Your Home

It’s getting easier for grandma to move into the backyard.

The Los Altos City Council approved two amended ordinances July 10, one governing the size of accessory structures in residential districts and another regulating accessory dwelling units (ADUs), also known as in-law units, granny units or secondary units.

Photos courtesy of Phil Cooke
Summer is often the time homeowners want to remodel or clean up their pools – or put one in. According to Phil Cooke, owner of Blue Water Pools, summer is his busiest season. The Los Altos Building Division reports that over the past five years, more residents applied for permits to install a pool than to demolish one.

As summer heats up, many Los Altos and Los Altos Hills residents are thinking about their pools – and repairing them. According to Phil Cooke, owner of the Mountain View-based Blue Water Pools, summer is the busiest time for his pool building and repair service.

“Everybody is paying attention to their pool, and anything that wasn’t fixed can be fixed,” he said.

Photo by Tanya Kucak/Special to the Town Crier
Because flies eat nectar and perch on flowers to bask in the sun, they serve as important pollinators, supplementing the work of local bees.

Flies are the second-greatest pollinators after bees. As pollinators, flies are undervalued, understudied and underappreciated, according to John Whittlesey, owner of Canyon Creek Nursery and Design.

Whittlesey spoke at the Northern California Botanists’ Symposium last year. He said he started doing macrophotography several years ago, taking photos of “whatever ends up on a flower,” and saw lots of flies. He discovered that flies are very photogenic, and he wondered what they were doing.

Megan V. Winslow/Town Crier
Vines and espaliers can serve as a natural curtain, offering privacy with the perk of bonus natural visuals. Planting to create a “sanctuary space” requires planning which green screens can grow to fill a need without overcrowding or requiring constant trimming.

Hedges serve the purpose of fences but are more visually appealing, espaliers and vines can function like natural curtains and strategically placed plants used as screens or garden dividers can result in a “splendid sanctuary space,” according to Kevin Raftery, owner of Kevin Raftery Horticultural Services.

“Planting for privacy can screen what you don’t want to see and direct the eye to what you want to see,” said Raftery, who is also a horticulture instructor at Foothill College and teacher of the “Planting for Privacy” class at the Elizabeth F. Gamble Garden in Palo Alto.

Photos Courtesy of Amanda Kuzak
A simple remodel turned into a down-to-the-studs rebuild after Los Altos residents Amanda and Chris Kuzak bought a 930-square-foot house in Los Altos. They removed a wall to open up the living and dining area, right, and added a kitchen island, above, that provides both storage and home for a cooktop and pop-up exhaust fan, above. The marble in the kitchen’s tiles appears again in bathroom and living room flourishes.

Amanda Kuzak calls her Los Altos home a jewelry box.

“It’s small, but there are treasures inside,” she said.

Photo Courtesy of Ryan Gowdy
Adobe Creek Lodge, which once hosted thousands of guests each weekend, now functions as a private family home in Los Altos Hills. The 48-acre property retains its 8,500-square-foot Tudor-style manor house, now scaled to include just three bedrooms.

The iconic Adobe Creek Lodge in Los Altos Hills has a colorful past and is looking toward the future.

In the span of 84 years, it has come full circle from a luxurious private retreat to a luxurious private home. In between, it has been a swim club, a supper club, a day resort and a popular venue. At its height in 1970, the lodge hosted 8,000 guests per weekend.