Sunset celebration this weekend Sunset celebration this weekend (May 18, 2005)

The newest "clean and green" prefabricated home, the Sunset Breezehouse, will be a highlight of Sunset magazine's eighth annual Celebration Weekend this Saturday and Sunday, May 21 and 22, at its Menlo Park headquarters at 80 Willow Road.

The Breezehouse is a 1,790-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bath home designed by Bay Area architect Michelle Kaufmann.

Its signature feature is the Breezeroom at the center, a glass-enclosed breezeway-porch under a butterfly-shaped roof. Movable glass walls open the Breezeroom for indoor-outdoor living.

"The Sunset Breezehouse is a reinvented, sustainably built, Gen-X version of the modern Eichler atrium-production-house of the 1960s," says Sunset home editor Dan Gregory.

Also making its debut at Celebration Weekend is the Sunset Wine Club, which will feature wine seminars with Sunset magazine wine experts.

Visitors also will be able to tour Sunset's gardens and test kitchen on the 12-acre property, sample wines and microbrew beers, and attend workshops and home design seminars.

Speakers on the travel and recreation stage will give tips on rock climbing, rafting western rivers, travel photography, and raising alpacas. Visitors can learn to hula from dancers from the Hawaiian Cultural Center.

There will be cooking demonstrations by Sunset editors and guest celebrity chefs. Joshua Skenes of Chez TJ in Mountain View will prepare lobster salad and watermelon consomme at 10:30 a.m. Sunday. Betsy Bateson will present recipes from the Kraft kitchens at 1:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Kids will learn how to paint picture cookies and hands-on visitors can create a garden luminary or paint a terracotta garden pot.

On the home and design stage, Mary Jo Bowling of Sunset will talk about bringing summer indoors. Sunset editor Peter Whitely will discuss building projects for home and garden.

The first Celebration Weekend was held in 1998 to commemorate Sunset's 100th anniversary. It was so successful that it has become an annual event. Last year nearly 24,000 visitors attended the outdoor festival.
INFORMATION

Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, May 21 and 22, at Sunset's Menlo Park headquarters at 80 Willow Road. Admission is $10 for adults and $8 for seniors. Children 12 and under are admitted free.

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