Hermosa Haves and Have Nots

There are houses like this:

And houses like this:

(Note that a full third of the house's width is out of shot)

And houses like ours, a single story white box. Perfectly charming and also utterly dwarfed by the proper big houses on either side.

And there are houses like the one two doors up from us which I think (hope!) might be owned by a lesser known Kardashian:

And then there are all the other little single story scruffboxes on our block which are what's known locally as 'tear downs'. Only they haven't been torn down because someone still lives there.

The scruffy little single story homes typically have windchimes, and 'This Way to the Beach' on the front deck. Also a couple of mismatched, faded deck chairs - usually those plastic Adirondack ones from Home Depot. Some dusty succulents and a couple of rusted bikes leaning against the wall.

The posh homes are like strangely proportioned Spanish castles, or glossy hotels, or both. They restrict their displays of boho beachiness to hiring an artist to paint their house number on the kerb:

Here's something you see a lot in Hermosa too: a scruffy little cottage next to a beautiful shiny big house.

It seems to me that in Hermosa the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Have-a-bit-but-not-quite-all-we-want-yet, live side by side. And it's so darn nice (see earlier posts) that even the Have-Nots I think have really got a lot.