Home & Real Estate
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Also online at www.PaloAltoOnline.com PALO HomeALTO & Real WEEKLYEstate HOUSE GUIDE OPEN INSIDE: HOME ■ Complete Open House Guide, page 33 & ■ Classified Marketplace, page 40 REAL ESTATE Friday, November 26, 2004 Home Front HOLIDAY HOME TOUR . Three stunning homes will be on tour for the 16th annual Holiday Home Tour, a benefit for St. Francis High School in Mountain View. The event, which takes place in Los Gatos and Monte Sereno, Dec. 3-4, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., includes homes dressed up for the holidays, live entertainment, compli- mentary tea, Christmas Gift Shoppe, as well as Santa’s Workshop draw- ing and the traditional Twelfth Night table setting raffles. Tickets are $30 in advance, $40 at the door; catered lunch by reservation for $20. Tickets for the twilight tour and gala preview party on Dec. 2 at 5 p.m. are $100. For information, call (650) 968-1213, ext. 701 or visit http://womensclub.sfhs.com. TOYS FOR TOTS . New, un- wrapped toys can be dropped off at Norbert von der Groeben local Coldwell Banker offices through Dec. 17, for distribution by the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve’s Toys for Tots campaign. Participating offices are located at 245 Lytton Ave., Suite 100, and 2754 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto; 110 First St. and 161 S. San Antonio Road, Los Altos; 1000 The Palo Alto Stanford Heritage (PAST) Holiday House Tour on Dec. 12 includes a 1908 Craftsman classic, with many original details, El Camino Real, Suite 150, 930 San- from deep baseboard moldings and a brick fireplace with redwood mantel to coved ceilings. ta Cruz Ave., Menlo Park; and 2969 Woodside Road, Woodside. Toys will be delivered to local charitable or- ganizations and social welfare agen- cies. Step into the past MAKE YOUR OWN . The city of Palo Alto is offering a Nature Decora- tion Workshop on Saturday, Dec. 4, Stanford University historical homes are open for PAST holiday home tour from 10 a.m. to noon in the Bay- by Carol Blitzer lands Nature Center lecture room, 2775 Embarcadero Road. A $5 ma- here’s something very welcoming about a classic Crafts- storage compartments. terials fee will be collected at the be- man house. From the rich redwood paneling and deep base- “I’ve always loved Craftsman. It’s a real treat to find an untouched ginning of the class, where partici- T board moldings to the gracefully coved ceilings and leaded- Craftsman-style house,” the owner said, pointing to her favorite pants will make holiday decorations glass windows, the design is as family-friendly today as when it was rooms downstairs. “I just love that they’re symmetric, they flow well. using natural objects they bring to built in 1908. It’s not grand, but very comfortable.” class. For information, call (650) 329- Perhaps that’s what drew a Stanford law professor and his physi- Light pours through the many large windows, and reflects off the 2506 or visit cian wife to the campus home whose design withstood the test of plaster walls — another thing that drew the present owners. “A lot of time — although the execution still needed a lot of work. Craftsman homes have heavy beamed ceilings,” she said. The results of that work will be on display on Sunday, Dec. 12, One of their first projects was to rip out the original front porch, from 2 to 4 p.m., as part of the annual Stanford Palo Alto (PAST) which was filled with dry rot, and to reconfigure the front entrance to Send notices of news and events related to Heritage Holiday Home Tour. This year five homes on San Juan Hill, make it more open to the street. Their one regret is that they used fir, real estate, interior design, home improvement behind the core of Stanford University, will be open to the public. and it hasn’t lasted as long as they’d hoped. and gardening to Home Front, Palo Alto Weekly, P.O. Box 1610, Palo Alto, CA 94302, Oddly enough, the Stanford couple already owned furniture that Today, they can sit outdoors and talk to their neighbors, now that or e-mail cblitzer @paweekly.com.Deadline is blended beautifully with their Craftsman purchase nine years ago. they’re no longer behind high hedges. Thursday at 5 p.m. They were drawn to the broad double-hung windows in the living Tackling the kitchen was an enormous project, but the owners re- room. “They’re so big we’ve had a couple of catastrophes,” the wife mained sensitive to the soul of the house. “I was agonizing over what said, noting that they had to replace the ropes as well as some of the kind of tile to put in,” the owner said, when she realized the old Midpeninsula