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Montecito Gardens: Our house featured in Santa Barbara Seasons magazine!!!

January 24, 2018 By // by Penelope Bianchi 2 Comments

GLORIOUS GARDENS: FRENCH COUNTRY STYLE MEETS CALIFORNIA COOL

When Penny and Adam Bianchi bought a modest slice of undeveloped land off of East Valley Road 20 years ago, they had a golden opportunity to build a custom home in the heart of Montecito. The property sits at the entrance to the pristine 42-acre Ennisbrook Preserve, and Oprah’s vast estate borders the property on two other sides. A single home edges the property in the north. “The terrain and plants reminded me of France,” recalls Penny, “so we went to Provence and took thousands of pictures of roofs and crooked roofs and chimneys and floors and doorknobs.”

The Bianchi’s worked with Grace Design Associates to create their own Shangri-La that sits lightly on the land blends in naturally with the surroundings. Photograph by Amy Barnard.

Once home, they began to build a French country-style home and a guesthouse, surrounded by about 2.5 acres of magical gardens and wildlife habitat. The walls were washed with lime from pigment mined from the ground in Provence—no paint was applied at all. “Lime wash lets the mortar breathe,” explains Penny. “This is how stone and brick houses in Provence are traditionally treated.”

Penny has worked as an interior designer for nearly 50 years and has filled her home with antiques from all over the world. Much of her collection was inherited from her mother and grandmother, and Penny appears to have inherited her family’s amazing knack for finding one-of-a-kind treasures, as well. “I’ve been collecting things my whole life because I don’t like anything new,” she says. “I like everything old, weathered and used. Even my linens and light fixtures are mostly antiques.”

Generous use of color and texture spotlight Penny Bianchi’s great eye for detail. As an interior designer for nearly 50 years, she uses her own home to showcase her designs. Photograph by Amy Barnard.

High ceilings and plentiful windows fill the home with light throughout the day. The main entrance leads into a spacious hall, which leads to the bedroom (there’s only one) and master bath on one side, and kitchen, office and guest bathrooms on the other. Adam Bianchi works in the office—he sold his family’s poultry business 30 years ago and has run Penny’s business operations ever since. Penny changes the furniture slipcovers several times a year so the mood always reflects the season.

As an interior designer for nearly 50 years, Penny Bianchi uses her own home to showcase her eye for detail to charming effect. Photograph by Amy Barnard.

Treasures that appear at every turn include antique lace lampshades and oriental rugs, screens and other works by French artist Marcel Vertes, shower tiles from 17th-century France and an 1860s bathtub from Paris. The guest powder room features bird murals with bird figurines that hover over the walls. The kitchen has furniture pieces rather than built-in cabinets.

Views of the gardens—designed by Grace Design Associates—are always on display from the Bianchi’s breathtaking country kitchen, photograph by Amy Barnard.

The gardens, designed by Grace Design Associates, are a welcome haven for humans and wildlife alike. The National Wildlife Federation has named the Bianchi property as a Certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat, which means it provides the basics needs for wildlife: food, water, a roof over their heads and a place to raise their young. Carefully selected trees and shrubs nourish and protect ducklings and other creatures, and floating houses anchored in the middle of a pond allow nesting ducks and their offspring to escape from predators. Heirloom chickens roam free during the day and put themselves in the coop in the evening for protection.

Heirloom chickens happily roam free during the day, along with multitudes of other wildlife. The Bianchi property is a Certified Wildlife Habitat. Photograph by Amy Barnard.

Views of these glorious gardens (designed by Grace Design Associates) are on gorgeous display from Penny Bianchi’s indoor/outdoor office. Photograph by Amy Barnard.

All in all, the Bianchis have successfully created a haven in which every nook and cranny evokes coziness and a connection with the natural world. In Penny’s words, it’s “a cozy, collected and patina” home where they, their grown children and seven grandchildren thoroughly enjoy daily life in a remarkable Montecito setting.

Montecito Gardens: Our house featured in Santa Barbara Seasons magazine!!!Read More

Grace Design Associates …..our wonderful landscape designers!!!

August 9, 2013 By // by Penelope Bianchi 6 Comments

I was showing a friend the photographs of our garden on our landscape designer’s website; and read the story of our project!

I realized that our project from their standpoint was quite different from ours; and thought a lot of people would enjoy reading

about the challenges and reading the story!

