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Even at a time when Martha Stewart decorating dictums can be accessed via radio, TV, print media or the Internet 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the Willow Glen Lifestyles Homes Tour, an annual showcase of tasteful remodels and interior decorating, is still drawing crowds.
Pat Calfee chalks it up to human nature.
She's been involved with the tour for seven of its 21 years and has seen good years and bad years in the tour's attendance, but one thing she can vouch for is that simple curiosity remains a major factor in drawing the crowds year after year.
"The people who come on the tour are usually those who live in Willow Glen or close to the area—they know the houses," she says. "And if they know that one of those houses that they've seen and admired is on the tour, why, for sure they'll come!"
Another reason for the tour's popularity is that while following the Martha Stewart Bible to the letter might only be an attainable goal for a privileged few, the homes tour is designed to provide ideas for those on a variety of budgets.
"We try to pick a good variety, from a small home that has been renovated nicely all the way up to the very large new constructions that we're seeing here in Willow Glen," says Monica Farnsworth, a Coldwell Banker Realtor who has scouted out houses for the tour for four years. "We try to have a real diversity every year, not just the same type of house."
The tour originated as a fundraising idea with the board members of the San Jose Day Nursery, which has provided day care for children of students and working-class parents since 1916. Although two other minor fundraisers are held during the year, the homes tour is a major source of funds for the nursery, typically raising between $20,000 and $30,000 annually.
Planning the event is a six-month process beginning in November with a "wish list" of houses, most of which are recommended by Farnsworth and brought before the 10-person homes tour committee. Securing all of the houses committee members want is by no means an easy task—Calfee estimates that about half of the homeowners they approach turn them down.
"Many people are very private," she admits, "and don't like the idea of strangers tromping through their house."
Committee member Yvonne Head, who has helped organize the tour for three years, is one of the homeowners who said yes.
"I wanted to help the nursery," she says. "I think it's a really good cause, and they all work so hard—it's just a neat place. Also I thought my house might be interesting to people."
A decorative painter by profession, Head has applied her personal touch to each room in her 1938 Craftsman, with a sky mural in the ceiling of the master bedroom suite and the walls of the bedroom in a five-color paint wash. Eleven coats of paint were applied to the walls of the dining room to achieve a Chinese lacquer effect.
"Yvonne has done beautiful things to her walls," says Calfee. "It's really quite a unique house."
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Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Howdy, Partner: Yvonne Head, whose home is on the Willow Glen Lifestyles Homes Tour, is a decorative painter by profession. She designed a guest bedroom in a cowboy motif in homage to her father, Justinian Caire, a California cowboy.
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At 2,500 square feet, Head's is one of the smaller houses on the tour, though an addition to the house has nearly doubled it from its original size.
Harmil Way resident Karin Butters is the only homeowner on the tour to have retained the original floorplan of an older house. Butters, a third-generation Willow Glen resident, focused on renovating the interior to attain a standard of modern comfort, while restoring the outward appearance of the house to be consistent with the style of the mid-1940s, when the house was built.
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Contributed photograph
Harmil Way: Home shown on the tour.
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With the help of her mother, a local interior designer, she relandscaped the yard, choosing calla lilies, Iceland poppies and jasmine vines with an eye toward creating a "traditional cottage garden." On the 100-year-old walnut tree in her front yard she hung a white porch swing after learning from an elderly neighbor that such a swing used to hang from that tree when a family lived there decades ago.
"Now," she says, "it's a traditional Willow Glen cottage."
At the opposite end of the spectrum on the tour is the 6,000-square-foot Mediterranean-style Richards Avenue home designed and constructed throughout 2002, the first brand-new home to be featured on the tour, according to Calfee.
Although the house isn't as "finished" as the rest of the houses on the tour, the homeowners are "working very hard to make sure that the yard is done and that the house is complete in every other way" by the time the tour begins, says Calfee. "The ideal time to show a house is a couple of years after it's been completed. That's when it's at its prime, so to speak."
The committee made an exception for the Richards Avenue house because of the high quality of the materials used and the fine craftsmanship involved, she says.
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Contributed photograph
Richards Avenue: Home shown on the tour.
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Tim Casey of Casey Construction, who had been sponsoring the tour for four years, volunteered his self-built, 3,900-square-foot house so that visitors could see "you can build a nice home without making it look like a monster home."
Casey says he made a special effort to fit the design of his home with the rest of the neighborhood. "I'm not into monster homes," Casey says. "I think there's a way to make houses bigger without destroying the neighborhood."
Lynn and David Law's Tudor-style home, built in 1937, has undergone three significant remodels, taking it from 1,600 square feet to 4,000. The homeowners strove to retain key architectural features throughout the expansion process, using archways and wall textures to create a sense of connection between the original and new areas of the house.
"Willow Glen is one of those highly unique neighborhoods," says Judy Connor, who took over as publicist for the tour when Jane McClelland, a driving force behind the initiation of the event, passed away. "There is a lot of pride in the neighborhood and it has a wide variety of housing. I think people really enjoy seeing what others have done with their homes, and the homes are truly lovely places."
Calfee agrees. "It's a great tour," she says, "and a great Willow Glen tradition."
The tour will be held Sunday, May 4, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wine and hors d'oeuvres will be provided for tour participants, and a raffle will be held at the Head house on Callecita.
Tickets for the homes tour are on sale for $25 each at the following locations: San Jose Day Nursery, 33 N. Eighth St.; Casa Casa, 1355 Lincoln Ave.; Eclectic Touch, 1171 Lincoln Ave.; Fleurish, 1335 Lincoln Ave.; and Comforts of Willow Glen, 1324 Lincoln Ave.
On the day of the event, tickets can be purchased for $30 each from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Willow Glen Elementary School parking lot at the corner of Minnesota and Lincoln avenues.
For more information, call the San Jose Day Nursery at 408.288.9667 or visit www.sjdn.org.
Children under 12 years of age are not permitted on the tour.
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Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer