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"View Slideshow\n\nWhen searching for a California home in the mid-1990s, Toby Lambert was shown a house in Montecito designed by George Washington Smith, who, during a career that lasted from 1916 to 1930, established himself as a dominant figure in West Coast domestic architecture. Originally built in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, this house had been extensively refitted with wholly inappropriate features, but enough remained of Smith's vision to suggest what it had once been and could become again.\n\nInitially Lambert passed on the property, but some years later, when it came on the market again, she felt ready to take on the challenge of a major restoration. By then she had become familiar with Smith's work, especially with what is arguably his masterpiece, the Casa del Herrero, a mansion that has the air of having been plucked from Granada, Spain, and set down in the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains.\n\nIt was Lambert's notion to apply the lessons of the Casa del Herrero to the nearby house. This daunting task would involve the removal of numerous anachronistic elements and the installation of replacements that accorded with Smith's aesthetic. It would require reshaping the rooms, raising some of the ceilings and landscaping an acre and a half of gardens. It would also entail attending to scores of decorative details and finding furnishings appropriate to the Spanish colonial mood of the house.\n\nTo handle this, the owner turned to Pasadena-based architect Michael Burch\u2014who has done a great deal of research on Smith buildings\u2014and to designer Pamela Banker. Banker and Lambert were old friends, having designed other projects together in the past.\n\n\"It's a pleasure to work with someone like Toby,\" says Banker, \"because she knows what she wants. There's no guesswork involved, and since we've worked together before, the process is collaborative. At the same time, this was a wonderful challenge for me, because I'd never had the opportunity to design a house of this sort before.\"\n\nDemolition work required a delicate touch, since most of the original features\u2014such as the handsome, cloisterlike corridors that look out onto two sides of a courtyard\u2014were to be preserved. This phase was followed by 18 months of construction. The former kitchen became a dining room, a new kitchen was installed, and the proportions of the master bedroom were changed to complement the rest of the house. The library was totally remodeled, Mission-style mantels were built, and beam ceilings\u2014some of them with hand-painted details\u2014were constructed to replace old plaster ceilings.\n\n\"I wanted a house that felt lived in,\" says Lambert, \"not brand-new. This meant that the woodwork had to be distressed and the stucco had to feel just right. Luckily, we found a real craftsman\u2014a young man named Olaf Negard\u2014to supervise the job.\"\n\nLatin touches are everywhere. These include an 18th-century bench from a monastery, antiques from Argentina and Peru, and Mission Revival objects. Seasoning the eclectic mix are French armchairs and tables, care-fully selected Oriental rugs, colonial accessories and good English furniture that once graced Lambert's Connecticut home. Among the custom-built items are a spectacularly sleek sofa in teal velvet and a large mahogany four-poster bed, both designed by Banker's firm.\n\nDespite its handsome furnishings, the interior projects an agreeably understated quality. The living room has a distinctive grandeur, certainly, but the library has the feel of a cozy sitting room, and the kitchen, with its ceramic-tile details and its view of the gardens, is functional yet warm.\n\nAs with the house, the gardens were enlivened with splashes of brick and ceramic tile that contribute much to the Spanish colonial aura. Banker found a local company to install the French tiles, which look as if they have been in place since the house was built in the 1920s.\n\nThe Spanish mood, which is mixed with Neoclassicism, extends to the terraced gardens. Landscaped by Gary Fredricks, they bring order to the slope while blending easily with the surrounding greenery.\n\n\"I believe that we've managed to combine comfort and elegance rather nicely,\" says Pamela Banker. \"It goes to show what can be achieved with determination, patience and a lot of love. I like to think George Washington Smith would be pleased with what we've done.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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