Nadya Penoff saw life as a great adventure, filled with opportunities to find a way to accomplish any goal. She believed dreams could come true, as hers so often did.
As a single mom, she decided it was time for us to have a home of our own when I was just seven. But not just any home. My optimistic mother scouted for the right plot of land in the beautiful mountain community of Painted Cave perched above Santa Barbara, many miles from the town where she grew up. We were going to build it ourselves. It would be fun, she assured me.
She had no experience other than the strong belief that she could figure out how to assemble a livable dwelling out of a pile of building materials, heed the advice of friends in construction, and read a set of plans. She found a building class at her alma mater UCSB, “How to Build Your Own House,” and was savvy enough to submit a proposal that was eventually accepted as the model project.