There came one day a knock on the door - a jaunty, insistent, rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat that was so annoyingly sure of itself I declined to answer. Now, you have all been at home, heard a strange knock, and declined to answer it. And you’ve all quietly slipped to a room

If you deem a house with a ballroom extravagant, you will deem a house with two ballrooms flagrant. This house indeed has two ballrooms, for one good reason: the far ballroom is for the living; this Grand Ballroom, is for the dead. Regrettably neither has had much use. I have

Welcome to the bathroom - my favorite room in the house! There are thirteen bathrooms on the premises, and they are all my favorite room in the house. For someone who lives in a mansion alone, I have a ridiculous amount of company: builders clomping from one end of the

The dining room. But this dining room. A secret dining room - off the kitchen, and down one and twelve steps to what previously, I believe, was a pantry. A single chair and a small table. For one. For me. From a very young age, I have thought that eating

When I decided to expand Llanada Villa, my first thought was, of course, “Where to begin?” This led to an unexpected second thought: “Which room in a house is the most important?“ A pointless question, as pointless as wondering which part of a body is the most important. Each is

There are forty stairways in the house; this is one: thirteen steps that terminate… at the ceiling. You might think it a stairway that leads nowhere. You might think it for those unimpeded by physical barriers. You might think it a joke. Or, if you climb the stairs and find

Mr. Chekhov says, “ A gun in the first act must go off in the third”. But what if it’s a one-act play? Or… what if you are in the third act of your life, and the gun - or guns - went off in the first? What then? There,

Why? Why would the sole resident of a perfectly accommodating California farmhouse transform it into a sprawling, seven-story mansion of six-hundred rooms, forty stairways, at least as many fireplaces, three elevators, thousands of windows, two ballrooms, and a séance parlor? Why? This is the question I most often am asked,