My Obsession With Really Nice Houses/Architecture and the BEST Places I've lived in my Travels!

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This is a picture of "1301" AKA "The Spot" in the heart of the Tower District in Fresno, California

My Affinity For Design

This is a picture of the first home I completely fell in love with. I first noticed this house around 9 years ago when I was working as an engineering manager in the height of my career and used to lead an unhealthy lifestyle and drank alcohol.

I learned so much from the owner of this house about design, he is a teacher to me in a big way. He taught me about ergonometrics, it's a word that describes how a design can interface with humans at a human scale and has to do with how a design feels, it's a beautiful word.

I was out at a bar with my girlfriend and my friend Whitney when I was in the stage of throwing money around and buying everyone drinks. I met this older guy named Steve through my friend Whitney at the bar and he made a comment to my girlfriend Cara at the time something to the tune of "what are you doing with this guy"? It really triggered me, but we all ended up going toSteve's house after and he took us into an elevator which I'd never seen in a house before and gave us a tour. I had never seen anything like it, this house was amazing.

A few weeks later, I was at a bar down the street called Vini Vidi Vici's, a popular spot that was probably the most conscious bar I knew of at the time and had a lot of alternative people and marijuana was openly welcomed. I ran into Steve there. He introduced me to his new co-resident, a fighter pilot who had just moved to Fresno for his training before deployment. I expressed to Steve that I was quite intrigued and that I would love to hang out at his house.

This was all taking place in a time when I was becoming burned out from the stresses of my unsustainable and unfulfilling lifestyle. My girlfriend and I were having issues and I felt emotionally overwhelmed by her in a destructive way. I was working 50+ hours per week and doing the best I knew how at the time. I took her out of town almost every weekend, we both enjoyed weekend trips. But our main activity was drinking alcohol which I don't do anymore and all the emotional issues about our relationship would come out when I was showing her my love in the form of taking her places and spending money (I'm aware of how this sounds but it's what came to me). This brought up a lot of building resentment in me.

The timing of all this was perfect, I was on the fringe of discovering "this scene" (conscious, earth lover, community, spirituality, whatever you want to call it) but didn't know it at the time. Steve and I decided to have a vegan barbeque on a Friday evening at his house and quite a few of our friends (his, mine and Cara's) came by.

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This is a picture of the "Rear Grounds" of "1301", it's quite posh'

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The night of the vegan bbq was great and a disaster all at the same time. My partner and I found ourselves in a toxic cycle. She would express all of her emotional issues while we were in public and drinking alcohol and I found myself at the end of my rope emotionally and physically. I was stressed out and couldn't balance all of the pressure on me in a constructive way and something needed to give. This was the night I decided to separate from my 5 year partner and ended up finding a new love the same night who passed away in San Francisco about a year ago, I'll spare you the details for now. It was a horrible tragedy and I have so much respect and gratitude for her, she was and is an angel who helped me transition to the life I am living now and is still looking after me. I'm not proud of all of my behavior but it served my needs at the time and lead me to where I am now.

1 month later, I got fired from my job and found out my closest guy friend at the time was getting married and I wasn't asked to be in the wedding. I decided to go fulfill a dream I had of working in Lake Tahoe as a snowboard instructor and leave this bag of heavy rocks in Fresno.

I decided to get off Facebook for a while because I was feeling really confused and felt I needed to reinvent myself. I lived in the employee housing at Kirkwood, it was gross and dorm style. It didn't matter because I was following my heart. I didn't take any pictures but have memories to last an entire lifetime living and working in Tahoe and I met 3 notable people there who inspired me to travel further and take more risks.

I came back at the end of the season and decided I would get back into the corporate scene once again, for the first time, single. I found a cool startup company that was building equipment for regulating and conserving water, the building was old and beautiful as well as downtown and it inspired me. I accepted the job as their engineering manager and was promised a stake in the company. I decided to ask Steve if I could live at "1301". He said yes, and I moved in. I rode my bike to work every morning downtown, about a 25 minute ride. Living at "1301" was life changing for me, in the way that was as fulfilling as my dream of working as a snowboard instructor in Lake Tahoe.

Steve and the fighter pilot were living at "1301" when I moved in as well as this young kid named Dane. Dane was a skate boarder and did a lot of urban art "spray painting". Him and steve had a father/son type relationship, though tumultuous. Though nobody knew it at the time, this was the first "community" I experienced. When I say community, I mean place that I live with other people and I want to be home more often than not. It was the first place I lived that I loved. I rarely wanted to leave the house, I loved inviting people over. All 4 of us knew we lived in an incredible experiment. The experiment was shrouded in an air of wander. We couldn't envision what this could be like at the time, but now I totally can. I would actually love to buy this house from him and turn it into an urban community when the time comes. I'm in love with this house and I think it can be the most amazing thing in Fresno, California. In fact, I'm sure.

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Something special happened when I walked into the gates, I was transported into another world. It felt as if it was in another land far away. It was in the middle of an urban area yet so removed. This was a space for dreaming of what is possible. Inspirations such as this are rare in places such as Fresno, California. Steve was incredibly inspiring as an architect. This house was built in 1913, he was decided to perform a periodic restoration and restore the home to it's best version of how it would be built in 1913. He put a fortune, over a half a million dollars into the house, he bought it for about half of that.

The garden was his passion, I fell in love with gardening here even though I didn't put my hands in the soil until I got to Hawaii over a year later. He had so many amazing and unique plant species, he even planted in the front of his house for the community. He would spend hours in the garden and lose time.

