The California Casa

Features 35 exemplars of the Southern California Spanish Colonial Revival-style house.

This sumptuous and comprehensive volume embraces one of the most beloved house forms, the Spanish Colonial Revival, presenting at once a lavish portrait of the style as well as the definitive statement on the subject through more than three hundred color photographs. The Spanish style in architecture encompasses facets from a vast array of traditions, many of which are in evidence in these extraordinary houses. Elements include thickset, whitewashed stucco walls, deeply recessed doors, lushly planted courtyard gardens, intricate and colorful tile work, telescoping towers inset with Juliet balconies, elaborately traced wrought-iron window grilles, and richly appointed interiors heightened by drama in light and shadow cast by moody pendant lamps and low-burning fires. The houses featured are the very best of the type, both famous and little-known, and showcase the work of architects such as George Washington Smith, Bertram Goodhue, Wallace Neff, and Paul Williams, from the early twentieth century, to the work of contemporary practitioners, including Marc Appleton, Michael Burch Architects, and others. These homes are a fantasy for living made real in the Southern California sun.

Domestic architecture and interior design.

The author describes Casa del Herrero, including the early schemes, the many revisions, the extensive gardens and the extraordinary details inside. He ends with a chapter on the social events that took place in the house. Illustrations throughout include contemporary photography of every aspect of the house.

The aura and romance of Old California lives on in this treasury of inviting homes. The California House presents the magic of the "golden state," that land of infinite promise and dreams, the most tangible expression of which can be found in the homes built by early California dreamers. Here domestic visions of tranquility and repose were inventively realized—in stucco or stone, wood and wrought iron, plaster, and glass and tile. Spanish Colonial Revival–style homes with elaborate wrought-iron window grilles, romantic, shadowy interiors, and lush courtyard gardens stand beside other particularly Californian architectural wonders such as the San Francisco Victorian Painted Lady, the Monterey Colonial, Eurekan Queen Anne, and the homey California Arts & Crafts. Including houses designed by luminaries George Washington Smith, Stanford White, Greene & Greene, and Reginald Johnson, this book will fascinate both the architecture aficionado and interior design enthusiasts, as well as the everyday lover of homes. Including, but going beyond, the much-adored Spanish style (in its many manifestations) and Mission Revival, the book features as well the Victorian of San Francisco's Painted Lady and Eureka's Queen Anne, Monterey Colonial, California Arts & Crafts, French Chateau, classic Colonial farm house, and more. All new color photography of 25 houses in California ranging in style from Spanish Colonial Revival, Mission, Victorian, Queen Anne, California Arts & Crafts, Monterey, French Chateau, Colonial Farm House. The book includes little known California work by well known architect Stanford White, known primarily for his East Coast work (designer of the original Penn Station with McKim, Mead & White, and original Madison Square Garden, and many others); as well as the Magdelena Zanone House (Queen Anne late Victorian style home in Eureka, CA); the Murphy House, San Francisco (Classic French Chateau); a Gothic Victorian 1860s home in Sonoma; Casa Amesti (Monterey style home); "El Cerrito" designed by Russel Ray and Winsor Soule and built in 1913 in Santa Barbara (an amalgam of Mission and Spanish Colonial Revival); the Frothingham House designed by George Washington Smith in 1922 (Spanish Colonial Rev.); Cuartro Ventos House by Reginald Johnson, 1929 in Santa Barbara; William Edwards House by Roland E. Coate, Sr. in San Marino, 1926; Robinson House by Greene and Greene in Pasadena, 1905; Sack House in Berkeley (California Arts & Crafts) Brune-Reutlinger House in San Francisco (classic Painted Lady Victorian); a colonial mid-19th cent farm house in Sonoma; "Mariposa," classic Spanish style in Montecito; The Marston House in San Diego (Arts & Crafts/Tudoresque); Rancho Los Alamos De Santa Elena in Los Alamos (Span. Col. Rev.); Pepper Hill Farm in Balard.

"This deluxe volume offers an exclusive look into the classic homes and gardens in the legendary neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles, such as Hancock Park, Windsor Square, Beverly Hills, Pasadena, and Malibu. In a region famed for its lavish homes and celebrity residents, one finds here a panorama of richly detailed architectural styles, from Craftsman, Tudor, and Georgian, to Spanish Colonial and Tuscan Revival examples." "Shown here in rich detail are the estate of the great Hollywood producer and director Cecil B. DeMille in Laughlin Park, the former Danny Kay House in Beverly Hills, the revered Millard House by Frank Lloyd Wright in Pasadena, and wonderful Arts & Crafts masterwork by Green and Green---the Gamble House---also in Pasadena. The works of those and other renowned architects, such as Wallace Neff, Paul Williams, George Washington Smith, and Roland Coate, illustrate the wide range of period-revival styles popular in Southern California during its "Golden Age of Expansion" from 1899 to 1938. Lush, all-new color photographs capture the grandeur of these homes and their exquisite gardens in the present day."--BOOK JACKET.

Luminous new photography showcases contemporary and historic homes in the beloved Spanish Style in Southern California, while offering, as well, a rare look at the original inspirations to the style, born in Andalusia, Spain. The great appeal of Spanish Style homes lies in their aura of romance and drama, a sense of story, of magic, as well as in their very comfortable and engaging proportions and the great livability of the interior spaces. Deep shadow, arched doorways, trickling courtyard fountains, climbing bougainvillea on wrought-iron window grilles, wood-beamed ceilings, and white plaster walls are all hallmarks of the style. Here, through a celebration of contemporary and historic homes in Southern California, as well as existing historic precedents in Andalusia, Spain--most notably the intricately detailed Casa de Pilatos in Seville and the Alhambra of Granada--The Spanish Style House presents the definitive picture of the style as it exists today. Featured homes include the George Washington Smith-designed Casa Blanca (1928)--a fantasy made real in stone and stucco replete with the romance of old Morocco in its horseshoe arches, domes, and evocative tile murals--and a Marc Appleton-designed beach house (2007) in Del Mar, California, which is a dream on the sea and an eloquent testament to the virtues of the style for today.

California Romantica features the most important, yet rarely seen, residential exemplars of the California Mission and Spanish Colonial styles, by such noted architects as George Washington Smith, Wallace Neff, Richard Requa, Lilian Rice, and Paul R. Williams, among others. From whitewashed stucco walls and cloistered patios to tile roofs and sumptuous gardens, each house shown is a rare masterpiece, splendidly appointed with authentic Monterey furniture, California tile, and Navajo rugs. Among the magnificent seaside estates, canyon villas, and courtyard bungalows shown is Diane Keaton’s former home in Beverly Hills, which she thoughtfully restored with noted designer Stephen Shadley, and for which she has been recognized as a committed preservationist. She brings her cinematic eye, a keen sense of natural drama, and a profound appreciation for the nuances of shadow and light to the elucidation of these buildings, through the selection of specially commissioned photography. Authoritative text by D. J. Waldie lucidly explicates the architecture and provides an intimate tour of a historic and distinctly Californian lifestyle.