Created out of 500 tons of adobe mixed with straw and sludge oil, the house forms a diamond-shape around its courtyard. Its owners, Darrell and Lauren Boyle, say it's the nearest thing to bringing the outside in one can envision, a feeling of being connected to nature.

"The house really does feel like it grew out of the land," Darrell says. Five doors lead from the courtyard to the house, and the occupants cross the courtyard rather than traverse the house when they change rooms. Being handmade, the casa provides an inexhaustible groundbed for creative detailing.

This was the characteristic that particularly wowed Darrell. The Quito Road tile-roofed home was built in six years, 1941-46, by two 40something Bostonians, Maude Meagher and Carolyn Smiley, who published a magazine called World Youth.

The magazine's correspondents were youngsters from 47 different countries around the world (a day in the life of a Sri Lanka girl being a typical article). The aim of the magazine was to forge understanding between cultures with young people the target audience; its mission was world peace.

The magazine was published between 1936 and the late 1950s, with a wartime hiatus, during which time the women built Casa Tierra. Designed to be the new home of the magazine as well as its publishers, the large studio was built first, composed from the very earth of the sloping land.

The women did nearly all of the work themselves. This included making the adobe bricks that form the walls. Forms were made, the clay mixture poured in and then turned out in the sun to dry. During the first year the women had the help of two or more young men and the walls and roof framework went up during that first year.

Then WW II intervened. The able-bodied were drafted or went into war work and the women were left to their own devices. After a year of manual labor they were strong and fit. The adobe bricks weighed between 50 and 75 pounds each and, though daunting at first, it became second nature to move them.

Thus they continued with their building, with very little help, except for advice from suppliers. After reading their pamphlet, How We Built an Adobe House for World Youth, it's doubtful whether the war had much impact on their m.o. Both determined and dedicated, widely-traveled daughters of missionaries, they figured if primitive people could build this way, why couldn't they?

By experimenting, researching and toiling, they created their handmade home. As architectural novices, they probably had no idea how large their finished project would be, speculates Darrell Boyle. "They used string and orange crate stakes set outside to measure, so they probably didn't have a true concept of its size."

Very little earthmoving equipment was used: just enough to level the living quarters. The women laid out the house according to the configuration of the land, a very Frank Lloyd Wright concept. Ceilings were kept low, as well. As a result, there are no true plumb lines in this house or right angles. Indeed, one of its walls has been calibrated to be 18 degrees off plumb.

The adobe bricks used were 18-by-12-by-4 inches and reinforced with concrete after they were put in place. Total drying time took some six weeks. So solidly built is this casa that it withstood well the Loma Prieta quake, even though it knocked one of Lauren Boyle's voice students out an open door.

Photograph by George Sakkestad The dominant theme at Casa Tierra is its tile. Darrell Boyle admires the tile on one of the home's six fireplaces.

The dominant theme at Casa Tierra is its tile. There are tile roofs, 7,000 square feet of tile floors and 2,000 square feet of patio tile. Some of these tiles are handmade, including the roof. The roof tiles were fortuitously bought from a tilemaker who had a surplus of old mission tiles for sale.

But the true tile highlights at Casa Tierra are the decorative tiles that light up outdoor benches and adorn the risers on steps both outside and in. So alluring is Casa Tierra's tilework that tile aficionados and tile societies gather here for conferences.

Tiles with a Moorish feel on the entry steps in the courtyard greet the visitor. The Boyles were lucky enough to find some of these original forms at a local tile company. Thus, when they put in a backyard pool and patio, they were able to echo, in cool shades, the patterns in the courtyard.

The stairs leading from study to the master bedroom may contain the most famous tile work in the home. They were created by Albert Solon of S & S tile studio in San Jose, son of a noted Italian ceramist.

When new tile work was deemed necessary, the Boyles' mission was to make sure it kept the feeling of the original. They enlisted artist Raquel Baldocchi, a first cousin of Lauren's. She designed the tiles above the front door, which symbolize all four of the Boyles and pays tribute to the original owners, as well.

She also created new outdoor benches and tilework in some of the bathrooms. Another Baldocchi cousin, Donald, a landscape architect, helped with the backyard design. So pervasive is the tilework at the casa that the Boyles were finding pieces of tile for at least a year after they bought the rundown place in 1989.

