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Great Homes and Destinations: They first lived in Rehovot... but soon afterward began looking for a permanent home elsewhere
In Israel, a Tailored Home of Zichron Yaacov, Israel
Nava Abel loves color, a fact that is apparent in every room of the house that she and her husband designed, built and decorated. The concrete block walls are painted orange, pink, blue and purple; the ceilings are yellow; the metal stairs are maroon; and the painted concrete floors mimic Arabic-style tiles, with Oriental motifs in dark reds, yellows, blues and greens.
“The house is a palette,” said Ms. Abel, an artist who teaches in Zichron Yaacov, a seafront community near Haifa.
Her husband, Michael, an architect and contractor, grew up in the United States, living in several states before his family settled in California. After graduating from college in Montana in 1982, he met his future wife, an Israeli whose family had moved to Los Angeles when she was 16 years old.
Mr. Abel followed her to Israel so she could fulfill her army duty and, after a short stint on a kibbutz, they married and moved to the San Francisco Bay area. There they started a family, with twin girls, Sivan and Talya, followed by a son, Aviv, seven years later.
They moved back to Israel in 1993 because they both missed it. Ms. Abel said she yearned for the “Israeli spirit,” while her husband did not want to rear their children in the United States.
They first lived in Rehovot, a town outside Tel Aviv, where Ms. Abel’s brother lived, but soon afterward they began looking for a permanent home. They landed in Zichron Yaacov, at the southern end of the Carmel mountain range, overlooking the Mediterranean. It was founded in 1882 by Baron Edmond James de Rothschild and named for his father, Jacob, or Yaacov. The baron established a winery there, the country’s first.
When the Abels moved to Zichron, prices hadn’t reached their current peak. A township of mostly single-family and attached homes, the typical house here is about 160 to 180 square meters (1,722 to 1,937 square feet) on one-sixteenth of an acre and sells for about $500,000, according to Yoav Etiel, who owns the BarEl Properties Group. (Real estate in Israel is valued in American dollars; other expenses and purchases are made in Israeli shekels.)
The town had been considered one of Israel’s best-kept secrets — though the secret now seems to be out of the bag: The population, which was 7,000 a decade ago, has now reached 17,000. “There’s slow growth but positive immigration into the town,” Mr. Etiel said, “because of the scarcity of land and the lack of rezoning of agricultural land into residential zones.”
Among the changes expected to spur growth is the next section of the Cross Israel Highway, due to open in 2009, which will considerably improve access to Ben Gurion International Airport, just south of Tel Aviv. Also, the local train station will reopen soon, which means a rail commute to Tel Aviv could be accomplished in 26 minutes.
Recently, Israel’s English-speaking population discovered Zichron and, while sales levels have been affected by the weak dollar, “Zichron is still cheaper than Tel Aviv and Jerusalem,” Mr. Etiel said.
Fifteen years ago, the Abels scraped together $120,000 to buy what is known in Israeli parlance as an Amidar house, a small government-built cottage in what was then a run-down part of Zichron called Neve Sharett. Mr. Abel likes to call the area “the Harlem of Zichron,” although housing prices are now similar to those in the rest of town.
Within six years, they sold their starter house for $200,000 and bought the land next door — 370 square meters (3,982 square feet) set back from the main street, but with a view of the mountains and a national park.
It took Mr. Abel a year to plan and build the house; Ms. Abel said she never looked at the plans because she trusted her husband to create what they needed.
The house is 180 meters (1,937 square feet), which is not enormous by Israeli standards, but it has five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a dining room, an office and a spacious outdoor courtyard and yard, where family members spend much of the warm spring, summer and fall months.
It cost around $100,000 to build and furnish the house; they saved money by doing most of the work themselves.
The doors in the house came from construction sites, and include several Bauhaus pieces from restoration projects in Tel Aviv. The wood shelving and built-in desks in the children’s rooms were made from salvaged wood. The metal stairs between the first and second floors were meant to be temporary, but Mr. Abel decided to keep them and painted them a rich wine color.
Ms. Abel worked on the interior decorations, choosing the cheapest and brightest mosaic tiles, in orange glass, at a local store. “People are often afraid of color,” Ms. Abel said, who was a graphic designer until about seven years ago. “But everything matches when you put it together.”
Her style of painting available surfaces — from the nude on the coffee table, to the floral motif decorating the glass breakfast nook, to the Oriental motif on the kitchen cabinets, to the blue whales and surfers in the children’s rooms — began in their starter house.
It was not a great space, Ms. Abel said, “so we just kept on painting over things. That’s where this style kind of developed.”
Her style also was partially shaped by the time she spent at the California College of the Arts. She often includes bold images of her family and friends, combining realism with a strong Oriental influence. She specializes in large-scale realistic portraits, which decorate not only their home but other structures in Zichron Yaacov. Ms. Abel painted the town’s water tower with portraits of Baron Rothschild and local farmers, as well as many of the electrical boxes throughout the community.
All through the house, from the living room and dining room to the stairwell and hallways, are the bright, vivid products of her imagination.
“Everything’s a work in progress,” she said, “and it probably will be until we retire.”
