a coffee table in the sun room.

While the pool and tennis court used to be down below where the vineyard is now, they rebuilt the pool and tennis court on higher ground across from the front courtyard to take advantage of the sunshine. Downstairs, in what used to be the dressing rooms for the pool, the Cassins converted the space to a wine cellar with an antique round chopping block for tastings, and a playroom with a billiards table that is kid-central during the couple's annual Christmas party.

Bebe keeps some of her favorite pieces closest to her. An antique secretary and a Lincoln rocker that belonged to her great grandparents ornament the master bedroom and her great-grandmother's lavender quilt is nearby in the loft.

They remind her of her childhood in Illinois. And whenever she thinks of those days, "I just love that whole feeling."

Update:

This post is featured in the San Jose Mercury News Home and Garden section here.

Here's the complete slideshow:

Willow Glen: Spanish-Style Home with a Dining Room Fireplace

Becky Fricke had fantasized that one day she would have a fireplace in her dining room. "I thought it was a pipe dream," she said.

But destiny seemed set.

The couple were taking a walk through their Willow Glen neighborhood when they noticed the For Sale sign in front of a charming Spanish bungalow with a red tile roof and a brick-walled courtyard in the front. The house was empty.

She peeked in, and there it was. The curved plaster fireplace with green tile trim was nestled in the corner of the room. And an alcove next to it looked like the perfect size for their large credenza. They moved from window to window, looking into the large living room and master bedroom in the back.

"We knew it when we saw it," she said. "It has Old World charm. The floor plan is great. We have three young kids. We just knew when we saw it it would work out for us."

The couple has maintained the original floor plan, but added a counter-height breakfast bar in the nook. They replaced a modern jacuzzi tub with an old-fashioned clawfoot tub and finished the small basement, converting it into a cozy wine cellar/tasting room.

Just off the master bedroom at the back of the house is another stunning fireplace -- this one in the backyard. The couple completely re-landscaped the small space, removing grass and building a patio, fireplace and fountains. A trellis behind the fireplace gives the yard total privacy.

The couple opened the house for the Willow Glen Home Tour in early May. Willow Glen Home and Garden shop on Lincoln Avenue helped get it ready in all its fine detail.

The house is not quite 1,900 square feet, but works just fine for this young family. The living room doubles as the family and TV room. With a flat screen TV from The Art of TV (www.theartoftv.com), based in San Jose, the screen appears as a beautifully-framed mirror when not in use.

(photographs by Desiree Northend)

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Here's the complete slideshow:

Portola Valley: Green and Sustainable House on a Hill

Not much surprised Iris Harrell's family when she left Virginia in her 20s to work as a history teacher on a Navajo Indian reservation, then toured the country for five years as a guitar player and singer in a pop and country band.

But when she put on a tool belt in her 30s and started doing carpentry, "they thought, 'Have you lost your mind?'"

It all made perfect sense to Harrell, who is 62 now and CEO of her own Harrell Remodeling company based in Mountain View.

"If you can control a public school sixth period class on Friday afternoon and you can control drummers and other free-spirited, independent people and travel all over the country," she said, "it's pretty powerful training."

For the past three decades, she's been orchestrating designers, carpenters and subcontractors to create beautiful homes for people all over the Peninsula. She finally was able to focus on her own home in Portola Valley, which she shares with her partner of 30 years, Ann Benson. They completed a major remodel last year that is both universal -- meaning it works for all ages and abilities -- and it's sustainable, meaning it's "green" and has a roof with 54 solar panels. They built it as much for Benson's 91-year-old mother as themselves. They installed an elevator as well as a bathroom vanity that lowers to wheelchair height.

The couple was first drawn to the area when they visited a friend in the Portola Valley Ranch subdivision, an early 1980s-era development of 200 homes nestled among hills, oaks and meadows. A nature corridors runs through the development, so wildlife is free to meander. That means all gardening is relegated to a fenced-in "community garden" near the pool and tennis courts. In 1992, the house that was built as the developer's office -- with 10 "bedrooms", one-and-a-half bathrooms and no kitchen -- came on the market. Harrell and Benson, seeing the potential, took it "as is".

