White Houses
September 4, 2008

Just off Santa Claus Lane, near where the famous Santa Claus statue used to rule the road, there is a housing community of eight high-priced homes - all of them white. The architecture is Moorish which, as we learned in previous Edhats, is a lot like Andalucian. The Moors, who probably didn't believe in Santa Claus, were the ruling party in the Andalucian region of southern Spain from 711 to 1492. Among other things, the Moors built the famous Alhambra Palace in the City of Granada.

One of the white houses has an especially funky ornate tower. That tower (or minaret) was the subject of yesterday's WWII picture. Back in the early 1900's, the Casa Blanca estate used to occupy the beachfront property at this location. The original estate was built in Moorish style even though its namesake, the town of Casablanca, is in Morocco. This home, and many of the others in the Sandyland area were destroyed by storms in the late 1930's. A seawall, built in 1964, protects the current homes.

Some people think that the existing homes are Moroccan architecture, not Moorish.

We're hearing a lot these days about getting into the White House. Well, for the price you pay for a few prime time TV ads, you can pick up one of these Casa Blanca beauties. The current asking price for one of the 6 bedroom 4 bath oceanfront homes is $12 million.

Over 20 subscribers knew the location of the white houses by the beach. A random dog-supervised drawing selected Tenoreleven as the lucky winner of an Edhat t-shirt.

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