Home Tour: Orr’s art studio mirrors original Savage home design

A favorite painting location for noted artist Dorothy Orr, as well as for her students, the home Dorothy shares with her husband Harold Parker has a new addition: an art studio that brings the outside in and provides perfect lighting as well as the more practical needs of the art professor. Dorothy’s studio and other distinctive homes will be open for the Santa Clara Valley Hospice/Home Support Group’s (SCVHHSG) 25th Annual Homes & Art of Santa Paula Tour on April 27 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.Shaded by towering oaks, the Orr/Parker home was created by Savage Klein - a noted builder of homes in the Oaks section of Santa Paula in the 1940s and 1950s - as his family residence in 1951. But it’s the gardens and the art studio that are the focus of the April 27 tour, offering a glimpse into the working life of Dorothy, an acclaimed watercolorist.When not at the easel - including working as a Ventura College professor of fine art - Dorothy loves organic gardening. The property, located at 1334 Fern Oaks Drive, holds more than 85 rose bushes - many David Austins that have learned to thrive in shade - and about five dozen fruit trees, most trained to Belgian Espalier, often referred to as “living fence.” An Asian pear espalier decorates a shed near roses enthusiastically climbing an arbor, dashes of color surrounding the grey stone home and patio.Separate ponds hold bemused turtles and regal Koi, and two water gardens - one inside the home - add to the natural ambiance. The patio and other areas show the careful work of stonemason Allen Shook to match the original stonework done by Klein himself, an offshoot of the creation of the studio addition and structural adjustments by Chris Wilson and “his talented crews,” notes Dorothy.Visitors will enter through the living room, where lighting enhances the many artifacts and artworks such as “Synergy” by famous sculptor Ellis Jump, carefully placed on an oversized chest.The stairs over an interior pond lead to Orr’s studio, a project almost seven years in the making. “The design of the studio was inspired by the original house,” says Orr as she leads the way up the industrial steel stairwell above a water garden that also serves as a passive heating, cooling and humidifying system.At the top of the stairs, towering above happily potted plants, is one of Orr’s works, a six-foot-square layered plastic modern piece, an “aerial landscape... kind of mysterious,” much like outer space, that Orr says is her personal favorite of the series. But it’s the watercolors that Orr and her students are known for, and her studio, “not as big as I had in Los Angeles, but it has more storage,” looks over the spacious property sometimes used for painting “en plein air.”Orr purchased the home in 1987, and notes that the studio was designed to provide “very effective natural light... architect Brady Roark made the studio additional possible; he transformed my dream into building plans.” The artist did her own painting of the studio, including the cabinetry. Dorothy also set the high-fired Italian floor tiles that radiate soft shades of mauve, aqua, grey and blues.The studio includes a detail station, as well as matt cutting and production work areas. A desk - covered with gardening catalogues of course! - has a wide screen TV above it, while opposite high on the wall are a series of storage cabinets easily accessible via a library ladder.“I think of this as my tree house,” Dorothy notes as she looks out a window. Its frame, like the others, she stained to match the oak bark of the outdoor trees - surrounded by soft white and taupe paint that blends perfectly.