A few beautiful old homes here in Sacramento were damaged or, in one case, totally destroyed by falling trees and other debris in this first of the three storms scheduled to hit us before Sunday evening. Most of these photographs are from the Sacramento Bee. Click the image for a slightly larger version.
After reading our recent note on a modest but pretty bungalow going for a half-million dollars in Sacramento, reader Jean Emery sends us this article from Buffalo Rising on that town’s own "bungalow belt." Read the complete article on their site. There are plenty of good photos as well, and Jean notes that she "can guarantee these don’t cost half a million dollars like the one in Sacramento!"
One of Buffalo’s most charming neighborhoods is centered on a
cluster of streets running off Abbott between Lakewood and Hubbell on
the South Side. The streets stand out from their surroundings as they
are lined with distinctive bungalow style houses. The bungalow,
sometimes referred to as craftsman style, was popular in the early 20th
century. It is a derivation of an Indian house type with rustic
detailing and broad porches. Common features include low rooflines on a
gabled or hipped roof, deeply overhanging eaves, exposed rafters, and
decorative brackets. The front porch is often formed by extending the
main roof out past the front wall.The craftsman style of design became popular as people started
yearning for a simpler time. The 20th century was a period of major
change. Rapidly developing technology and a shift to urban living
brought new wealth and convenience along with a sometimes stressful and
unfamiliar way of life to many people. Design, with an emphasis on hand
craft and natural materials, was a way to capture the nostalgia of a
simpler America. The Roycrofters in nearby East Aurora, led by Elbert
Hubbard, were leaders in this movement. Even the work of Frank Lloyd
Wright could be included as a part of this movement (if peripherally
so). His Connection to Darwin Martin and subsequent commissions in
Buffalo came through Hubbard.
Yes, the price is obscene. But the house is gorgeous. Beautifull restored kitchen & bath, great (small) backyard, lots of light and in one of Sacramento’s three nicest neighborhoods, this Curtis Park bungalow can be yours for just a bit over a half million dollars:
Beautifully restored shingle Craftsman on idyllic West Curtis Park
street. A large lot with 3 car garage and alley access – this home has
been meticulously restored. The period appropriate kitchen renovation is
complete with handmade shaker style cabinetry with inset doors and
solid wood construction. The ’50s era Wedgewood stove is also restored,
and the rest of the appliances, including a Bosch dishwasher, are
completely integrated into the design of the kitchen. Soapstone
countertops, a full pantry, and plenty of open shelving throughout. A
central vacuum system makes cleaning a breeze!
3 bedrooms, 1 bath, approx. 1460 square feet. Newly refinished
hardwood floors throughout, along with a new 30 year composition roof,
new copper plumbing, restored original windows, automatic irrigation,
new HVAC, and more!! There is a partial basement which is great for
storage. The 3 car garage is currently set up for a woodworking shop-
the garage door is for a 2 car garage, but there’s plenty of extra
space inside!!Many custom touches including master bedroom with built-in maple closet
cabinetry and pull-out ironing board- sliding barn doors for the closet
too!Front and backyards are completely landscaped, there’s even an
outdoor kitchen! Cook and dine outside next to the gentle sound of the
koi pond waterfall. Much, Much, More… Call for more details!!
Sacramento’s Sierra Curtis Neighborhood Association and the Sacramento Bungalow Heritage Association are fighting a winning battle against cheap, unsightly and – in the long run – inefficient and environmentally damaging vinyl, aluminum and composite windows. Their solution? Fix your old wooden windows before switching over to something that seems like a good deal – but actually isn’t.
This coming October 6 and 7, they’re offering two workshops on the basic repair, maintenance, weatherization and repair of historic wood windows.
Volunteer instructors from the community will demonstrate how they worked on their own windows, preserved the character of their historic homes, and saved their pocketbooks! Historic windows were made to be taken apart and repaired, and with basic guidance, anyone can make their windows work as they originally did – with ease of operation and weather tight – and beautiful!
We ran a short piece about these workshops and the woman behind them two years ago; again, much thanks to Janice Calpo not only for the heads-up, but more importantly for making Sacramentans aware of the benefits of our old homes’ original windows!
