The house at Mesa and Loop drives was a tantalizing enigma.

Before fire swept through the two-story home Friday, it had huge leaded glass windows, hundreds of Grecian statues and moldings reminiscent of ancient temples.

Known as "The Sculpture House" and the "Crystal Cathedral," the home inspired a mix of fascination and loathing in some of its neighbors in Camarillo Heights. Many others admired its unique cultural sensibilities.

The place is gone now.

A few scattered statues sit on brick pedestals around the soggy remains of the home. Ventura County fire investigators on Saturday had not determined what started the fire that destroyed the structure.

The building was an exotic landmark for many local residents, but for Dolores Patno it was a love affair.

Dressed in a red straw hat and a bright yellow pantsuit, Patno stepped gingerly through the remains of her home on Saturday.

From time to time her 12-year-old grandson, Ari Jones, would present her with a muddy plaque that belonged to his grandfather, Gene Patno.

Gene and Dolores Patno moved into the house in 1961, Patno said. It was a tract home then.

Patno's vision for the house took shape when she fell in love with Hellenistic art during a class on the subject at Ventura College.

She was an artistic soul with two years of training in civil engineering. Her husband was an electrical engineer who worked at Naval Air Station Point Mugu.

They spent decades working on the house before Gene died last year, Patno said.

Gene "took my artistic and maybe unpractical ideas and turned them into reality," she said.

They did much of the work themselves.

After Patno had a creative epiphany while learning about beveled glass, she and her husband spent the next 10 years making beveled, leaded windows for the home, she said.

One in the design of a pink bouquet of flowers was above the garage until the home burned.

The pair also made hundreds of sculptured moldings they used to decorate the home, Patno said.

"We did everything together," she said. "He would do anything for me, and he showed it with the house."

Some parts of the home were creatively cobbled together.

When Encino Bowl went out of business, the Patnos bought the old bowling lanes at an auction and used the material for a ballroom floor, stairs and doors, said Patno, who will only wink and respond "16" when asked her age.

Inside the house, Patno's daughter Desirée stored her collection of Italian neoclassical furniture from the 1800s.

Patno's son Regan had filled the garage with equipment he built for his Internet television show, she said.

Patno doesn't know what everything was worth or what the insurance will cover, but, she said, she wouldn't have sold it all for $15 million.

While some neighbors gazed at the ruins of the landmark home from behind its broken gates Saturday, others came down to offer Patno hugs and words of comfort.

Though she had often kept to herself in the past, she appreciated the gestures.

"It makes it bearable when you have that kind of support from the neighbors," she said.

As neighbors counseled her on her next moves, Patno said she hopes she can find a way to memorialize her husband, who made her vision for the home a reality.

Not everyone understood Patno's vision, but it captured many imaginations.

"It almost looked like a haunted Greek house," said Kat Watkin, who lives nearby.

Nathan Henry, a neighborhood resident for 37 years, called the house a widely recognized, but ugly, landmark.

"It looked to me like they were trying to build an European chateau" but it came out looking haphazard and cheesy, Henry said.

Ayli Tulberg and her father, Carl, were among The Sculpture House's fans.

"I just thought it was unique," said Ayli, 10. "When we were little we used to call it our dream house."

Ray Navarro, who stopped to say hello to Patno on Saturday, said he used to pause to admire her home while out on walks.

"It's just like a little Hearst Castle," Navarro said. "I'm going to miss the little castle."