Home Tour: Ojai California Villa

A young family make their home in the little paradise of Ojai, California, in a Mediterranean-style stucco villa.

Carolina and Jack Bunce have a professed weakness for great views. That might be why the couple and their 8-year-old son, Graham, have settled in the little paradise of Ojai, California, in a Mediterranean-style stucco villa. Behind the house are jagged mountain peaks, high above a valley where fog rolls in. On the front facade, a second-story loggia has a view reminiscent of Tuscany or Provence: a sweeping valley of fields of avocado trees, olive farms, and perfumed orange groves, all bathed in an otherworldly light at sundown.

Here, Carolina Bunce crosses her breezeway; she matched the house's stucco to the color of sandstone rock on the property.

The Bunces regraded the area behind the house and covered it in pea gravel to create a pathway leading to a dining terrace. On weekends, they have breakfast there around a weathered painted-iron table with a glass top.

A credenza designed by Carolina stores 19th-century yellowware.

An antique Balinese teak daybed is grouped with a bamboo coffee table and chairs.

An arrangement of hydrangeas brings out the colors in a piece of French ticking that covers a table on the loggia. The floor is tiled with the same terra-cotta used indoors.

At the heart of the Bunce kitchen is an 1880s table topped with Caesar stone, a newfangled composite that is "lemon-proof, red wine-proof, and Sharpie pen-proof," Carolina says with conviction. A well-worn rug covers the polished wood floor.

Throughout the house, the couple's collection of dark still lifes contrasts with light walls; in the dining room, the paintings of fruits, vegetables, and bottles were made by a family friend. French caned chairs have a see-through lightness; they seem to hover around a table set with an antique homespun linen cloth. Ojai is surrounded by orange groves, so the fruit makes a fitting table decoration.

The Bunces' guests often gather on the loggia. One of the couple's first projects was to make the arches more substantial.

Agba, one of the family dogs, relaxes on a slipcovered sofa in the living room; the room has five sets of French doors that open onto the loggia, lending a bright, outdoors feeling. The fabric on a 1920s chair (far left) looks like patchwork but is actually needlepoint.

The hearth, baseboard, and floor are tiled with matching Mexican terra-cotta. The tiles' shapes set off the varied contours of a shiplike Empire daybed, the urns and candlesticks on the mantel, and the portrait of a woman above.

A crystal chandelier strikes a whimsical note above a free-standing tub, which the Bunces chose for its modern-looking flat rim. Carolina likes the worn silk rug because "you can stand on it with wet feet and it feels great." An antique painted tray table holds towels.

A pair of Louis XVI-style chairs flank painted panels rescued from a Hollywood house that Carolina decorated. The client did not want them, she says, and the contractor was about to throw them away.

The contemporary artist who painted this still life also made its burnished-gilt frame, reminiscent of Spanish Baroque carvings.