The Boumas’ California Heights Spanish Colonial is a low-mileage museum of style

PHOTO by JENNIFER STOCKDALE

Being named the West’s best neighborhood by Sunset magazine in 2002 makes California Heights probably the city’s most famous historic residential district. But it makes owning a Spanish-style in Cal Heights—possibly the signature architectural style here—spendy, and a lot of work. You have to walk the precinct like a councilman to find one. That’s what Craig and Christine Bouma did a few years ago, when they lived here—but were looking for their dream house.

“I actually wrote letters to people asking them to sell their homes,” says Christine Bouma, whose drive may be inherited; her father is a real estate agent. That’s what you have to do here, sometimes; houses sell fast. All except for one: a 1936 Spanish Colonial with exposed-beam ceilings inside, shutters outside and vintage Gladding, McBean California tile throughout (even though they didn’t know that yet).

“We used to always drive by this house,” Bouma says as her young sons nap upstairs—upstairs, up a long winding staircase of Magnesite, carefully patina-ed by some 1930s craftsman to closely resemble Travertine stone. “The old man would come shuffling out.”

His wife’s parents were the Gunns—Mr. Gunn had worked for the Port of Long Beach in the 1930s—and he was the second owner. Only the second. When the old gentleman passed, the Boumas were able to purchase the Gunns’ house from their grandchildren—and some of its original furniture—making the Boumas only the second family to ever live here, in 72 years.

“The walls inside still had the original paint,” Bouma says. “Almost everything’s original.” That’s an understatement. The house is so close to original that the few areas of wear—a little on the faux-Travertine and the floor of the downstairs bath—only make you shake your head in wonder.

The Gunns had money for 1936, Christine Bouma says; their 2,500 square-foot house cost  $9,900 to build, which was expensive then—and it shows. Window frames and door frames are mahogany, and rounded—their ends curving in little hand-milled turns of mahogany.

Above, ceilings in the living room and dining room have exposed beams—probably not mahogany, Bouma says, but they look like it—and original light fixtures are that heavy black wrought iron and yellow glass.

It’s like a museum you can actually live in—and they do.

The Boumas use the white enamel 1953 stove, with its swing-down metal top that covers the burners. They know it was 1953 because they found the original receipt.

And that stove is in a kitchen which has to be one of the city’s—if not the region’s—best kitchens ever; one of two truly awe-inspiring rooms in this house. The other is the master bath, and neither is Spanish-style—but both are incredible, for the amount of Gladding, McBean tile used, and for their utter lack of wear.

In the kitchen, tiled counters yield to tiled walls—all around the room—which curve gently up into, of course, original cabinets and a tray ceiling (a stair-step effect). It’s 1936 up in here.

Same is true in the master bath, which offers his and hers mirrors and dressing areas equally divided on one wall. Floor tiles are a peachy pink, and on the other wall—up a small tiled step—is centered a white, curvy ’30s bathtub. On one side of it is a separate, pink-tiled shower stall (behind a 1936 door that matches one downstairs). Another stall at the foot of the tub is identical, except that’s where the toilet stays. Behind a third, identical shower stall door. That’s class.

“This is what I wanted to show you,” Christine Bouma says, leading us into the bath. This is how to live.

Tags: architecture, California Heights, homes, Long Beach, spanish style, sunset magazine