Peninsula Homes: Jane Austen Lives Here

This Regency period home was painstakingly brought back to its original glamour by Realtor Barbi Pappas and a team of local design experts.

The rare Regency style Peninsula home was inspired by its owners’ backgrounds and travels

 

This Regency period home was painstakingly brought back to its original glamour by Realtor Barbi Pappas and a team of local design experts.

Photos by Kim Pritchard and Rob Massi

The late Rita Rogers, M.D. met her future husband G. Allen Rogers, M.D. at Albany Medical School in the late 1950s, while finishing her psychiatric residency. Rita was born in Romania. In her teens, she and her family, along with other Romanian Jews were sentenced to a Nazi Labor camp in the Ukraine, where she saved her family by posing as a foundry worker. Following World War II, she earned an undergraduate degree at the University of Prague and then a medical degree from the Vienna University Medical School. In 1953, she emigrated to the United States, disembarking at Ellis Island.

The pagoda inspired home, showered in natural light and overlooking the garden, was inspired by the Rogers’ trips to Japan.

“The way she transcended personal suffering, converting her experiences into resources from which to draw” was recounted in “The Alchemy of Survival: One Woman’s Journey,” which she coauthored in 1988 with Harvard psychiatrist John Mack. A decade earlier, Mack had won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of TE Lawrence.

The Rogers home appears today much as it did in this photo, taken shortly after it was completed in 1968.

After Rita and G. Allen married, the family made plans to set down roots in the South Bay. In 1966, the couple purchased a vacant parcel in Palos Verdes Estates for $20,000. It sat high above the Malaga Cove shopping center and backed up to protected parklands. Moore’s Market was at the Malaga Cove center then as was the Palos Verdes General Store, where neighborhood kids would congregate at the ice cream bar for afternoon sundaes.

Working closely with John Treacy of Young and Remington in Redondo Beach, the Rogers set out to build a Regency period home, a style she knew from her childhood and he learned about during the couple’s frequent travels abroad. This stately style, not often seen on the Peninsula, was complimented by a commanding “Queen’s Necklace” view of the coastline. Sheila Rogers, one of the couple’s three children, warmly remembers the easy access to the beach that she and her siblings had. They would “walk everywhere even to junior high school, the then Malaga Cove School.”

When Rita completed her residency in 1968, Rita chose not to have a car. She set up her private child psychiatry practice in the Malaga Cove Center, within walking distance of her home. She loved the live/work arrangement and her daily walks.

Palos Verdes stone steps lead serenely to the highest point of the property, where the Rogers built a gazebo to take in the “Queen’s Necklace” coastline views.

The Rogers had a robust penchant for travel and never missed an opportunity to tour somewhere new and exotic. Their home was filled with mementos from their trips, according to their daughter Sheila. They especially loved eastern art and culture and set out to emulate the Japanese Gardens they visited with a custom made pagoda, replete with a jacuzzi from where one could  gaze out onto the garden. G. Allen built a greenhouse to grow orchids. With a surgeon’s eye for detail, he maintained the properties landscaping, starting with topiaries and even adding a hilltop gazebo where he determined the best vantage point was to enjoy the immense view.

This dining room’s parquet floors, built-in curio cabinets and a traditional crystal chandelier are reminiscent of a bygone era.

The Regency period of architecture that defines their home flourished from the time George I, who became king of England in 1714, to the death of George IV in 1830. The period is  also known as the Jane Austen era because it serves as background for the famed author’s stories. During this era it was traditional for aristocratic youth to travel Europe on a “Grand Tour” to “polish their education.” These Grand Tours exposed the influential young adults to classical traditions in architecture. Judging from their elegant home, Rita and G. Allen Rogers’ own Grand Tours similarly impressed them.

The large gazebo allows guests to enjoy conversation and refreshments while looking out on the ocean.

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