Kimberly Crest House and Gardens

Author's Comments

There is a particular hour at Kimberly Crest, late on a March afternoon, when the light comes in low across the citrus groves and catches the conical tower at exactly the angle it was built for. The house is theatrical by design - all turrets and gables and Victorian ambition - and most photographs of it try to take the whole thing in at once. I think that is a mistake. The wide shot is available and it is fine, but the chateau rewards a longer lens and a willingness to isolate. The tower against the sky. The wrought iron of the veranda railing in shadow. A single citrus tree in the foreground with the mansion soft behind it. The gardens are the quieter argument. They terrace down the hillside in the Italian manner, and the lily ponds catch reflections of the house in a way that asks for an overcast afternoon as much as a sunny one. I have made my best frames here on days that photographers usually skip - the soft, even light flattening the color and letting the geometry of the parterres come forward. Spring brings the citrus blossoms and a particular sweetness in the air that does not photograph but changes the way you see. Fall brings clearer air and the valley opens up below the property in a way it cannot in the summer haze. Come on a Thursday. The crowds are essentially nothing. Bring something that lets you isolate detail and something that lets you breathe wide when the view earns it.

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