House £s? Garden 
hills, the house is about six hundred feet 
above sea-level ; its back to the mountains 
and its lace to Santa Barbara Channel and 
the Pacific. Less than three miles to the 
northward runs the crest of the Coast Range, 
here called the Sta. Inez Mountains. The 
near range is nowhere over four thousand 
feet high, but its rugged and massive walls 
stretch fifty miles along the coast, parallel 
with its curves, and accenting the shore by 
several lofty promontories. From any point 
of the house and garden can be seen the 
snowy line of distant surf edging the dazzling 
blue of the sea. Close this horizon on the 
south by a chain of peaky islands, overhang 
it with a glowing sky, dot it with scattered 
villas among plantations of oranges and 
lemons, and you have a situation for a garden 
rarely excelled in any land. Visitors talk of 
Italy, but it is only Sicily that can be com¬ 
pared to this in point of climate and fertility, 
while here is no touch of malaria or the 
sirocco, both of which infest that region. 
“ Miravista,” a part of this lovely slope, 
was originally covered with loose rocks 
amidst small live-oaks and a few scattered 
sycamores. The photographs afford some 
idea of the general landscape, the house and 
its formal enclosure. The east wing is to 
correspond with the west when finished. 
The material is rough cut sand stone. The 
garden is enclosed only by the groves of 
trees at its back, and the lemon orchard and 
oaks that lie between it and the main road 
and adjoining estates. On the north and 
west are many tall eucalyptus trees, planted 
to act as protection from occasional winds. 
The only hedge is the one that marks the 
western boundary — the usual Monterey 
Cypress. A screen of fruit and nut trees 
divides the kitchen garden on the north from 
the ornamental garden. 
267 
