ONCE UPON A FAIRY TALE HOUSE

A true story of how four California sisters turned childhood dreams into architectural reality.

Inspired by fairy tales, Mildred, Harriett, Brenda, and Wilma Moody envisioned rustic cottages in which they pretended to sleep every night, and so years later, when Mildred needed an art studio, they got together to build one—followed by dozens more as community interest in their designs grew. The romanticism is laid on with a trowel in the first part of the narrative: Brenda “liked to count things she found” on the beach and, voila, grew up to be a banker; Harriett liked to build sand castles and so became an architect; and a line at the end about unexplained “things that happened” in the cottages evokes more confusion than magic. But the story itself, laid out in greater detail in a long afterword, is of both historical and current interest, as it features four women who grew to adulthood in the first quarter of the 20th century to have professional careers, to run several businesses, and to build distinctive houses that thriftily recycled materials and decorative elements salvaged from area mansions that were being demolished during the Great Depression. There’s no need to embellish those achievements with flights of fancy. Potter offers both inside and outside glimpses of at least one cottage along with views of the gracefully posed White-presenting sisters at various ages and in period dress. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

An overwrought but inspiring tale of dreamers who were also doers.