Taj Mahal of Tile

As you stroll down the long hallway in Malibu’s historic Adamson House, you marvel at the rich colors in the Persian rug under your feet.

But wait, something is wrong. This doesn’t feel like a rug. You look more closely and realize--it’s not a rug at all. It’s tile.

This huge Spanish-style mansion, built in 1929, might as well be called the house that tile built. Tile is everywhere--from the ceramic wall clock above the tile-topped oak table in the kitchen to the floor-to-ceiling tiled bathrooms.

You can tour this tiled wonder Wednesday through Saturday all year, but if you go during the holidays, you can see it all dolled up for Christmas.

Special tours have been added Friday nights through Dec. 26, so visitors can see the place lighted up and enjoy some holiday refreshments. These two-hour tours start at 7 p.m. and cost $10. (Reservations are required.)

“It has a magical, mystical feeling at night,” said Michelle Oliver, a docent who leads tours of the house.

Its beach-side location alone makes the house special, even for Malibu. It’s nestled on 13 landscaped acres just east of the Malibu Lagoon and offers views of the Malibu Pier and Malibu Beach.

Operated by California State Parks as a museum since the early 1980s, the lavish spread was once the home of Malibu’s early pioneering elite. It was originally intended to be the vacation getaway of Merritt Huntley Adamson and his heiress wife, Rhoda Rindge Adamson.

The Rindge family had developed a working ranch at Malibu in the late 1800s, and had even installed a private railroad that extended the 20-mile length of their coastal holdings.

Adamson also came from big money, and with his wife, Rhoda, he established a state-of-the-art dairy in Los Angeles called Adohr Farms--Adohr being Rhoda spelled backward.

The beach knoll where the Adamson house sits had been a gift from Mrs. Rindge to her daughter in the early 1920s. It’s no surprise the house was so extensively tiled. In 1926, Mrs. Rindge had capitalized on the clay in the Malibu area and established Malibu Potteries. For the handful of years the company existed--from 1926 to 1932--it supplied an abundance of uniquely colorful tile to hundreds of Southern California homes and buildings.

The Adamsons’ so-called beach house became sort of a showcase for tile and its many uses. “That’s why everyone comes to see it,” Oliver said.

The couple brought in top-of-the-line architects and artists to build this two-story, seven-bedroom mansion, and everywhere they could put tile, they did. Even an outside bathtub for scrubbing the family dog is lined with tile. Other spots where you wouldn’t think to look, such as under a sink, are graced with the stuff. It’s on the floors, on the stairs, on wainscoting, embedded in fireplaces.

The effect can be overwhelming, as described in “A Brief History of Malibu and the Adamson House”: “The bathroom has a daunting pattern of tile on the floor, walls and ceiling and is not for the faint of heart.”

In some spots the tile is ingenious. On the second-floor balcony, a vividly tiled bench was built into the outside wall of the house. Behind the wall on the inside is a fireplace that made the bench a cozy place to sit. From the balcony you can see the fountain below, adorned with dazzling peacocks--all in tile, of course.

“It’s the most beautiful home in all of Los Angeles,” said Regina Drucker, an architectural stylist who recently visited the home with out-of-town friends. “It shows a true example of Southern California in the 1920s. It’s just a shame we can’t take the Pacific Coast Highway off the map.”

The busy highway borders the property, but landscaping provides some buffering. In fact, when the Adamson family lived there (moving in full-time in 1936), it took five full-time gardeners to keep up the place.

It’s not just the tile that makes this house worth a tour. The Moorish-Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, with its thick white walls, also blends in some other neat artistic touches--such as the oil painting on the wall in the study that drops down to become a writing table. The furnishings are those used by the family, which lived there until 1962. The home, eyed at one time for a beach parking lot, escaped the wrecking ball and eventually garnered a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.

Along with the preservation of the house, the garage space has been turned into a museum as well, to showcase the history of Malibu--from the earliest residents, the Chumash, to the surfers and movie stars.

BE THERE

The Adamson House and museum are located at Malibu Lagoon State Beach, 23200 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu. The grounds are open daily from sunrise to sunset, and the house is open for tours Wednesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., at a cost of $2 for adults and $1 for children under 6.

Christmas tours are scheduled on Friday evenings through Dec. 26 at 7 p.m. Cost is $10. For information and reservations, call 310-456-8432.