Corona del Mar Home Tour participants completing last-minute details
With the Corona del Mar PTA Home Tour just around the corner, homeowners and design teams are polishing, furnishing and putting the final touches on the houses to be featured Tuesday.
Six families will open up their homes in the beachside city to showcase their own personal, artistic décor and to raise funds for Corona del Mar middle and high schools. A light breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien at Fashion Island in Newport Beach, lunch at Sherman Library & Gardens in Corona del Mar and an afternoon reception at Bliss Home & Design on Pacific Coast Highway are also included for guests on the self-guided tour.
Proceeds will benefit school staff and student programs such as the arts, science, English and history, said Michele Caston, who has co-chaired the event for the past six years.
In preparation for the tour, Caston reached out to various local design teams, asking if any homes they were working on could be featured.
One of the six homes to be featured is Matt and Shea Watson’s 3,453-square-foot estate overlooking the Newport Beach Civic Center and harbor.
The Watsons bought the property in 2012, tore down the old house and began building a new one in 2015.
While the married couple’s newly built, one-story house still had some unpacked boxes and chairs under plastic sheets Wednesday, they said they are hopeful their home sweet home will be ready for showtime come Tuesday.
“Miracles do happen,” Shea said with a laugh.
The new Corona del Mar home has tall, wide windows and bedrooms with personalized decor for each of their three children, who attend a private school in Huntington Beach.
Their 14-year-old daughter’s room reflects her love for dance with a ballet bar installed on a wall in front of a large mirror. Next door is her 11-year-old sister’s room, which has white wallpaper that she can color flowers on, and her 8-year-old brother’s room, which has a mural of a lakeside mountain on one wall.
By Tuesday, the family of five expects their home will be complete with its four bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, living room, movie room and outdoor pool and patio.
“Having a deadline is good and having hundreds of people who are about walk through [our home] gave us the opportunity to do it all,” Matt said.
Also up against the deadline, Newport Beach interior designer Kelly Nutt and a team of construction workers are using the last few days before the tour to spruce up a new beach house owned by a family of six from Hillsborough, Northern California.
The designer said the family was excited to join the tour when she asked. “They love anything that supports education,” she said.
The two-story home on the Corona del Mar property, which once housed a cottage, is also being prepped for furnishing and decorating to be done by Tuesday.
The estate is what Nutt describes as “casual and cozy,” from the white Morrocan tiles in the kitchen to the stripped Anthropologie coat hooks installed by the upstairs bedrooms.
Nearly each room is adorned with a different overhead light fixture, including a small chandelier with beads that resemble seashells and a basket-like lamp cover that Nutt weaved with wicker from a boat supply store.
Attendees will be able to tour the six homes from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday. The afternoon reception at Bliss Home & Design will take place from 4 to 6 p.m.
For more information and to purchase tickets for $80, visit cdmhometour.com.
Twitter: @AlexandraChan10
