Celebrating Festive Connections

By Julie Jaskol | October 8, 2025 | Photography by Christopher Gonzalez and Joshua Scheide

Outside, a gentle rain falls on the pink roses climbing the arbor at the front gate. Inside, the kettle boils; Grammy’s English china cups and saucers are stacked and ready; the scones, cookies, and tarts are pulled from the oven. Welcome to the annual tea party at the 1915 Craftsman airplane bungalow home of Rebecca and Adam Brown, and Adam’s parents Bonnie and Alan Brown in Corona, California.

The Browns have been celebrating this springtime tradition every year since they moved into their historic home. Airplane bungalows are distinguished by a window-lined second story that pops from the roof, like an airplane cockpit. This one had been sadly neglected. “It kind of broke our hearts,” Rebecca said.

The lush, leafy garden, with its five mature trees and several smaller ones, hadn’t been cared for either. “When we first bought the house, we were daunted by how overgrown the garden was,” Rebecca said. “When we got past that, we thought this would be such a nice place for a garden party.”

The rain may have driven the party indoors this year, but it didn’t dampen their enthusiasm for the tradition, where everything antique is encouraged, from recipes to dress and lawn games (in better weather).

In fact, being indoors made it easier for guests to see the family pictures, china, candlesticks, and other mementos that line the walls and shelves.

The heirlooms, from both their families, underline what’s important to Rebecca and Adam about living in an older house. “We had a dream of an older couple handing it down to young people,” Rebecca said. “We feel the presence of previous owners – not in a ghost-y kind of way.”

Rebecca and Adam bought the house three years ago, as newlyweds, along with Adam’s parents. The four of them live together in what they consider very much a work in progress. “This was my dream,” Rebecca said of living in an historic home. “I didn’t quite realize the amount of upkeep in a house like this.”

In addition to the rambunctious garden, they inherited dangerous old wiring, lead paint, and a cast-iron sewer main that had “basically crumbled into dust,” among other challenges. They turned to other historic homeowners online who shared insights and recommendations. “Everyone loves talking about their journey in repairing old homes,” Adam said.

Rebecca and Adam have tackled much of the renovation themselves, except for plumbing and electrical work. “We'll likely eventually have to find someone for some restoration work on the structure, but I'm hoping to slowly and carefully renovate the house/carriage house ourselves,” Adam said. Their goal is to “keep the things we adore and add things that could have been added all along.”

Although their renovation is far from complete, the house has already become a gathering place for family and friends for board game evenings, holidays, even a Thanksgiving for 32 people at a long table in the charming sunroom.

“I love hosting old-fashioned traditions,” Rebecca said. “We also try to keep all of our old family traditions alive, and somehow getting to live out those traditions with our old house as the backdrop just feels extra special.”

Thanksgiving is the signal for Carmen and Bruce Selfridge to start decorating their 1920 Prairie Style home in Cloverdale, California, for Christmas. The process takes about two weeks and involves multiple trees, vintage ceramic tree stands, dozens (hundreds?) of knickknacks, Christmas artwork, and incandescent C-9 lights. “We like an old-fashioned warm glow to the lighting,” Bruce, a retired firefighter, said.

When he and Carmen, a retired chef, bought the house, “it looked to the untrained eye like it would fall down,” he said. “We looked past all that and structurally it was sound.”

The house also came with some spiritual baggage. “Everyone in town has a story about the family who had it prior to us – very few of the stories are good,” Bruce said. “The mother was sweet, but her husband and sons were not. We like to think she’d be happy with what we did to the house.”

The remodeling was extensive, but the Selfridges’ architect “really got into the Prairie School style and incorporated it into the addition,” Bruce said. In the process, the Selfridges discovered a bit of treasure hidden in plain sight. “When we bought the house, we had a tile fireplace we didn’t pay much attention to and a friend walked through and said, ‘Oh you have a Batchelder!’”

The fireplace is a long-term restoration project, but when it is done, it will no doubt serve as a backdrop to the hand-painted stoneware jugs, crocks, and artware made by the Red Wing Company in Red Wing, Minnesota, that cover just about every surface of the house. The Selfridges are active members of the Red Wing Collector Society; they’ve served in leadership positions and hosted semi-annual gatherings at their home. They also collect colorful antique spongeware and, inspired, by their fireplace, vintage tile.

Come Christmas time, the pottery is joined by vintage Christmas ornaments and decorations that cover every remaining spare inch.

“We take most of our artwork down and put up Christmas artwork,” Bruce said, including paintings of old-fashioned Santas on wooden cutting boards that he acquired from a dealer at a Nashville antique show.

There’s a heavily decorated 10-foot tree along with several smaller trees in vintage ceramic tree stands, many of them featuring miniature crocks, Red Wing Ceramic ornaments, and Batchelder-inspired tiles.

But Bruce is not above “corny inflatables” (his words) in addition to the old-fashioned lighting outside. “Last year I bought my wife one of those wavy, 25-feet-tall Santas, the kind you usually see in front of tire shops,” he said.

All of this adds to the unique quality of the house that was once considered a tear-down. “One day during our restoration our contractor had a meeting with the building inspector,” Bruce recalled. “I was on the end of a shovel and the inspector passed by me and said he didn’t understand why the owners wanted to save the house, I said I wasn’t sure why they were saving it either.”

But looking at it now, he has an idea. “We love being a chapter in the history of our home,” he said. “Pretty sure anyone else would’ve bulldozed it and put up a McMansion. But we’ve given it a second life.” And another chance at a happy holiday.