Santa Barbara Estate: The Living Room | Inside Kingdom & Co. Podcast

In this episode of Inside Kingdom & Co., Lincoln Rogers and the team walk through the living room of the Santa Barbara Estate in Southern Highlands with builder John McDonough. They discuss hand-forged Steven Handelman lighting fixtures, chamfered plaster fireplace details, custom millwork, and how every element in this home was mocked up for scale before final installation.

Lincoln: One of the cool features in this home are the lighting fixtures.

Explain to us kind of…

John: Yeah, so once again, trying to get that authentic Santa Barbara, that 20s architecture.

There’s a company out of Santa Barbara, Steven Handelman, that hand makes all of these lighting fixtures.

He’s really well known in Southern California and throughout the world for producing these vintage style chandeliers and lighting fixtures.

And if you see the detail in every one of these, and every one of these had a mock-up done to make sure the size was right.

We would literally hold the mock-up up on a ladder and make sure that the architect and the interior designer thought that the size was right.

So everything in this house, a lot of things were mocked up to make sure that scale was right, the size was right, the details were right.

So a lot of just like once again, looking at that fireplace, same thing.

The chamfered corners, the different architectural style.

I just love how that looks so authentic and real.

Lincoln: So just those little things that most people don’t even think about when it comes to…

Most people just buy a light and hopefully it works out or the fact that you guys had mock-ups and you guys looked at every little detail because they’re custom lights being made.

That’s a cost that you don’t want to waste.

John: Right.

Lincoln: All right.

So John, I know that you guys spent a lot of detail and a lot of time and energy on this courtyard.

Tell us about it.

John: Yeah.

So this courtyard is the focal feature when you walk in the front door.

You can see it from the front door.

You can see it from the family room.

You can see it from the living room.

The nice thing about it is everything is powered.

So you’ve got pocket doors.

All three of these doors are pocket doors that open up to the courtyard.

So when he’s entertaining or on a nice spring or fall evening, you can open this up.

You can hear the sound of the fountain.

Lincoln: Right.

John: The fountain is once again, all the hand painted tile, the motor and everything is remote so that you don’t hear that running.

And I love the detail here.

He didn’t want to step down going into the courtyard.

Lincoln: Look how clean the transitions are right here.

John: Yeah.

Lincoln: I didn’t realize that.

John: He didn’t want this to step down into the courtyard.

So we’re able to take the track and integrate it into the tile.

And also this deco drain that we use with, you can see it’s not just your normal deco drain.

It’s actually got a pattern into it.

It’s steel pieces.

He wanted it to look very authentic.

But I love how everything in this courtyard is seamless as it goes inside to out.

Lincoln: Right.

And the risk you run of having this be flush is flooding into the home.

John: Correct.

Lincoln: Put the drains in here.

That really helps with that.

And it’s not just a drain though.

All the drains I see are plastic pieces.

John: Right.

Lincoln: And you guys actually have a specific, you know, steel plate basically across.

It’s all decorative.

John: And that’s what we were worried about was if they got a monsoon here like we get and those heavy rains, that water coming back into the house.

So we were able to slope it very slightly to another drain in the middle.

But all around all three doors, you have those channel drains that keep the water from coming in.

Plus you have copper rain gutters on every, throughout the house, which is very authentic.

Once again, all the lights in this courtyard are gas lamp.

So at night this just flickers and it’s unbelievable.

Lincoln: I can only imagine.

That’s great.