A beach-worthy backyard

THE cafe at the Long Beach Museum of Art feels like home, perhaps because it once was: a 1912 Arts and Crafts-style amalgam of quaint red brick, imperfect shingles and sloping gables. It casts a spell of a time when floors were made of good wood, when picture windows whispered “come read,” when lunch was leisurely. Outside, a bluff-side spot on the lawn’s western corner takes in the graceful old house and the Pacific beyond. Diners soak up the sun, and children coo at the whitecaps. “I wanna live here,” says a grade-schooler on a field trip. Now, there’s an idea.

-- Zan Dubin Scott