Source: Jessica Steinberg. In Israel, a Tailored Home: Zichron Yaacov, Israel. NY Times (12 March 2008) [FullText]
Nava Abel loves color, a fact that is apparent in every room of the house that she and her husband designed, built and decorated. The concrete block walls are painted orange, pink, blue and purple; the ceilings are yellow; the metal stairs are maroon; and the painted concrete floors mimic Arabic-style tiles, with Oriental motifs in dark reds, yellows, blues and greens.
“The house is a palette,” said Ms. Abel, an artist who teaches in Zichron Yaacov, a seafront community near Haifa.
Her husband, Michael, an architect and contractor, grew up in the United States, living in several states before his family settled in California. After graduating from college in Montana in 1982, he met his future wife, an Israeli whose family had moved to Los Angeles when she was 16 years old.
Mr. Abel followed her to Israel so she could fulfill her army duty and, after a short stint on a kibbutz, they married and moved to the San Francisco Bay area. There they started a family, with twin girls, Sivan and Talya, followed by a son, Aviv, seven years later.
They moved back to Israel in 1993 because they both missed it. Ms. Abel said she yearned for the “Israeli spirit,” while her husband did not want to rear their children in the United States.
They first lived in Rehovot, a town outside Tel Aviv, where Ms. Abel’s brother lived, but soon afterward they began looking for a permanent home. They landed in Zichron Yaacov, at the southern end of the Carmel mountain range, overlooking the Mediterranean. It was founded in 1882 by Baron Edmond James de Rothschild and named for his father, Jacob, or Yaacov. The baron established a winery there, the country’s first.
When the Abels moved to Zichron, prices hadn’t reached their current peak. A township of mostly single-family and attached homes, the typical house here is about 160 to 180 square meters (1,722 to 1,937 square feet) on one-sixteenth of an acre and sells for about $500,000, according to Yoav Etiel, who owns the BarEl Properties Group. (Real estate in Israel is valued in American dollars; other expenses and purchases are made in Israeli shekels.)
The town had been considered one of Israel’s best-kept secrets — though the secret now seems to be out of the bag: The population, which was 7,000 a decade ago, has now reached 17,000. “There’s slow growth but positive immigration into the town,” Mr. Etiel said, “because of the scarcity of land and the lack of rezoning of agricultural land into residential zones.”
Among the changes expected to spur growth is the next section of the Cross Israel Highway, due to open in 2009, which will considerably improve access to Ben Gurion International Airport, just south of Tel Aviv. Also, the local train station will reopen soon, which means a rail commute to Tel Aviv could be accomplished in 26 minutes.
Recently, Israel’s English-speaking population discovered Zichron and, while sales levels have been affected by the weak dollar, “Zichron is still cheaper than Tel Aviv and Jerusalem,” Mr. Etiel said.
Fifteen years ago, the Abels scraped together $120,000 to buy what is known in Israeli parlance as an Amidar house, a small government-built cottage in what was then a run-down part of Zichron called Neve Sharett. Mr. Abel likes to call the area “the Harlem of Zichron,” although housing prices are now similar to those in the rest of town.
Within six years, they sold their starter house for $200,000 and bought the land next door — 370 square meters (3,982 square feet) set back from the main street, but with a view of the mountains and a national park.
It took Mr. Abel a year to plan and build the house; Ms. Abel said she never looked at the plans because she trusted her husband to create what they needed.
The house is 180 meters (1,937 square feet), which is not enormous by Israeli standards, but it has five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a dining room, an office and a spacious outdoor courtyard and yard, where family members spend much of the warm spring, summer and fall months.
It cost around $100,000 to build and furnish the house; they saved money by doing most of the work themselves.
The doors in the house came from construction sites, and include several Bauhaus pieces from restoration projects in Tel Aviv. The wood shelving and built-in desks in the children’s rooms were made from salvaged wood. The metal stairs between the first and second floors were meant to be temporary, but Mr. Abel decided to keep them and painted them a rich wine color.
Ms. Abel worked on the interior decorations, choosing the cheapest and brightest mosaic tiles, in orange glass, at a local store. “People are often afraid of color,” Ms. Abel said, who was a graphic designer until about seven years ago. “But everything matches when you put it together.”
Her style of painting available surfaces — from the nude on the coffee table, to the floral motif decorating the glass breakfast nook, to the Oriental motif on the kitchen cabinets, to the blue whales and surfers in the children’s rooms — began in their starter house.
It was not a great space, Ms. Abel said, “so we just kept on painting over things. That’s where this style kind of developed.”
Her style also was partially shaped by the time she spent at the California College of the Arts. She often includes bold images of her family and friends, combining realism with a strong Oriental influence. She specializes in large-scale realistic portraits, which decorate not only their home but other structures in Zichron Yaacov. Ms. Abel painted the town’s water tower with portraits of Baron Rothschild and local farmers, as well as many of the electrical boxes throughout the community.
All through the house, from the living room and dining room to the stairwell and hallways, are the bright, vivid products of her imagination.
“Everything’s a work in progress,” she said, “and it probably will be until we retire.”
Source: Jessica Steinberg. In Israel, a Tailored Home: Zichron Yaacov, Israel. NY Times (12 March 2008) [FullText]
Labels: Great Homes, Living in Rehovot
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