After spending the day at Seal Beach, Lizbeth and I stayed at the Bissell House by ourselves while the kids stayed with Dana at her house, one of Dana’s gifts to us.

If the name Bissell makes you think of vacuum cleaners, you’re on the right track. The Bissell House gets its name from Anna Bissell, daughter of Melville Bissell, who had indeed made his fortune in vacuum cleaners. More history is available here, from the house’s own website.

It truly is as wonderful as it looks in the pictures. We had a room on the top floor, with a view like this:


Staying there, I understood why the neighborhood it’s in is called “Millionaire’s Row”; I felt like one, and in fact, a little out of my class, perhaps. It’s a bed and breakfast, and the breakfast downstairs was very elegant and served on what looked like the original place settings.

The plumbing and facilities were also, in many cases, originals or restored originals, which made me reflect on the increases in living standards in the last century. Even rather poor people today have better lighting and plumbing than millionaires of 100 years ago.

There was something about the house’s construction, its colors, smells , proportions, and decorations, that reminded me of my Grandma Sally’s house and made me feel deeply at home. My grandma’s house was built perhaps 30 years later, a little further north in California, and was much smaller and humbler, and yet it felt like a cousin to this one.

That night we dined at a nearby French restaurant called the Bistro de la Gare, so named because of its proximity to the light rail. The food was good, though not perhaps great, and we did have a stereotypical French waiter experience, which was funny. The wine was very good, though.

Next: Hollywood & Vine!