Home & Real Estate is glass. kitchen design was really pretty simple. So she chose green brick published every Friday by the Palo Alto But, other than repairing the heavy windows, the living and dining tiles for the backsplash and a mottled brown lightly polished granite Weekly and the Almanac, P.O. Box rooms are largely intact — complete with mahogany-trimmed oak for the counter tops. All appliances are stainless steel, including a 1610, Palo Alto, CA 94302, 326-8210. It floors, huge redwood pocket doors and built-in window seats with huge Dacor stove and Sub-Zero side-by-side refrigerator/freezer, as circulates by mail to 57,000 homes from Woodside to Los Altos, as well as (continued on next page) through local real estate offices. Palo Alto Weekly • Friday, November 26, 2004 • Page 31 EXPERIENCE THE DIFFERENCE Home & Real Estate ◆ EXPERIENCED ◆ KNOWLEDGEABLE ◆ PROFESSIONAL For the latest sales in your Step into the past neighborhood, please log on to my (continued from page 31) website www.samiacullen.com, and click on “Newsletter” are the simple drawer pulls. Samia Cullen A wedge-shaped granite table sits in (650) 752-0708 one corner, with built-in benches and a BROKER ASSOCIATE couple of chairs. Serving the Peninsula Market Since 1994 Creating breakfast is convenient, with an espresso machine and toaster on the counter, and a huge drawer with cereal and toast-fixings below. Next to the stove, the owner’s favorite parts of the remodeled kitchen are the Norbert von der Groeben masses of pantry space, including a ManiSheik pullout cabinet, as well as an added-on Direct 650.465.6000 mud room. It’s difficult to tell where the remodel [email protected] begins and the old house leaves off. That’s because they very thoughtfully Selling Real Estate since 1968 in Mid-Peninsula continued the deep baseboards and red- If you’re selling, I have buyers actively looking! wood moldings around the windows, as A friend alerted the couple when the Craftsman house came on the market, Please call me. well as the hardwood floors. Upstairs, pointing out that they already owned furniture that fit right in. they’ve carved out two bedrooms for their children, each with an updated (or Alumni Association. The house was lat- John K. Branner, son of the second new) bathroom. They were able to re- er sold to Lou Henry Hoover. Today it president of Stanford, John Casper use a pedestal sink in one, and added a shares lawn space with Hoover House, Branner, and built for Henry Rushton 1.25% START RATE cast concrete counter top in another. where Stanford’s president lives. Fairclough, professor of Latin. The The master bedroom began as an old Other homes on the tour include: home features both Tudor and Crafts- (3.976% APR) porch, possibly where laundry was hung • a home built in 1917 for Frederick man styling, including half-timber out to dry. Earlier owners had enclosed Erskine Olmsted, designed by Henry walls, wide eaves and exposed rafters. ■ • 1-Month 12 MTA Option Arm it and used it as a studio. Today’s own- Gutterson in the Bay Area tradition. Assistant editor Carol Blitzer can be • Up to four monthly payment options ers were able to incorporate a rather With many shingle-style characteristics, reached at [email protected]. • Flexible qualifying guidelines large headboard, which serves as a • Complimentary pre-approval it features a brick chimney penetrated room divider, creating a walk-in closet by windows, contrasting light and behind. Their bathroom is the last room heavy; Additional pricing discounts available, What: call me for more details! on the “to be updated” list. • a home built by A. B. Clark (father Palo Alto Stanford Heritage “It’s ironic that you fork over incred- of architect Birge Clark) in 1909 when (PAST) Holiday House Tour ible sums of money to look unchanged,” he was chairman of Stanford’s art de- When: Sunday, Dec. 12, 2 to 5 p.m. Ahmad Ghavi the owner said, but she was quick to partment. The house is three stories on Where: San Juan Hill, Stanford Senior Loan Consultant add, “It’s sort of a privilege to live one side and two on the other, with a University here.” simple rectangular footprint. Two of the Tickets: $20 before Dec. 1, $25 af- 650.566.2317 All of the homes on the PAST tour original sleeping porches, now glassed ter, available from PAST, P.O. Box [email protected] are not only wonderful architectural ex- in, remain; 308, Palo Alto, CA 94302, or “at www.ahmadghavi.com amples, but resonate with Stanford his- • a 1909 Tudor half-timber, wood- the door,” at the intersection of San- hoto courtesy of San Jose Magazine hoto courtesy Jose of San P tory. framed house, designed by John ta Ynez and Cabrillo.