This is the Adamson House, also known as Vaquero Hill, a historic house with lovely grounds in Malibu, California. It has been called the “Taj Mahal of Tile” due to its extensive use of decorative ceramic tiles created by the Malibu Potteries company. The house was built in 1930 for Rhoda Rindge Adamson and Merritt Huntley Adamson, based on a Mediterranean Revival design by Stiles O. Clements of the architectural firm of Morgan, Walls & Clements.
The tiles are what drew me to the house. Malibu Potteries produced an amazing variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and designs. Sadly only in existence for six years, they distributed tile world-wide. A mural was shipped to a bank in Shanghai, but most of the tile with its Saracen, Moorish, and Spanish designs went to Los Angeles homes and buildings constructed in the late 1920s. This included Los Angeles City Hall, a mural depicting William Henry Dana’s ship, The Pilgrim, in San Pedro Bay in 1834 which were installed at the Dana Junior High School in San Pedro in 1928. Simon Rodia, an employee at Malibu Potteries, reportedly often rode home in his carpool with pockets bulging with tile fragments. Later he was to become famous as the builder of the Rodia Towers (commonly called Watts Towers).
The most comprehensive collection remaining today is at the Adamson home. Examples include the 5 layer terra cotta tile roofs, exterior and interior walls, floors, and ceilings. Fountains, faience jardinieres, and tables in the garden. One of the more interesting of the tiles were done to represent a Turkish carpet, notice the fringe on the edges.
A fire destroyed a large area of the Potteries in 1931. Mrs. Rindge planned to rebuild, the great depression, however, with an accompanying building slump greatly reduced the demand for ornamental tile. In 1932 the pottery closed never to operate again.
The residence is within the Malibu Lagoon State Beach Park. The Adamson House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 and designated as a California Historical Landmark in 1985. The second photo is from their website, as no photography is allowed inside the home. You are required to take a guided tour, but if you are in the area, I recommend it highly. When there be sure to notice the thresholds, they were all broken shards of tile. The reason isn’t really known, some feel that it helped to give a notification that things were changing, as each room held a very specific tile pattern and theme, some think it went back to ancient times of evil spirits not being able to move across crooked lines, and some think it was ways to get rid of waste in the factory.
http://www.adamsonhouse.org/
If you are interested in Malibu Potteries this book is available, and while not perfect, not enough pictures for my liking, it is one of the only ones I have found.