They did a temporary remodel back then to reconfigure the house to a four-bedroom, with a kitchen. But in July, they finished a substantial remodel, turning it into a showcase of modern green technology as well as comfortable, lifelong living. They started with a demolition party and invited Benson's mother and her friends from their San Francisco senior citizens' home. But many in wheelchairs and walkers couldn't navigate the hillside house.

What a difference a remodel makes. They built a wooden ramp from the street level down to the front door, winding through oak trees along the way. They removed a wall in the entry hall and a closet in the living room to open the vista from the front door through the living room and out to the hillside views. To make the living room with 14-foot ceilings seem more intimate, they hung what they call "lighted quilts" from the ceiling. Made of glass that is stained in traditional quilt patterns, the floating piece of art is an homage to Benson's love of quilting.

They reconfigured the kitchen to allow for "hers and hers" refrigerators and sinks. Since Benson is the main chef for the couple, her fridge stores all the fresh food for cooking. With Harrell's fridge, on the other hand, "you take it out and eat it or put it in the microwave."

The kitchen opens to a small eating area as well as an intimate sitting area that faces an energy-saving, gas fireplace, one of five in rooms throughout the house. They provide their main source of heat and turn them on only when they spend time in those rooms.

They also made "green" plans to cool the house, especially when the morning sun pours into the living room on hot summer mornings. They installed exterior "European Rolling Shutters" that not only descend at the push of a button, but flap shut.

The laundry room doubles as a kitchenette for the downstairs master bedroom. Except for towels, they hang up all their clothes to line dry across the long back wall. A heated counter top for folding dries the moisture from the air.

They installed a sauna in the master bath and curbless showers for the day when they might need wheelchairs themselves. The house has won several awards for universal and green design, including most recently the National Contractor of the Year Award from the National Remodelers Association (NARI) for Residential Universal Design.

This house, Harrell and Benson say, is their "forever house."

When they completed the remodel last summer, including the ramp and elevator, Benson's mother and her friends from the senior home returned for a "wrap" party. They all easily navigated the space.

(Photographs by Bill Enos. Harrell and Benson portrait by Desiree Northend.)

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Update:

This post is featured in the San Jose Mercury News Home and Garden section here.

Here's the complete slideshow:

Collecting Art: A Passionate Art Collector Turns Home into Gallery

David Sussman started his art collection 45 years ago. He was a student at Boston University and picked up a Miro print for $15. He's come a long way from the east coast to San Jose's Rose Garden neighborhood, where his home -- inside and out -- has become a gallery of local art. And with the help of a noted painter who challenged him along the way, he developed a more daring collection.

The house itself is a handsome, two-story Georgian built in the 1930s, with gray stucco and a red front door -- a house that some might say lends itself to a traditional approach. But step inside, and you realize there is nothing predictable about it. Walk into the living room and a great white skull emanating spokes of graffiti stops you cold. An L.A. city street scene over the mantel pulls you into an edgy neighborhood. And filling the dining room wall hangs a figure of a contemplative, graying woman named Theta -- a work that marked a turning point for him.

"Buying art is like buying ties," said Sussman, a family lawyer. "If you buy just what you like right now, all the ties in your collection will look the same."

Sussman began appreciating more challenging works when he met Katherine Levin Lau at an open studio event more than a decade ago. He was drawn to the large painting of Theta. He had favored abstract works before, but found himself drawn to this figure.

"He said it was unlike anything he owned," said Levin Lau, a former San Jose State lecturer who shows her work internationally. Still, he bargained with her.

"I'll give you 20 percent off," she conceded.

"Let this be your lesson," Sussman told her. "I would have paid full price."

And so began a long friendship, from which both have learned and benefitted.

And they started together at the De Anza Flea Market in Cupertino, where more than 800 vendors show their wares the first Saturday of every month.

"The joy of going with her -- you get to see how she saw everything,'' he said. "Her eyes moved in ways yours didn't. You realize you weren't challenging your own eye."

They started by collecting balls. That's right. Just balls. Bocce balls, pool balls, ceramic balls.

"How about this one?" he would ask.

"No," she would say. "You have to get balls that have integrity, David. They can't be brand new, out of a decorator's showcase. They have to be something real."

