On 7th anniversary of their marriage Paula Anderson & Herbert Harris found that cottage. The old style cottage of 1930 was at the end of a dirt road, which was built from stones. This cottage was in California which was a place of peace & calm.
Paula says, yes she had a keen interest in old houses and enjoys country side rather than big cities. The house has not anything charming or attractive accept that was old style and dignified. Its layout was like this:
The upper floor was consisting of a master bedroom & bathroom, with a porch that may be used as the second bedroom, while the ground floor consists of two living room, dinner & kitchen. One of the living rooms was outside and the other was inside. Its walls were decorated with fine art. The fabric was colored and was from Central America.
The couple bought it and shifted in it. They saw that the garden has been overlook for a long ago and dead trees and plants were standing everywhere. Paula started her work from extending the living space with different outdoor rooms.
She said that she wished to separate the garden from the orange grove. Her idea was to construct stone walls and planting a mixture of meadow and grass in the front portion to give a ranch house look.
The husband and the wife decided to build a fireplace to keep them warm in cold season. Paula said that the place was not lacking with wood to burn and outdoor fireplace is used more instead of indoor.
Herbert said that on this ranch house only orange trees were not grown, but other than 600 trees like palm, peaches & pomegranates were there. The front area of house made of rocks which fallen down from the nearby mountain and filled the flood channels near the house. We engage an architect to make a marvelous plan and layout for the whole ranch house. He drew the plan immediately and started to work with our advice. Paula was in favor of building a portico in front of the structure and a car porch on the back portion.
Then a cobblestone row was necessary from the entrance up to the living room door. When the work was completed, a room was built on the first floor of the elevation to take the sun light in winter season.
Actually the house was built by an orange farmer, so he cultivated citrus fruits on a large scale, hence adding an extra beauty in the elevation.
Paula said that it is a place for a rest and artistic living, not for showing off. We always live with peace because of the nature. Surely you can’t live in Los Angeles like this. So we call our cottage ‘Our Arcadia’.
