Tasteful Friends, what say you to 7 beds, 7 baths on La Mesa Drive in Santa Monica?

It is beautiful. The land that is on isn't that big, that's the only minus.

R1, check out the neighborhood on Google Maps. The street looks fantastic.

Nice but for that price I would expect an upgraded kitchen.

It's a fine house, with the effect of an open corral rather than an enclosed Spanish patio, but lovely. The street is indeed very fucking pleasant.

To my taste, however, there's too much realtor hype and too little architecture. It's too studied, too spare, too SoCal, too aggressively not your typical Spanish Colonial. I think OP is exaclty right with his description,

[quote]attributed to John Byers, who [bold]worked in traditional materials such as adobe and shunned the opulence of the Spanish Revival.[/bold]

Southern California Spanish Revival does indeed sometimes go overboard with the tiles in Mexican colors and the 'faux exposed' bits of masonry under stucco and some overdone Spanish touches, I understand the architect's perspective. Howver here the spareness of the interior goes too far in the opposite direction. Those plain as dirt 6¨x 8¨ beams in the living room foresee millions of post-war ranch houses everywhere in the U.S., it's a case of showboating 'honesty.' And they are both too plain and too boring, timid in their size and exasperating and urelieved repetition. The architect (whose work I don't know) wasn't not being shy about ladling on the historicism externally, yet decided to make his protest against the style in the interior with the in-stock lumberyard beams (no decorated vigas for this architect) and plain hardwood floors (uncharacteristic of Spanish and Spanish Colonial and Spanish Colonial Revial architecture) and door openings totally without ornament or emphasis. It's absolutely pleasant and very comfortable looking room, it's just a little intentionally un-beautiful for me, and too curiously at odds with the exterior.

The other rooms are similarly spare. The other large living room that opens onto the pool, with the angled, wood paneled ceiling and long cross beams and terra cotta tiled floor looks to have been remodeled post-war, at least the ceilng. And here I suppose the original architect specified tiles because the room is adjacent the pool. The tiles, to my eye, would have looked better throughout the ground floor. Again, perfectly pleasant, and copletely forgetable. Even the kicthen is perfectly fine (after replacing that ugly blue aggregate countertop with something less Turkish Delight-ful.

The price is startling for me: I know California and L.A. prices enough that I shouldn't be surprised, but it better parts of the world that money would buy something astounding good where I didn't have to pretend that low ceilings and lumberyard stock beams were the ultimete in less is more refinement.

Evidently La Mesa is expensive because it's off the tourist path entirely, being not located in Beverly Hills or Hollywood; is close to shopping on Montana; and is adjacent to the country club, so no neighbors behind you if you live on the north side of the street (although I suppose the odd golf ball might sail through the window). Therefore it's been always popular with major industry people - Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, Julie Andrews and Blake Edwards, Michael Crichton, etc.

I just love the trees and gardens and lack of any overhead wires.