Rancho Lojento, the historic Jennifer Dumas/Lotar Ziesing ranch (18450 South Mountain Road) has been expanded over more than a century. It now holds the couple’s unique art collection, antiques - finds from Paris to stateside garage sales - and a separate gallery featuring works by cutting-edge artists. Several garden paths and vintage “Let’s get away from it all!” travel trailers will be featured in the great outdoors. The Victorian cottage has a deck with vintage patio seating that overlooks the Santa Clara River Valley.“Catch-as-catch-can” is the theme of the house, says Jennifer with a laugh. “It’s our what can you buy on a budget house... everything in the house we found” at bargain prices and carefully restored if needed. “We wanted a real fireplace, and when we removed the fake there was a real fireplace behind it,” as well as the old stone hearth underneath it, Jennifer notes.The visual impact of their collections - art and objects from Jennifer and Lotar’s travels around the world - is electrifying: an 18th Century Santos from Mexico, 19th Century French furnishings, fascinating German Bauhaus collages, bronze Modernist sculpture from Italy; everywhere in every room where the eye falls are art and antiques with a distinctively eclectic flair - such as the cement Faux Bois console acquired at a flea market. A 19th Century French allegorical painting after the style of William Bougereux hangs in the sunny living room, juxtaposed with a Modern Basquiat style painting by New York artist Victor Matthews.Jennifer says that Lotar’s business has its challenges: “When you live with someone always swapping stuff, things disappear.... I came home one night and the dining room table was gone,” with guests expected momentarily.At the Juarez home (1320 Holly Road), rich pop culture and nostalgia are reflected in the hundreds of lunchboxes collected by Carlos - a Santa Paula police lieutenant - and the traditional beauty of Ukrainian painted eggs, a detailed unique art passed on to Heidi by her grandmother. Vintage police and fire cars and a scale model of Santa Paula’s historic Depot (crafted by Wes Easley) will also be displayed.The garage is where Carlos’ 400 plus lunchboxes trace the history of portable food, even the oval tin holders used by miners in the 1930s, but it’s those character lunchboxes that comprise the bulk of Carlos’ collection. “It was 1950 when they started making the square boxes with the pictures,” says Carlos, who owns a rare Hopalong Cassidy.Adam 12, Emergency!, Sesame Street, the Boston Red Sox, Kung Fu, Lost in Space, Dick Tracy, Pinewood Derby Car, Howdy Doody and Archie lunchboxes, even a 1952 Volkswagen Beetle dome model, line the walls. Carlos fulfilled his personal quest, a Green Hornet lunchbox, just like the one he had as a boy. “They bring back memories, and once you start collecting lunchboxes, it’s pretty hard to stop,” Carlos admits.Heidi’s Ukrainian intricate painted eggs result from an ancient art she learned from her Czechoslovakian grandmother. “I have to order the dye online,” confides Heidi as she carefully palms a personal favorite with swirls of color against a black background.Ukrainian eggs - known as “pysanky” - are traditionally made at Easter and the finished product contains “lots of symbols and patterns,” many with roots in the small villages where primitive Slavic people escaped the grueling agricultural life through artistic pastimes. “Certain patterns mean certain things,” and some tell a story says Heidi, who uses “traditional tools” in the process.The special Art Walk on Holly Road and ice cream refreshments are also a part of the Tour, held to benefit the always-free services provided by the non-profit Santa Clara Valley Hospice/Home Support Group. A raffle, a plant sale courtesy of Santa Paula’s own Do Right Nursery, and a rest stop will round out Holly Road activities.Advance tickets at $20 each ($25 “at the door” on Tour Day) are available in Santa Paula at the Chamber of Commerce (200 N. 10th St.), Santa Paula Times (944 E. Main St.), John Nichols Gallery (916 E. Main St.), and the Glen Tavern Inn (134 N. Mill St.).Advance tickets at $20 each are also available by mail: make checks payable to SCV Hospice/Home Support Group, PO Box 365, Santa Paula, CA 93061. Please enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope. For more information, including ticket locations outside Santa Paula, call SCV Hospice/Home Support Group at 525-1333.
