Houzz Tour: Decommissioned Streetcars Live On as a Funky Beach Home

Streetcars like the one shown here carried passengers through the streets of Santa Cruz until 1926, when they were decommissioned and replaced by buses. So what happened to the streetcars?

Mary and Gerhard Ringel know exactly where two are. They currently live inside them.

Photo courtesy of Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History


Houzz at a Glance
Location: Santa Cruz, California
Who lives here: Mary Ringel, a massage therapist, and husband Gerhard, an engineer-turned builder/ handyman
Size: 750 square feet (70 square meters); 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom
That’s interesting: Two decommissioned side-by-side streetcars from the early 1900s make up this home.

This photo shows the living room as you enter through the front door. Here, with the curved roof, original iron brackets and transom-style windows, you can clearly tell that you’re standing in an old streetcar. But you’d never know from the street. That’s because a regular roof covers the two cars. Crawl into the attic space and you will be standing on the original streetcar roofs.

The two cars — one 25 feet long, the other 30 feet long — are parked next to each other, with a 3½ -foot space connecting them. The first streetcar includes the living and dining room. The second has the bathroom, bedroom (seen through the doorway on the right in this photo) and kitchen. An addition on the back extends the bedroom by 8 feet, bringing the total size of the home to 750 square feet, which was a serious downsizing for the Ringels, who moved there from a 2,500-square-foot, three-story home. “We had to get rid of a lot of stuff,” Mary says.

Their first order of business was adding a palette of all-new funky paint colors that refreshed the space but stayed true to the bohemian beach charm that drew them to the home in the first place. They hired local artist and painter Gregory LeBaron of Transformational Color to choose the colors and paint the interiors. The paint colors include Safari (a creamy yellow), Turmeric (an orangey yellow), Wasabi (pale green), Eggplant (dark purple), Dinner Party (red), Old Claret (pink) and a forest green, all from Benjamin Moore.



BEFORE: A tightly woven carpet covered most of the floor in the original home, which was somewhat unfinished. There were no baseboards, for example. The Ringels stripped out the flooring and put in hardwood in the living room and bedroom.



AFTER: Gerhard, a former engineer, had to raise a portion of the streetcar ceiling (on the left above the TV) that was sagging 2 inches and causing him to duck every time he came into the living room. He jacked up the ceiling himself and reinforced it with 2-by-8s.

He also removed some rough red tiles below the old-fashioned gas heater and replaced them with a piece of quarter-circle granite for a cleaner look.

Wall paint: Wasabi; ceiling paint: Safari; ceiling ribs paint: Eggplant; transom window framing paint: Dinner Party, all by Benjamin Moore



Gerhard cut the cherry table they bought from Crate & Barrel 15 years ago to fit in their new dining area. The tablecloth is from a winery in Napa.

Wall and ceiling paint: Safari, Benjamin Moore



Walls painted in Old Claret by Benjamin Moore frame the entrance to the kitchen. Above the doorway is one of the original cast iron brackets found throughout the streetcar structure.


The kitchen spans the 3½-foot space connecting the two streetcars as well as part of one of the streetcars, on which a ceiling was added by a previous owner. There isn’t a dishwasher, disposal or microwave, but the Ringels added a new stove and fridge. A roll-out table with a blender and other small appliances is tucked underneath a bar-height table.

The tile on the floor and counter was added by a previous owner, and while the Ringels enjoy the funky vibe of it, they hope to change it in the future.



The original cabinets were painted orange, mint green and yellow. The Rignels cleaned them up by painting everything white and Granny Smith by Benjamin Moore. When the green came out looking a little too fresh, LeBaron added a glaze to give it an antique look.

How to Paint Kitchen Cabinets


BEFORE: A claw-foot tub the owners believe to be original to the home was flaking with paint and in otherwise poor condition. They wanted to honor the arty character of the space while tweaking things to be more updated. “We wanted it to be more thoughtful and better designed but still retain that magical feeling,” Gerhard says.


AFTER: They restored the tub, and LeBaron created a custom paint by blending gold, metallic and Old Claret and sponged it onto the sides. They then painted everything mostly white and added seafoam-green accents to the ceiling and window frame.

Gerhard designed and built the copper shower curtain rod to give the tub the feeling of more space. “It also keeps the wet curtain from touching your leg,” Mary says.


The door is original to the streetcar. “It makes a rumbling sound like rough wheels rattling over a metal track,” Gerhard says. “It was charming at first, but not something you want to hear in the middle of the night when someone goes to use the restroom.”

He replaced surface-mounted medicine cabinets with recessed ones and added a pedestal sink. He never knew what he was going to find when he opened a wall. Sometimes he’d find half-inch-thick cast iron brackets that were impossible to move.


Looking at the bedroom ceiling, you can see where the streetcar roof meets the addition. LeBaron applied a faux finish to the walls and used a stencil to create a raised pattern that adds texture and an antique look. The door leads to the backyard, where several cob structures — made from dirt, straw and water — dot the landscape. There’s also a treehouse in a 200-year-old oak tree. “The property has a lot of charm and magic that we just love,” Mary says.

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