for sale

  • What Do You Get for a Million Bucks?

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    A selection of million dollar (plus) homes all around the country, as recently listed on Craigslist. I’ve tried to pull a sampling of the more A&C-ish properties, and have only included those that had photographs. It’s amazing how much more you get for your money in some parts of the country, although when you get way up at the top end, it seems like quality has very little to do with the price – it’s all about veneer, aesthetic, style and nothing else.

    San Francisco:

    elsewhere in the Bay Area:

    throughout the country:

  • Greene for Sale

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    The Los Angeles Times reports on Henry Greene’s Spinks House hitting the market – the asking price is $5.35 million:

    Charles Greene, the chief designer of the Greene & Greene firm,
    needed a break. So in 1909 he took his family back to London, where he
    and his wife had honeymooned, according to "Greene & Greene
    Masterworks," by Bruce Smith and Alexander Vertikoff. During his
    respite, his brother, Henry, stepped in to fill the void.

    While
    Charles visited England, Henry completed the Spinks Craftsman house for
    retired Judge William Ward Spinks and his wife, Margaret B.S. Clapham
    Spinks. They had recently moved from Victoria, Canada, because the
    judge had accepted the presidency of the Pasadena Hotel Co.

    The Spinks House cost a princely $11,000 at a time when few homes cost more than $2,000 to build.

    As
    in their other homes, Henry Greene continued to use a variety of woods,
    such as Port Orford cedar and redwood, to make the Spinks home
    compatible with nature. Henry — known for his linear designs — gave the
    home a rectangular shape.

    The Spinks House sits atop a slope
    on a nearly 1.5-acre property in the Oak Knoll neighborhood. Its
    meadow-like setting provides privacy. Isabelle Greene, granddaughter of
    Henry Greene, restored and redesigned some of the gardens in 1989. It
    has extensive terraces and porches, as well as a balcony.

    Ted Wells of Living : Simple believes that the price of the Spinks home is more than a little off, even for a Greene & Greene property in this neighborhood, perhaps due to the owner’s pricing the parcel for future subdivision:

    Not mentioned in the article is that the exceptionally high price for the Spinks house, relative to comparable sales in the neighborhood, is
    because the the sellers (seem to have) priced the house based on the subdivision of the lot     and the development of the lower portion to add a speculative house accessed from the street below. One joy of this house
    is the property – and by subdividing it and losing the lower part of the slope (as was disastrously done at the Culbertson house down the street from the Spinks house, across from the Blacker house) a major
    component of the Greenes’ siting of the Spinks house, the setting of the house far back on the lot and the perceived isolation and privacy of the house, will be lost.

    The shame is that we bemoan the loss – on the same street! – of the
    property around the Blacker House and downslope from the Culbertson
    House, shaking our heads in disbelief that "people back then" would
    allow such subdividing to occur, and reminding ourselves that we are so
    much more enlightened today and that nothing like that would happen
    now; yet it happens, and will continue to happen, and no one bats an
    eye.

  • Free Bungalow in Venice, CA

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    Jim Bursch at West LA Online points us to the bargain of the month: should you have a lot crying out for a pretty, well-maintained 900 sq ft 1906 bungalow, look no further!  "If you can move it, you can have it," and that’s pretty much truth in advertising. The owner is putting something new on the lot – and by the way, this wouldn’t work where I live in Sacramento; there is no way the zoning board would allow anyone to raze a perfectly fine house in the historic district just to put in new development – and will either raze it, or let anyone who wants to truck it away do so.

  • Craftsman Homes For Sale

    a roundup of selected Craftsman properties around the country currently on the market:

    • Chris Golde is selling her 2000+ square foot 1923 Prairie / Craftsman home in Madison, replete with lots of interesting and well-maintained woodwork and hardware, for $319,700.
    • Here’s a bright and attractive Rockridge bungalow for sale in Oakland California for $689,000 – a lot but not out of the ordinary for that eternally bubble-icious market. Barbara Hendrickson at Red Oak Realty is the seller’s agent; unlike a lot of the real estate agencies I rant about here, Red Oak does most of their work in a market full of older homes, and their agents are quite savvy to Craftsman style and the histories of the homes they sell.
    • A spectacular new / custom wood-shingle uber-bungalow on the north shore of Washington’s Orcas Island for $739,000.
    • A recently-restored Atlanta bungalow in the Kirkwood neighborhood for $260,000.
    • A well-kept bungalow in Brookhaven, Mississippi will run you only a bit under $88,000 – even this pretty little house with a new kitchen and a big wrap-around deck. If I could telecommute – and if all the Thai, sushi and pho restaurants I frequent would deliver that far – I’d consider moving to the midwest just to save a few hundred thousand dollars.