North Tustin: CHOC Home Tour
Save the date for the CHOC 37 th Annual Home Tour and Boutique, an event that has sold out in the last two years. The tour takes you into three gorgeous North Tustin homes. This year’s tour will be held on Friday, November 21, 2008. The tour is from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., while the boutique is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The event starts at the Tustin Hills Racquet Club. Tickets sold in advance are $40 (includes box lunch). Tickets sold on the day of event (if there are any left) are $40 (no lunch).
According to its website, Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) provides “the highest quality medical care to children. Our regional health system includes a state-of-the-art 232 bed main hospital facility in the City of Orange, a hospital-within-a-hospital in Mission Viejo, and five community clinics — plus over 100 additional programs and services. With admissions growing by 91% over the last ten years, CHOC and CHOC at Mission combined rank as the 16th busiest children’s hospital in the country.”
The OC Register interviewed one of the homeowners showing her home on the CHOC tour. Jo-Anne Newton grew up in the Cowan Heights, in a home that was on the CHOC tour. Now, it’s her turn. According to the article, the CHOC tour planners spotted her home when they came to look at another house down the street. They then invited her to be on the tour. Here’s the Q&A with Newton from the Register‘s article:
Q: What do you feel is special about your house?
A: The open floor plan. It’s so open, all the windows. There’s one 90-degree angle in the whole house.
Q: What is your favorite thing about the house?
A: Just the openness. It brings the outside in. If you sit here, it’s kind of like being in a tree house. It almost feels like you’re a part of it. I like space and have four kids, so there’s plenty of room for them to run and play. There’s a half-basketball court and pool.
Q: What are your influences in decorating the interior?
A: I think it’s a very eclectic mix of things, traditional, English, antiques, mixed with African and Asian pieces and modern pieces. I don’t plan it out. It’s all by feel. That’s just fun.
Q: What has been the most challenging?
A: It required maintenance because it’s a wood house. The house was built in 1973. We’ve lived here for 12 years. You just have to take care of it. When we moved in, there was no landscaping. It was a big dirt lot. We replaced the deck when we moved in, and we plan to expand the deck and build an outdoor kitchen because we spend so much time outside and we have enough space. I have it all drawn out in my mind already. We added a second story and workout room and guest room.
Q: What style is the house?
A: People refer to it as Frank Lloyd Wright, prairie-style.
Q: What does it mean to you to be on the CHOC tour?
A: Gosh, I think it’s very flattering to be asked. That someone would think our home is interesting, that people want to see it.
Q: Do you have a favorite room?
A: The master bedroom and kitchen. The kitchen because it’s so family-oriented and a good cooking kitchen, and I like to cook. The master bedroom has east-facing windows so I wake up to the sun and the kids love to hang out in there. Everybody’s in there. It’s a big room and there are comfortable overstuffed chairs. The kids lay over the chairs. The kids will hang out there together. They go there to do reading assignments. We focus on eating family meals so there’s no TV in the kitchen, so it’s sitting at the kitchen table together. We wait to eat when everyone gets home.
