JAUNTS : Victorian Homes Open for Tour : Five elegant, turn-of-the-century residences at Heritage Square are featured in a special holiday event.

If you want a Victorian dose of Christmas, visit Heritage Square in downtown Oxnard this weekend. The restored turn-of-the-century village is all spruced up for the holiday season.

Guides in period costumes are leading tours through five of the decorated homes, once lived in by pioneering Oxnard families. It’s a chance to see the interior of these finely crafted homes, which throughout the year are closed during weekend walking tours of the quaint village.

The special tours this weekend are not free, though, like the others. Advance tickets are $10 for adults; $12 at the door. For seniors it’s $2 less, and children 6 to 12 can take the tour for $5.

The 45-minute tours are scheduled Thursday and Friday, 6 to 9 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, 3 to 6 p.m.

Along with a look at the houses, you can sample a dessert buffet. Actors from the Elite Theatre Co., Heritage Square’s resident theater group, will tell Christmas stories and perform songs. “Scrooge” will also put in an appearance.

If you’ve never strolled through Heritage Square, it’s a collection of 11 homes, a church, water tower and pump house--all restored, landscaped and neatly laid out with Disneyland-like flair.

They weren’t built there to begin with, however. They are some of the more elegant examples of Oxnard architecture, rounded up from all over the city and moved to the square’s downtown location at 7th Street, between South A and B streets. The farthest was six miles away, and the closest, only six blocks.

Heritage Square officially opened in 1991, concluding a six year effort by the city, private investors and the original families to preserve the buildings as a remnant of early Oxnard.

Finally restored on the inside too, the homes are occupied by an assortment of businesses, agencies and groups--everything from the Oxnard Chamber of Commerce to the Christian Science Reading Room.

For the tours this weekend, the homes-turned-offices have been decked out with lights, Christmas trees, decorative boughs and wreaths, and stockings on the fireplaces. In the Justin Petit Ranch House, a 13-room Queen Anne-style house that serves as the square’s centerpiece, a vintage miniature train runs around the Christmas tree. Nearby are turn-of-the-century toys, like a small rocking horse. Stockings, fashioned like elegant boots of the period, hang from the mantel.

Those on the tour will learn about the Petit family and the house, built in 1896 at 1980 E. Wooley Road. The French-born Petit and his wife, Francis Kaufman, raised seven children there. The 7,000-square-foot house has two staircases, seven entrances, seven bedrooms, two parlors, and two maids’ quarters. It also holds the distinction of being the first farmhouse in the county to have electricity installed.

“They put everything on this house,” said Gary Blum, a Petit descendant who restored the house. It has curved glass windows, ornate detailing, and a paint job involving seven colors.

The other houses on the tour include the Gordon House, a two-story Craftsman-style house built in 1910; the Fry/Puntenney House, a 1903 Queen Anne design with a rounded two-story tower; the Scarlett House, built in 1903, with the best preserved staircase at the square; and the Perkins/Clayberg House, built in 1887 with ornate gables and spindle work.

The walking tours will run every 15 minutes and will include about 25 people. Proceeds will benefit programs at Heritage Square.

Details

* WHAT: Victorian House Tours.

* WHERE: Heritage Square, 7th Street, between South A and B, Oxnard.

* WHEN: Thursday and Friday, 6 to 9 p.m; and Saturday and Sunday, 3 to 6 p.m.

* HOW MUCH: Advance tickets for adults are $10; $12 at the door. For seniors, $2 less. Children, ages 6-12, $5.

* FYI: 483-7960. Reservations recommended, but not required.