Crazy About Montecito

Of all the places I've traveled to in the United States, Santa Barbara is probably my favorite.  To be more exact, Montecito.  If you can say a city or town has "it", this place definitely does.  With the beach, the mountains, the climate, the architecture, the food.  I just don't think it can get much better.

The times I've been there, I love to drive around to see all the incredible homes and gardens.  Many are very difficult to see from the road because of the enormous walls and most of the homes are set so far from the street.  Last time we were there we dragged the kids to an estate sale just so we could see the property -- the last thing kids want to do on a Spring Break.

Well known interior designer John Saladino's estate is one of these.  Fortunately, C Magazine, did a story on his incredible home (you can also see it in his book).

His Italianate villa was built in 1929 by architect and builder Wallace Frost.  Saladino did an incredible job of remodeling the house that is quintessential Monticeto.

The roof is 18th century Italian handmade terra-cotta tile.  He brought in more than 4,000 trees and shrubs including these incredible 50 year old Italian cypress trees.

The interior is just as amazing as the exterior.  Many of the interior walls are the same stone as the exterior.  The steel windows and doors are incredible.  We are currently building a Mediterranean house in Fort Worth with windows and doors very similar.

I love the urn set into the stone window surround.  The ivy covered wall in perfect.

The dining room, with the (what I believe to be) cypress paneling and ceiling and Italian chandelier is beautiful.

All of the above pictures from C Magazine.

Another well published interior designer, Michael Smith, did an incredible job at the former Pillsbury estate in Montecito -- Las Encintas.  This Portuguese-style house was originally a California Mission Revival house built in the 1890s and is set into the hillside.  It is much different from Saladino's but typical old Montecito.  More formal and crisp.

The tile in the living room and powder bath typical Portuguese and are handmade in Los Angeles.  We are using a very similar tile from the same tile company for a current job.

I love how Smith gave the powder bath a true Period Revival feel.

While I love my city, Montecito is one of those places that is just very difficult to beat.

All of the pictures of Las Encinitas come from Santa Barbara magazine.

The Interior of an Italian Renaissance House

While designing a house in the Italian Renaissance style is not an easy task, with all of the proper details and scale, furnishing one can be difficult as well.  With a little research, hard work and attention to appropriate styles of mantels, lighting and architectural details you can accomplish the look.  In addition, finding the appropriate furniture is important as well.  Today I am focusing on the mantels and some mirrors/artwork that are appropriate (along with a couple of chandeliers) to help you.

With the arrangement of rooms for today's living, I like to classify certain architectural details (like mantels) for certain areas of the house. In original Italian houses, most every room used by the owners were formal. Today’s home is much different, as we all use every room in the house.  Today, formal areas should have more formal mantels, etc.  For a living room, dining room or any formal area here are some styles that are great depending on the formality of your house.

These are two reproduction mantels that, with their heavy carving, would be appropriate for your formal areas.

The two below are antique mantels that would be appropriate for either formal or informal (say a family room). However, I would use both of them in either place.

The mirrors below, and the portrait, are perfect examples of pieces that would be great for an Italian Renaissance house.  Of course, I am not opposed to using French Trumeau’s such as the one mentioned in my French Interiors post to go above the mantels shown above as well.

 

Here are two more pieces that are great to incorporate.  The commode can be used in many places.  In my previous post on Italian Renaissance houses I showed a picture of a house we built/remodeled in Fort Worth.  My clients found a piece similar to this commode that I had built and an artist finished the work for their daughter's bathroom vanity.  They also found a fountain similar to the one below that we converted into a pedestal sink for their powder bathroom by carefully drilling  holes in the back and mounting a wall mount faucet.  More pictures of both the commode and the fountain pedestal can be found in Betty Lou Phillips book, Inspirations from France & Italy.

These chandeliers are great examples of what would be appropriate for an Italian Renaissance house.  While I love all of them, I particularly love the last one which is a 17th Century reproduction that I can get for you for about $1,700.  I have actually ordered one for my own house.