Thriving Wilderness Retreat: The Landscape Design Challenge

It was love at first sight for this Montecito couple. The minute they saw the land, they knew they had found their Shangri-la. Two acres of poison oak, eucalyptus and Coast Live Oak sandwiched between a 45-acre creek side butterfly preserve and 50 heavily-treed acres of the old Bacon estate, the land was beautiful. The only hitch was it was considered unbuildable. The engineering challenges of managing subsurface water, springs and heavy runoff from the surrounding watershed had deterred many would-be builders.

The Solution

The couple, however, would not let such a thing as an ‘unbuildable’ site stop them. They worked with the engineer and the architect to create a beautiful, modest yet sumptuous 3,500 square foot compound that sat lightly on the land and blended in naturally with the surroundings. The main house, guest house and garage are arranged around a courtyard and give the impression of a small village. The three individual buildings present a much smaller profile to the street than one large structure would, greatly lessening the visual impact the structures have on this very natural setting. When the Bianchis hired Grace Design Associates, Inc. to bring together their landscaping, they had completed construction on their home, thinned the eucalyptus trees, built the pond, completed the walks near the house and installed the larger landscape trees. They envisioned their garden would fit seamlessly into the native landscape, a sanctuary for wildlife and a respite from the workaday world. And, although they had an extensive subsurface drainage system and a perimeter flow-diverting wall in case the underground system failed, additional drainage was needed to accommodate increased runoff from the extensive construction being done on the estate to the west.

Special Features:

100% chemical free landscape maintenance.
The whole property is a “no kill zone” – animals and insects usually considered pests are part of the ecosystem, providing prey for raptors and food for beneficial insects; plants are planted in wire baskets to protect them from gophers.
Habitat was created for quail (brush piles, shelter shrubs, water and seed-producing plants for feed).
Nesting boxes attract blue birds and bats.
Snags and dead trees were left intact for perches for birds of prey, habitat for grubs (bird food), and bee hives, all of which are actively used by local wildlife.
Lots of small water pockets and the occasional supply of mealy worms attract a variety of winged creatures.
Penny keeps free-range chickens. A predator-proof chicken coop contains a scavenged monkey house with nesting boxes for sitting hens. Ramps in critical places allow chickens access and egress to and from sheltering niches. A salvaged bus shelter was recently brought in to house free-range turkey hens
Drought-tolerant plants were used on the majority of the property. Higher water use, more “garden-y” plants comprise less than five percent of the landscaping and are used only in the area immediately adjacent to the house.
Heavy native soil supports wild grasses with very little supplemental irrigation water.
Where the soil is heaviest, an unlined pond was built; this allows for groundwater recharge, attracts water birds and supports a healthy aquatic ecosystem.
Live Oaks were carefully tended throughout the construction process and continue to be diligently tended.
The driveway is chip-sealed. This slows the rate of runoff, lessening flooding, sedimentation and bank erosion in the neighboring creek.
Walkways are permeable (gravel, flagstone or mulch over soil). This reduces runoff and allows for infiltration to reduce irrigation needs and help to leach salts from the soil.
Deciduous trees shade the south terrace and loggia, allowing passive heat gain in winter months and providing cooling shade in the same areas in the summer months.
The loggia is built to catch a cross breeze and is deeply shaded by eaves. No cooling of this southern room is required.
Drainage: A drainage system, comprised of three large catch basins, a system of 30″ diameter pipes and a discharge pipe was already present. To assist with the drainage on the extensively developed uphill neighbor’s property, the engineer suggested that an additional section of 30″ diameter pipe be installed to connect two of the catch basins. As originally proposed, laying such a pipe underground would have required the loss of three oaks as well as disturbing the existing landscaping and compacting the very heavy soil with the use of heavy equipment. Our solution was to connect the two catch basins with a “dry creek”, excavating soil and placing boulders by hand. The dry creek was constructed with the same capacity as the proposed 30″ diameter pipe and runs only when/if the upstream catch basin overflows. The dry creek has the additional benefit of intercepting subsurface flow, de-watering the soil, lightening the construction impact on the existing plantings and trees and enhancing the aesthetics of the garden. Soil excavated to form the dry creek was used on-site to create a raised herb garden, eliminating the cost and environmental impact of exporting the excavated soil.