A modern relic: 1932 hacienda updated in Santa Monica

THERE IS no state-of-the-art media room, no marble spa bathroom, nor some of the other luxuries one might expect at the home of “High School Musical” creator Bill Borden and modern architect Melinda Gray. Their Santa Monica house is a simple ranch, a 100-foot-long rectangle fronted by a loggia, its seven archways formed of fat bricks salvaged from an old kiln. "Our kids go to the same school as Jamie Lee Curtis', and when she came over, she said, 'You're like hippies who made enough money to buy a big house,' " Borden says. "It's just not a fancy house."

By David A. Keeps

August 16, 2008