They have incorporated these pieces inside and out in their ongoing restoration work. Before the Boyles bought it, Casa Tierra was sold to the Maurice Tripp family, who had seven children and lived there 27 years. It was sold to speculators and unoccupied for some five years before being bought by the Boyles. It gained Saratoga Historical Preservation protection.

At least 20 vagrants had occupied the place during that time. "It's amazing that things weren't ripped off," Darrell says. "We've looked and haven't detected any pieces missing from the fireplaces or other places where there is tilework."

The edifice has four chimneys, serving six fireplaces, most of which have tile decorations. Three of the chimneys are decorated with copper or tin plates of photographs from World Youth. Tin was the only material to be had during the war, since copper was used for the war effort.

The publishers built the studio first, housing the linotype machine, offices and the rest of their publishing operation. (Today, that wing is used for Darrell's office, a bedroom and an exercise room.) There was a suite for Meagher, two guestrooms and bath off a hallway, living quarters, and then Smiley's suite.

An unfinished area was the last segment; the Boyles use it for laundry and storage. Yehudi Menuhin played in the music room and art lovers gathered to help plan the uses for Montalvo there, as well. Except for the hallway, one room leads to another.

"There's a feeling of intimacy that always surprises people who know its size. Adobe houses are supposed to be cold, yet this one has a feeling of warmth that is very satisfying," Darrell adds.

Nancy Drew would have loved sleuthing around Casa Tierra: there's a small passageway from one room to another that one has to bend double to creep through. A door to the outside is so short it's almost child-sized.

One Tripp daughter once saw a ghost at the foot of her bed and screamed out. This apparition matched the image of Carolyn Smiley, whom she had never met. The ghost appeared the very day that Carolyn Smiley died, the Tripps later learned. The daughter's bedroom had been Smiley's. The family even found a bonnet in the pantry that matched the one the vision was wearing, according to the Tripp daughter.

Darrell says if they ever see the Casa Tierra builders, he hopes they stay longer than that brief visit. But all this enchantment has a down side, too. Character creates dust, as Lauren Boyle puts it. Heating the place is a perpetual, expensive proposition which they have nearly solved with nine gas heaters, two antique wood stoves and a commercial rate from PG&E.

When the Boyles moved in, wires hung down from the ceiling, there was desolation inside and out. Wires are now hidden behind redwood framing posts. Some of the auto plate-glass windows have been replaced, tubs have been enclosed with glass to make showers, all with an eye to maintaining the charm.

It was this charm that Darrell Boyle fell in love with—its character, its possibilities, its challenge. "He's the visionary," says his wife. "I help with the planning, the decisions, the colors." It was too big, too expensive: Lauren Boyle wasn't convinced this was for them.

"But we kept coming back. I could see his heart was here," she says. "His family was in Colorado, mine was here, and he had already made a concession to me by moving back here." However, the speculator who had briefly owned Casa Tierra after its unoccupied days had installed an up-to-date kitchen.

This was the selling point that clinched it for Lauren. The kitchen had a granite-topped island. Today that granite island is home to a serpentine sculpture—a polar bear, carved by an Inuit Indian of North Hudson Bay. "Look at it from the back. See if you can feel the movement," Darrell advises. "That's how you can tell it's well done." And yes, one can sense the muscles moving.

Photograph by George Sakkestad Homeowners Lauren and Darrell Boyle are proud of Casa Tierra.

Seeing what works, what thrives, making sure it's in keeping with its surroundings is a continual challenge. Today grasses that change color with the seasons and giant cacti are major parts of the courtyard landscape.

The Boyles brought back to life the lily pond in the courtyard that was hardly visible when they bought the place, what with the overgrowth surrounding it. They've added outdoor sculptures. The Stonebreaker in the courtyard is made of flagstone and metal, sculpted by Bruce Gueswel.

The entrance gate is inviting: delicately worked metal, with metal trumpet vine twisting through it. "We wanted an open, welcoming feeling," Darrell says. The Boyles added a blue-tiled buttress framework to the front entrance. Enclosed by the circular brick drive is a sculpture of two colts, cavorting.

Despite their love of the place, the Boyles do think about a future move, despite protests from grown children, Kelly and Conor. Most of the creative work is finished and it's the creative side that appeals to Darrell.

He's written a pamphlet about Casa Tierra, just as its founders did, "because it was a story that needed telling." The softcover pamphlet the women had written, published by them in 1950, was dropped in their mailbox after the Boyles had lived here some time.

"I wish everyone could live in a place that gives them pleasure every day," says Darrell.