Death valley

The house might well have been in Surrey. The bricks were a bright baked red,
the window frames were painted white and a high chimney on the left served
the large ground-floor sitting room, which overlooked a tidy lawn. It had
all the right playthings: a swimming pool, a tennis court, verandas and
stables. The only clue that the house was located somewhere quite different
was the enormous jacaranda tree to its left, in full pink-purple bloom.