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The five homes to be toured, pictured clockwise starting at top left: Gary and Nancy Nasalroad, Ray and Brenda Padgett, Lotar Ziesing and Jennifer Dumas, Dorothy Orr and Harold Parker, and Carlos and Heidi Juarez. |
Santa Clara Valley Hospice annual Homes & Art Tour Sunday
April 23, 2008
Santa Paula News
Magnificent domiciles, gorgeous gardens, unique collections, creative art studios, abundant fine art and the opportunity to purchase plants for spring planting are being presented by the Santa Clara Valley Hospice/Home Support Group at its 25th Annual Homes & Art of Santa Paula Tour. The Tour will be held Sunday, April 27 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Nancy and Gary Nasalroad’s hillside home (756 Montclair Drive) offers “to the ocean” views, Native American pottery and baskets, delicate glassware and magnificent orchids. Also inside, Travertine and tile floors are the result of recent remodeling; while outside the green thumbs of Nancy and Gary are evident, with hundreds of Mediterranean - mirroring the home’s architecture - and native California plants and trees.Nestled at the bottom of a cozy cul-de-sac, the Nasalroads’ 2,800 square foot hillside features a mammoth bird of paradise opposite a limestone and mosaic tile veranda. At this adventuresome abode, a wide picture window in the family room evokes the feeling of being perched on a cliff overlooking the Santa Clara River Valley.Nancy’s collection of fine crystal, china, serving pieces and decorative Belgian plates, a gift from her grandmother, catch the eye, and the grouping is topped by Native American baskets - a touch of the Southwest beloved by the couple. A wide mirror over the gleaming white fireplace - its mantle holding a variety of small Native American pots, Acuma, Zuni and Santa Clara signed by the artists - reflects the view outside. That the Nasalroads collect art and artifacts from their many travels is evident, from a roadrunner sculpture from Tucson to a wooden cow from Switzerland, among many others.The Nasalroads have brought in or dug up literally tons of rock to build walkways and areas to anchor plants on newly created slopes.Downstairs, a door under the staircase leads to what Gary calls “my own personal wine cellar,” the couple’s favorite custom feature offering natural draft ventilation.Fine living indoors and out marks Brenda and Ray Padgett’s spacious home (600 Monte Vista Drive), with special areas for work and play, including a nostalgic Pez collection in the grandkids’ room! Vast Santa Clara River Valley views are offered from large picture windows and outside on a series of balconies. The homey furnishings of the sunny yellow house dovetail with the Padgetts’ unusual collections, including swords and vintage musical instruments.Owners for more than a year of the 5,800 square foot beauty that sits amid five acres, the Padgetts enjoy the open space both inside and out. From the generous kitchen with dramatic black granite countertops with subtle flecks of gold to Brazilian wood floors featured throughout the home, the Padgetts especially enjoy the series of balconies outside almost every room that offer views of their landscaped property or the expanse of the Santa Clara River Valley.Many decorations are vintage Americana: hand-painted trays sporting colorful flowers, cozy quilts decorating walls displayed for all to enjoy, vintage toys and musical instruments, as well as touches of European, such as the swords collected by Ray.Upstairs is the master suite offering a separate sunroom - a wicker settee with soothing tropical hibiscus upholstery is perfect for curling up with a good book - and office and memory room. The family room beckons from the bottom floor, where a pool table, full-sized mirrored bar, entertainment center and massive fireplace create the perfect place to play.Outside, a series of gazebos and seating areas, a flagstone barbecue and bar sit amid native flowers and trees, with enough room to comfortably entertain hundreds of guests. “I love this house,” says Brenda with a sigh. “It’s huge, way too big for us, but we really, really like it.”A noted watercolorist and art instructor, Dorothy Orr’s newly created second story studio at her and husband Harold Parker’s Oaks home (1334 Fern Oaks Drive) brings the outdoors inside and inspires her award-winning art works. Orr’s 85 rosebushes, dozens of fruit trees - trained as Belgian Espalier - and ponds of koi, turtle and two lush water gardens are outdoor delights. Shaded by towering oaks, the Orr/Parker home was created in 1951 by noted builder Savage Klein as his family residence.Dorothy’s studio provides perfect lighting, as well as the more practical needs of the art professor, and its design was inspired by the original house. The studio is reached by an industrial steel stairwell above a water garden that also serves as a passive heating, cooling and humidifying system. At the top, towering above happily potted plants, is one of Orr’s works, a six-foot-square layered plastic modern piece, an “aerial landscape... kind of mysterious,” much like outer space, her personal favorite of the series.The artist did her own painting of the studio, including the cabinetry. Orr also set the high-fired Italian floor tiles that radiate soft shades of mauve, aqua, grey and blues. Window frames stained by Orr to match the oak bark of the trees outside are surrounded by shades of soft white and taupe.“I want to put my colors on my paintings,” the driving force behind the neutral colors of the studio. “I love painting nature, so what better environment?” Orr asks with a shy smile.
