I love this house in La Quinta. I asked my California friend Darren why the town is called La Quinta, which means “fifth” in Spanish, and he wrote: “It’s called that because in colonial times, there were haciendas along major commercial routes that were reached every fifth day of travel. As a result, “La Quinta” is actually a fairly common place name in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.” Those days are over, obviously, and this is not a hacienda, but it seems to fit into this landscape more perfectly than many of the reproduction Spanish colonial jobs that flank it.

The house is a three minute walk from this landscape at the foot of the Santa Rosa Mountains:

There are more tunnels and round things where this came from: see  y o u h a v e b e e n h e r e s o m e t i m e. This photo originally via OWI.

Tatooine! I knew this Vancouver Island house reminded me of something.

New house in an old neighbourhood of Wroclaw, Poland, in the NYT today. Spruce on the outside, particle board on the inside, and the whole thing cost US$80,000 to build. It will fade to grey. This seems equivalent to laneway housing in Vancouver – and memo to Vancouver: modern mixes well with traditional architecture. Take a chance! I just hope they used non-formaldehyde particle board in the interior, because if not that’s a lot of off-gassing. Photos: Olo Rutkowski. See more current Polish architecture here.

Hallowe’en is over but this fantastic Japanese raccoon figure survives. I wish it could stay there all winter. It was seen at this cool little bungalow – brick, which is unusual for Vancouver – a block away from the studio. The owners refurbished it and landscaped it themselves, but I was still taken aback by their pumpkin carving skills.

PS Addendum to this post: Scott Plumbe, the carver of this tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog) pumpkin, wrote in to say he took a night photo of it below and he has kindly let me add it here (see link for story). Farther below that is the “No Face” pumpkin carved by his wife Rosemary a few years ago. No Face is a character in my favourite animated film of all time, Spirited Away by Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. Scott, not surprisingly, turns out to be a professional illustrator. This is an interesting way to meet your neighbours. See also this post on a house a few doors down from Scott and Rosemary’s.

For those who haven’t been following along, the above is what Vancouverites call a Vancouver Special (see previous post to learn more about this house style). All of the houses below are, believe it or not, updated Vancouver Specials. They were part of a recent tour organized by the Vancouver Heritage Foundation. It’s nice that the denigrated Vancouver Special house style is now being viewed as heritage, because until recently, heritage in Vancouver has fairly narrowly meant Edwardian and Victorian housing. As you can see, the Vancouver Specials below vary in their degree of divergence from the original house style, with the last house shown varying only slightly from the original, while the first varies the most. Thoughts? Perhaps because of the example set by this famous VS restoration, everyone seems to be using the combination of dark charcoal grey with unpainted wood. Unfortunately, interior photography wasn’t allowed.

My favourite is the house below, and not just because it was updated by my friend Scott.

The last house, below, is interesting just because it was fixed up with very little alteration. A paint job, removal of some plaster lions, very little waste, and very little money spent. Most of the renovations just involved opening up the interiors; in this one, the only wall removed was between the living room and kitchen. On the exteriors, the distressed faux brick was painted charcoal and the soffits were stripped down to the bare wood.