La Fortuna

I flew out to Boise to help HomoDommus and FemmeDommus move (finally!) from their three-plus year rental to a realio-trulio owned own home.  And such a marvelous home it is!

Four bedrooms, three livable stories. A gorgeous patio with a thick awning of wisteria, overlooking a view south and east across the city of Boise and some distant (low) mountains beyond.  A densely planted garden of flowers and fruit trees and bushes, and a vegetable garden.  A babbling (man-made) stream that flows down to a pond with 6 koi in it.  Four chickens and daily fresh eggs.

Curiously, it is a recently built house (curious, because that tends not to be "our style").  The former owners built it to their specifications -- she (or maybe he) is an avid gardener, and she is a writer (of Young Adult novels, I believe leaning towards paranormal and romance, since that is what all Young Adult novels do these days).  The house is full of built-in bookshelves.

The house is built on top of a finger of a foothill, with snow-covered mountains (snow-covered, at least, in early March) at its back.  There is a small yard (as I said, densely planted), and a very, very, steep drop off to the edge of the property.  They are just four houses down the street from an impressive mansion built by Mr. Simplot (of Simplot Potatoes).  He gave the house to the state of Idaho, on condition that the huge flag be flown above it daily -- it has been in use as the Governor's Mansion for several years. (Click here to read the wikipedia.org article about it.)

You can see the Simplot Mansion (under the flag - no kidding about the size of that flag) in the photos below.  All the land between the camera and the flag is part of the mansion -- it is a city landmark; a dog park; and the biggest, steepest sliding hill in Boise.

The Boiseans new house is the last one down the hill to the left of the flag.

(Remember to click on the photos to see them larger.)

HomoDommus driving one of the moving vans to the new house.

La Fortuna, as I call it, is the green house on the far left.  The Simplot Mansion is beyond the flagpole.

For those who have been tracking the house purchase, the windows,
from left to right are: Ground floor: closet of Master Suite; guest bathroom;
dining room; and the multi-paned window next to the garage is in the kitchen.
Upstairs: two windows of "The Fourth Bedroom" as it's called, and the family bathroom window.

From the back, the house looks quite like any other 21st Century house -- a two car garage, a shy entrance tucked in a corner.  When FemmeDommus and I arrived on Friday morning (awaiting the delivery of the new refrigerator) a thick mist obscured the view beyond the house.  But the mist burned off and we had two full days of sun and warmth -- perfect moving weather.

The view from the wisteria-overgrown patio.

The same view that evening, from in front of the patio.

The first day, the new refrigerator was installed, and we moved the kitchen things, and a few chairs and rugs, and beds, so we all could sleep in the house that first night of occupation.  There was also quite a bit of last-minute desperation packing, but we ended with pizza eaten in a picnic on the floor in front of the gas fire.

I'll talk about the interior of the house, and the special features, tomorrow.