Thacher House

This is the place to stay if you want to feel like you’re visiting your eccentric, but cool uncle’s farm. Chickens and goats wander the grounds where cozy individual cottages are situated among fields of lavender and olive groves. Calvin Zara bought the property in 2010 and refurbished its five dwellings, filling them with books, antiques, comfy couches, artisanal rugs and unique objets d’art. Activities include jam, cheese, wine and soap making, olive pressing and more. Zara encourages guests to let him know what their preferences are ahead of time so he can help create a personalized, unique experience.

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Calvin Zara decided to move his family from the comfort of Beverly Hills, California to a sprawling property in rural Ojai, California. He sought a simpler life – one connected to the earth – and remodeled a rambling compound with tremendous potential, into a main house and three cottages where visitors can stay and be treated to the experience that only a working farm can lend you.

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“Surrounded by acres of citrus groves, this rambling compound is made up of a main house and three cottages filled with antique rugs and furnishings, shelves of early editions books, vintage silverware, bone china, and sun-dried linens. Meals are seasonal and farm-to-table using produce grown on the property. You can even help pick dinner in the gardens, or milk the goats and take a cheese-making class.”

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“In the lush East End (a vintage-fruit-crate label come to life), an Iraqi-born single father named Calvin Zara has conjured Thacher House, a main house and three cottages set amid olive groves and lavender fields roamed by goats and chickens. He rents the cottages out to groups eager to “reconnect with the universe” through activities like sheep milking and olive-oil pressing.”

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