Woodland is a small bedroom community just outside Sacramento, and several of my colleagues live there and commute in to the Capitol and other downtown offices. I was gratified to hear that the city is hosting a home tour – I’ve always been very impressed with the number of beautiful old Craftsman homes in the city’s core (although, unfortunately, much of Woodland is now being subsumed by suburban sprawl, identical tract homes in very uninviting gated and anonymous "communities" that are anything but).
Several free guided walking tours of the town’s several historic neighborhoods, house tours of a number of important houses in the area, music, a pancake breakfast and plenty more (including guides in period costume) are all part of this year’s "Stroll Through History." Home tour tickets are $25 and may be purchased online. Hopefully events like this will revitalize the historic neighborhoods and maybe even teach developers that there’s a market for well-built, non-cookie-cutter homes with quirky inconsistencies, color, and warmth.
Gabby Hyman at RenovatorsPlace.com had the following story about Don Fox, who lives not far from me in Sacramento. Read the whole article here.
When Don Fox took his first look at a 1910 Craftsman-style bungalow in Sacramento, CA, he knew he had found his long-sought fixer-upper. The home had "good bones," Fox said, but it was in miserable shape. A homeless man was sleeping on the porch, the windows were shattered, and there was so much grime on the kitchen walls that it "smelled like a restaurant grease trap." After gutting the home to bare studs and rafters, Fox and his wife, Amanda, completed a renovation project that won an award from the Association for the Preservation of Historic Homes.
The remodeled kitchen, bathrooms, and living room were the true stars of what the Sacramento Bee called "One Beautiful Bungalow." An Italian-American from Brooklyn, Don has a particular fondness for the kitchen renovation, which resulted in a room where he spends a lot of his time whipping up traditional culinary faire.
"The house felt good when I first saw it," he explains. "It was a spiritual feeling. That’s despite its having been sad, neglected, and uninhabited for years." Fox, a former journeyman carpenter, furniture-maker, and aficionado of period architecture, saw the potential to create a showpiece.
You know what I’d really like for my birthday this year? I’d like to get an award. Any kind of award. I’m not sure we’d qualify for "best local blog" or website, given that while we do have a disproportionate number of entries on Sacramento-area homes & architecture, we’re certainly not nailed to my own hometown, but that’s the category closest, since there’s no "best website about the Arts & Crafts Movement" category.
If you all wouldn’t mind too much, I would be so appreciative if you’d visit the Sacramento News & Review‘s Best of Sacramento poll and vote for us. In exchange, I promise to write a really interesting article on John Hudson Thomas next week.
Yesterday, HGTV ran an episode of their reZONED program on Richard Baumhofer & Cindy Bechtel’s beautiful Curtis Park home in a remodeled and restored firehouse, which we originally wrote about this week last year. Marybeth Bizjak has more on the house in her September 2006 article in Sacramento Magazine. Later in the article, Rich notes his favorite northern California salvage yards – which happen to be mine, too – Ohmega Salvage and Urban Ore, both in Berkeley:
Vision. Some people have it; some don’t.
Rich Baumhofer and
Cindy Bechtel fall squarely into the “have vision” category. When the
couple stumbled upon a dilapidated old house in Curtis Park, they could
see it had major potential.Their friends told them they were
crazy to consider buying the structure, which had been built in 1917 as
a fire station and later converted to a private home. But buy it they
did, setting out to restore its “firehouse charm.”They
succeeded so spectacularly that HGTV will feature their house on an
upcoming episode of “reZONED,” a show about people who turn commercial
spaces into one-of-a-kind homes.“My intention was to
rebuild in the spirit of the original firehouse,” says Baumhofer, a
builder and general contractor who has worked on many old houses. He
kept the shell of the Craftsman-style building intact while gutting the
inside to create a spacious, family-friendly home.
Congratulations to both Rich and Cindy – it’s nice when the rest of the world acknowledges all your hard work. And thanks, too, for sharing your home with all of us!
Robert Koch studied under John Kassay (author of The Book of Shaker Furniture
) and continues that tradition of austerity and craftsmanship in his own work. His furniture is influenced by "Arts & Crafts, Asian and American Shaker furniture designs" – and in its smooth lines, deceptively simple framing, delicate dovetailing and use of several beautifully-grained woods, these pieces combine elements of all three styles.
