A touch of architectural revisionism and a good measure of Christmas schmaltz

Following a custom of 31 years, four families in northwest Glendale will open their doors to the public Saturday.

About 3,000 people are expected to walk through those doors in the Hoover Tour of Homes, one of the few traditions of the 1950s that has prospered through the 1980s.

The event, organized by the Hoover High School PTA, turns houses into museums for a day. Patrons pay $5 ($7.50 if they buy tickets on the day of the tour) for a look at the lives of people who have the resources and the will to maintain their homes in museum-like quality.

The proceeds, which have been as high as $14,000, go to scholarships for graduating Hoover students and activities at the school.

Aside from the fund raising, the tour seems to serve several social needs in Glendale’s smaller and cozier variation of L.A.’s Hancock Park.

First, by involving women and their daughters in a frenzy of Christmas decorating to prepare the houses for display, it symbolically opens the holiday season.

It also strengthens a communal bond, bringing together in a casual way residents of the Hoover district and surrounding neighborhoods, as well as a few expatriates who drive back each year from their new homes elsewhere.

Most important, possibly, the tour spotlights those community values that have kept intact the splendid old mansions of Kenneth Road and its side streets no matter how many years, or owners, come and go.

Each year the selection of the homes calls upon a subtle perception of those values.

This year’s selection chairman, Leonor Holmstrom, put together a lineup with something old, something new, a touch of architectural revisionism and a good measure of Christmas schmaltz.

During the 8 hours of the tour, beginning at 11 a.m., the hosts will fall under pressures that may not allow more than superficial chatter. A couple of the families, however, had time this week to tell their stories.

One of them was something of a saga, both for the house and owners.

The Reinardy house, a prominent 1928 Mediterranean on Kenneth Road, has been on the tour twice before, both previous times in a solid, dark decor reflecting its exterior mood.

This time, the house will present a bright Art Deco look, with gold sculpted sconces hung on the walls, egrets and flamingos engraved in the windows, lily pads painted on the pastel dining room walls and a computerized baby grand piano playing Liberace in his original, digitally encoded keystrokes. It now reflects an “American dream” that brought its new owners there.

“I come from a one-bedroom apartment with one bed in the living room so my mother and dad could live there,” said Sally Reinardy. “I never had a house in my life until we got married.”

Her husband, Roger, was an artist.

His bright Art Deco and Southwest paintings were just getting notice when he contracted hepatitis on a vacation to Crater Lake. Too weak to paint, he took up needlepoint design.

“He did a leaf that looked like open heart surgery,” Sally, the talker in the family, said.

But he kept at it and soon found a niche in happy American scenes. Thirteen years ago, his company of one employee began making kits in a garage.

Now, it has “40 wonderful, happy employees,” Sally said.

When they spotted the house, and fell in love with it, it was in foreclosure. They contacted the owner and arranged a sale. They’ve made it as bright as their lives.

Only two blocks away, on Highland Avenue, the Urioste’s Spanish Monterey home shows two strains of creativity. Movie posters on the wall, an Academy Award nomination for Robocop and a strange-looking machine called a Moviola come from the film-editing career of husband Frank. Lollipops along the walkway, hand-painted wooden toy soldiers, reindeer, gilded Nativity figures and three white angels are the work of Gemma and her daughters.

“I have three angels because I have three daughters,” Gemma said in a distinct Scottish accent that explained a subtle green and red plaid motif.

Gemma has been making Christmas decorations for the 25 years her daughters and son went to Catholic schools. Each year she researches the market, masters the current salable craft and produces for the Christmas boutiques.

This year she’s cutting wood ornaments on the band saw in her garage.

“I do the band saw,” she said. “My daughter does the painting. I’m a crummy painter.”

The tour may mark Gemma’s last purely charitable endeavor, now that her youngest is going away to college.

“I think I’m going to go into business,” she said.

The two other houses on the tour have their own surprises. One belongs to Vincent Bugliosi, the illustrious former prosecutor, but is said to bear more the stamp of his wife, Gail, in its style.

The other is a two-year-old, mansion with a view in the demi-wilderness at the top of Rimcrest Drive.

All of them, in their way, show the spirit of a wealthy and handsome community.

Around the FoothillsBy DOUG SMITHA touch of architectural revisionism and a good measure of Christmas schmaltz . . .