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Ciao, bellas! Forgive my absence for the past month or so — I was jet-setting around Europe (great exercise for the wings), and now that I am home in the City of Angels, I find myself (how you say?) wistful for my recent Mediterranean locale. Never to fear: our city provides with the incontestably overseas flair of Almidor, or the John Show Ranch Estate.
Built by L.G. Knipe in 1928 for land developer John H. Show, Almidor is an oasis sited atop a steep hill, set apart from the rest of the San Fernando Valley. The home’s exterior sticks strictly to its Spanish Colonial style — including the lush, tumbling garden that surrounds it — but the structure’s true spirit shines in the interior’s Espagna verisimilitude. Hand-painted tiles scattered amongst terracotta flooring, vaulted ceilings that curve seductively into Greek-Corinthian mold-reliefs, seagrass green stained glass windows, and this is all not to mention my favorite detail: the hand-painted ceramic flourishes like the citrus bounty above the fireplace — apropos for what once overlooked 350 acres of sour fruit and walnuts!
I, for one, am over air travel (mainly because I can’t lift my right wing at the moment), and if you feel the same way, I’ll see you at Almidor. BEWARE: I will only respond to greetings that begin with a double cheek kiss and a “Ciao, bella!”
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