Robert lives and works in Diamond Springs, California (not far from my home in Sacramento), and takes commissions and may have other pieces for sale.
Reader Joel McDonald is a real estate agent in Boulder CO and wrote the following for Hewn & Hammered. Please note that this article’s copyright belongs solely to its author, and may not be reproduced without his written consent. He makes good points: while many people lust after the big lots and imagined superiority of new construction (which we know is a myth 99% of the time) and imagined safety of the suburbs or the (also sometimes imaginary) superiority of schools, the increasing cost of fuel – something that won’t decrease in price anytime soon – will often make exurban living much more expensive.
In my own community – Sacramento, California – the oldest neighborhoods inside the city limits are Curtis, McKinley and Land Parks. They are also the most desirable. I doubt anyone, no matter how stunted their aesthetic taste, could argue that new tract homes in even the ritziest suburban neighborhoods hold a candle to the beautiful and sturdily-constructed Craftsman, Tudor and Mission Revival masterpieces of the urban core.
If you’re not careful, you’ll spend more in gas than what you save in mortgage payment.
One of the most common decisions we see buyers make is to buy 10 or 20 miles from the town they plan on working in because the price of homes in that area is 10% or 20% less out that way. Boulder real estate company owner Joel McDonald points out that the biggest factor homeowners don’t take into consideration is what their own time is actually worth, the wear and tear on their car, and of course, the cost of gas (which ain’t cheap these days). That’s not to say that buying a home in a less expensive area that isn’t in town isn’t a good idea, but more often than not, it’s not saving as much money as you might have initially thought.
Let’s say you’re contemplating buying a $450,000 home in-town, vs buying an otherwise similar home for $400,000. Let’s also say the $400,000 home is 18 miles from the town you plan on working in 5 days a week. That $50K in savings might be attractive to you because if you take out a loan for the difference, you’re looking at a monthly savings of between $320 and $370 a month. The key in making the best decision, however, isn’t whether or not you’re saving a few hundred bucks a month on your mortgage payment — it’s how much you’re spending every month by commuting into town.
Let’s say your car gets 20 miles a gallon. At $3 a gallon, you’re looking at about $6 a day to drive into town. Every mile you drive on your car typically represents about 20 cents in wear & tear. (Those oil changes, new tires & every mile put on your car depreciate your car’s value, and those expenses are usually more than the cost of gasoline!) 36 miles round-trip times twenty cents is another $7.20 a day in expenses.
Last, but definitely not least, you’ve got the most expensive part of the equation to weigh: your time. If you have a $40,000 job, your "on the clock" time is worth $20 an hour. Believe it or not, your "off time" is twice as valuable as your "billable time". If you don’t buy into that logic, think about how valuable vacation time is to you, or think what you’d pay on Monday morning if you could just have a third day off. Your "billable rate", by the way, assumes a 40-hour work week. The more hours you work per week, the more valuable your off-time is, so $40 per hour could even be underestimating what your time is actually worth. For the sake of this argument, however, let’s just say that if you earn $40,000 per year, your time is worth $30 an hour. By living 18 miles from work, you are spending an average of 4 extra hours per week commuting! That’s $120 per week (or $24 per day.)
When you add all 3 variables up, and consider that you commute to work an average of 22 times a month, let’s see what you’re spending to make that commute:
- $6 in gas 22 times a month is $132
- $7 in wear & tear 22 times a month is $154
- $24 in lost time 22 times per month is $528!
- Add it all up, and your 18 mile drive is going to cost you $814 a month!
Even if you don’t value your off-time at $30 an hour, or you enjoy that drive time because you get to listen to a good book-on tape, you’re still looking at $286 in car expenses every month. Next time you find yourself grappling with the issue of whether to buy in town vs. commuting into town for a less expensive home, be sure to not to ignore the extra expenses you’ll be picking up in trade for what you save in monthly mortgage payment. Your "more expensive" home could be several hundred dollars a month LESS expensive, when you factor in all of your peripheral expenses.
This article was contributed by Automated Homefinder – your Boulder CO real estate experts.