The kitchen had marble countertops, there were many strange rules about acids and fruit juices. It was really expensive, completely impractical but very inspiring.

The bathroom was great, it had a hot water system in which the towel holders were heated by hot water and dried and heated the towels. This was great in the winter

The windows in the bathroom were very tall, there were intricate linkage mechanisms that so smoothly opened and closed the tall windows that were out of reach. An engineering masterpiece.

We had code names for things in the house. The lower level underground was "1", street level was "2" the top level was "3". There were no stairs, just an elevator.

The parlor was amaging, we put a grand piano in at. When Dane moved out, we had an opening for a co-resident. We found this amazing man named Jerimiah who I ended up living with in Hawaii. He worked as a nursing director for 6 months of the year and spent the other 6 months in South America focusing on rehab from his 6 months working in the system. He worked with a lot of sacred plant medicines in South America, something Steve and I were fascinated with. The 4 of us guys had such an incredible bond and would all come home from our incredibly different jobs and connect, having BIG conversations. We all had such different backgrounds/upbringings, yet each one of us held such a strong masculine presence. Steve grew up in a very prominent family, his father was a very successful and wealthy attorney and that gave him a unique perspective. Jerimiah would come to live with me in Hawaii in my first pseudo/real (haha) community.

The inevitable happened again, I got fired right before winter. I took a trip to Tahoe with my dad and brother to go snowboarding and met up with 2 of the inspiring people I met while working at Kirkwood. Kyle, the guy grew up in Boulder, Colorado. Anne, the woman was moving to Colorado because the snow in Tahoe was terrible and she suggested I apply for a job in Colorado.

As soon as I got home, I did Breckenridge told me to come out. My first night, I stayed with my friend Anne and the next morning I went to the coffee shop to get on Craigslist and look for houses. Within an hour, I had a lead for a house that was affordable though a bit of a ways from Breckenridge where I was working. It was in Leadville, Colorado. The highest city in the U.S. at over 10,000 ft. It was owned by one of the lead animators working for Disney, it was another house I fell in love with. I was still drinking alcohol at this time and brought back some of the most amazing beers for my friends in California to try.

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The above image was taken at the house I lived in while I was working at Breckenridge as a snowboard instructor

My House in San Francisco After Colorado.

I got to live in what is considered the Beverly Hills of San Francisco, St. Francis Wood neighborhood on top of Mt. Davidson! The house was amazing but the owner and guy I lived with were quite unusual, I suppose that's why the room was only $600 and it should have been about double. The owner was this older homosexual man who was a distasteful interior designer. It was the running joke. 2 of my good friends, a lesbian couple came to visit me and they found a human cage in the garage downstairs! As weird as the situation was, I loved the house. The balcony was my favorite part. I spent most of my time in my bedroom with a view of the South of San Francisco and on the balcony. I made it known not to disturb me while on the balcony basking in the sun!

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This is the front of my San Francisco house

From the balcony on a hot/sunny beach day! I could see Ocean Beach from the balcony this day

I moved to Thailand after San Francisco. I didn't know anyone in Thailand but I met a local woman who worked at my school who I was very attracted to and she became my partner. She agreed to help me find a house, I didn't have anyone else to help me. We drove around for 2 weeks during the winter holidays and this put a lot of pressure and stress on her, helping me find a place. I felt bad for this. Today, I would hire a local who speaks good English and is well connected to help me. After 2 weeks of searching, we found a suitable house for $166 per month. 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms in a good part of town. The houses on my street all looked the same and were all connected, it was nothing to write home about other than the price.

Hawaii

I moved to Hawaii next and discovered intentional permaculture communities. This is where I took my understanding of spaces to the next level. I lived at a place called the Hawaiian Sanctuary. The eco architecture design was quite good and it was mixed with some basic permaculture/sustainability concepts. This was the most community oriented living arragement I found myself in up until this point, even though it was a slip-n-slide community and the owners didn't even live there.

The Most Amazing Place I'd Lived Ever!

The next and most amazing placeI've ever discovered was the intentional permaculture community I described in my first post that I lived in while on Maui. The land was the most beautiful I had ever seen, a few of the structures were just as beautiful. Most notably, the owners house that was made entirely of bamboo and so well designed.

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As amazing as this place was, the architecture wasn't of the same calibur as "1301". My dream is to merge what I experienced at "1301" from an urban setting with heaven on earth permaculture intentional communityand architectural masterpiece that inspired everyone to the bones.

Awesome Bali House

This was an amazing place I lived when I first got to the most amazing permaculture community, thanks to my brother Ferenz who spent weeks looking for it. We had soo many couch surfers, there was one night when I recall hosting 5 couch surfers and the owner showed up the next morning very upset and asked us to leave.

I'm Currently Staying in a Hostel!!

​Here's some vulnerability, there isn't much in between for rme. When I'm not living somewhere I absolutely love, I'll find somewhere very basic and simple. Basically a clean bed and quite setting that's super inexpensive. I've been stayhing in a hostel in Ubud, the idea of looking for a space I don't love with all my heart feels overwhelming to me.

I can see how spaces influence our behavior as humans, I love the idea of being able to help people opening and connect
through the design of a space.

Oh yea, I forgot one

I lived here for a month in this treehouse on the Big Island!

I hope this has inspired you, perhaps you've lived in spaces like this. Please upvote and resteem if you enjoyed

Thanks for reading!