Homeownership dream started very, very small
Los Angeles Times
Chris Toledo has gone to painstaking lengths to build the home of his dreams.
He drew the patterns— based on antiques—for every one of his eight stained glass windows. He shaped delicate scroll railings for his Juliet balconies. He laid nearly 6,000 barrel tiles, one by one, on his rooftop.
For the last two years, he’s obsessed over every detail of his 1920s Spanish Mediterranean house.
Thousands have followed his labor online—including architects and interior designers.
But Casa California is a masterpiece of illusion.
The guest room is nearly the length of a pencil. The stone fountains are no taller than Q-Tips. The fireplace fits in the palm of a hand.
The whole house is less than 6 feet wide.
A life-size version would cost millions—millions Toledo does not have.
So far, this is the closest the 32-year-old has come to owning a house of his own in Los Angeles.
Toledo lives with his fiance, Matthew Mathiasen, in a small rented apartment near MacArthur Park.
It has two bedrooms, but these days Casa California claims one.
He’s wanted to build something like it since he was 8 years old.
That’s when, in a doctor’s waiting room, he picked up a copy of Nutshell News, a magazine for miniaturists.
It featured an impeccable tiny version of the Gamble House in Pasadena. Toledo knew the place. He’d driven by it with his father, who restored old homes.
“I was amazed,” he said of the diminutive replica. “I didn’t know what it was, but I wanted to do just that.”
When Christmas came, he asked his parents for a kit to make a miniature two-story log cabin. Next came a Victorian, followed by a farmhouse.
At home in Alhambra, Toledo would spend months building each structure, then use money he’d earned from chores to furnish every space. In Yucaipa, where his family often camped, there was a miniature store, where he’d go to buy petite floral sofas, chests of drawers and china cabinets.
His parents, immigrants from Argentina, hoped it was a calling.
“We were convinced he’d be an architect,” said his mother, Liliana Eschoyez.
Instead, he grew up to work in fashion, photography and later in his current field, graphic design.
Four years ago, after a long pause, he returned to building the little houses that had brought him such boyhood joy.
But this time, ready-made kits would no longer be enough. He wanted to create an entire tiny home from scratch.
It was supposed to be a hobby, until he saw it might be more.
Toledo’s plan was to build a two-story, two-bedroom Spanish villa, a vision he’d formed from watching Bob Villa restore a Spanish home on TV and spending hours driving around ogling grand estates in Hancock Park and South Pasadena. “I imagined I was a wealthy person in the 1920s … who moved to Los Angeles to build a home for my family. This would be my castle,” he said.