Levin Lau made him a rubber band ball. He built a rectangular, plexiglass box for them and hangs it over a doorway. 

As much as Levin Lau showed him how to look at things in new ways, Sussman always had his own strong sense of style.

"I love lines," he said. "I love an Armani suit -- not a lot of ruffles."

And the artwork he was drawn to had a similar sensibility. Sussman became a regular at the annual auctions of the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art -- for 25 years running he bought at least one piece a year. And he also enjoyed the art sales of San Jose State University art students. He commissioned a whole set of ceramic plates from student Una Mjurka.

At one such art sale, he met art professor David Middlebrook and commissioned from him a double sculpture of bronze and stone for Sussman's backyard, a piece that represents the organic versus the intellectual. It incorporates Sussman's own thumb print.

Even his kitchen has a strong, artistic flair. With the help of Neal Bunce from Coyote Valley Cabinets --"whose attention to detail and quest for perfection made the project a success" -- the space incorporates angled glass on the bar counter, with roughly textured granite counters.

"The point is," Sussman said, "everything looks old quickly if you don't press yourself to try something out of your range."

It's an attitude Levin Lau is thrilled to hear.

"He's just a wonderful, enthusiastic, curious collector," she said. "He loves to learn and explore. He truly loves his art."

Update:
Katherine Levin Lau is showing her work at a mid-April exhibit at the San Jose architecture firm of Bill Gould. She may be contacted through him at www.bgdesign.com.
Coyote Valley Cabinets can be reached at (408) 561-0989.

Update 2:

This post is featured in the San Jose Mercury News Home and Garden section here.

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Here's the complete slideshow:

Small House Renovation Maintains Charm

Judy Stanley has a recurring dream. In it, her husband announces, "I sold the house. We're moving." And in every dream, Judy cries over and over.

"I love this house," she said.

She loved it when it was a two-bedroom, one-bath home she bought in 1994 with her husband, Guy, and his young son. And she loves it now, 15 years and two more children later after a gentle remodel in 2006 that added another bedroom and two bathrooms -- plus a just-the-right-size craft room for her decorative belt buckle business.

Indeed, there is a lot to love about this 1,600-square-foot, one-story house in Los Gatos that was built around 1950 with only 1,225 square feet. A little old lady had been the only owner of the house. And when they bought it, the 10,000 square-foot lot was huge, but overgrown. The best feature, she said, was the sprawling brick patio off the back, which -- even with the extra 440-square-foot addition -- remained mostly intact.

On a late winter morning, a white gate and big magnolia beckon visitors to the front door. Once inside, a stunning, original white marble fireplace mantle grabs your attention.

The couple hired San Jose designer Greg Ybarra of ADG Design to reconfigure the bedrooms, hallway and bathroom wing of the house. An original bedroom was converted to a master bath and Judy's craft room. And the children's bedrooms were added on the back of the house.

"They have a beautiful lot, nice open space," Ybarra said. "We didn't want to spoil that."

Judy spends a lot of time in her backyard, entertaining, watching the kids play and planting her huge vegetable garden. On the patio, there is room for a big table and chairs, two chaise lounges and three fountains. She also uses the space to glue pearls, beads and other decorations to belt buckles that she sells at Bella Rosa Boutique in Los Gatos and European Jewelers in Carmel.

The couple had done a kitchen remodel 10 years ago, with white cabinets and tile counters. During that renovation, she penned a note and slipped it into the wall. It was written with love and said something like, "If you're reading this, we're dead and gone. Hope you enjoy this house as much as we did."

It's hard to imagine anyone wouldn't.

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Restored Italianate Victorian Home Revives Neighborhood

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:
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Here's the complete slideshow:

English Tudor in Woodside

   When Judy Cottingham Sieber walked up the driveway of the old English Tudor along the edge of Woodside Road, her heart sank. Hiding behind the tall privet hedge stood a little white cottage with a brick stoop and a wood-shingled roof with moss growing on it _ just the kind of house Judy imagined would be her own one day.

   But this was a garage sale, not a house for sale.

   "I turned around and walked away," Judy said. "It's the only garage sale I've ever walked away from."