We had a wonderful time at the mountain top guest house. Thaddeus and Piper are discreet hosts, who anticipated our needs and then left us to a very private retreat in surroundings which were asthetically appealing, but not intimidating - in short, we felt that it was "our" home for the week. We were surprised everytime we walked to our car and realized that our hosts lived on the same property - the guest house is oriented to the forest and away from the family residence. The deck is perfect for coffee sipping and book reading, and in our case, epic meals from the grill. We were able to hike into the nearby Topanga state park from the property. Mule deer stopped by to visit, the birds sang us awake and we cooled down at nightime, even on the warmest days. Since we were visiting family in the area, the mountain house was a great spot to host small get togethers and only minutes from the beaches at Malib and Santa Monica. We got marvelous input from Piper on a couple of occasions and we appreciated Thaddeus' willingness to work with our travel dates which were somewhat inflexible. These Bostonians look forward to future stays at the mountain house when we visit the west coast again.