The basement-level kitchen retains much of its 19th-century character ... “remains the most sought-after of French countryside house-buying destinations, as it really is as everyone imagines ...

but the house owed its origins to French sailor named Raimond Alexander. After settling in Los Angeles in the late 1840s and marrying into the city’s Spanish-speaking high society, Alexander ...

The house was “among the most beautiful, progressive, and productive in the country” in the early 19th century ... in 1801 and were introduced to French architect Jacques-Guillaume Legrand ...