Open House

Curtis Popp is a residential interior architectural designer. Over two decades, he established a reputation as a talented, creative and sought-after home design consultant.

Along the way, he found a side project, his family’s unconventional tri-level Land Park residence.

Popp grew up in Land Park. He and wife Sue, a nurse, were raising their two children there in a small, traditional house on Perkins Way.

But the interior designer couldn’t stop thinking about the nearby tri-level.

“One day, in the middle of the Great Recession, I saw a For Sale sign spring up on it,” Popp says. “The timing wasn’t good. And it took several visits to get Sue interested because the house at that time looked nothing like it does today.”

Monica Hernandez is proud of her hometown. She went to McClatchy High School, City College and Sacramento State. It’s no coincidence she and husband Kevin Flanagan ended up homeowners in Curtis Park.

Flanagan grew up near Monterey, attended Sac State and returned home after graduation. He met Hernandez a few years later. They were together for eight years before getting married in 2015.

“Our first house was much smaller and located in the Med Center neighborhood of Oak Park,” Hernandez says. “The house was built in 1914, and we took on many ‘old home’ projects as do-it-yourselfers in the 11 years we lived there.”

But the couple had grander plans.

When Jennifer Tornatore and Eric Knutson married in 2003, seven years after joining households, they lived in a ranch-style home in Point Richmond. “Eric came as a package with two young sons, so we had a family-friendly home in a good school district,” Tornatore says. “But the home was uninspiring.”

Tornatore, an account executive with Uber, comes from the Sacramento suburbs. Knutson, an architect, grew up in the Bay Area. His design specialty is high-end residential, smaller commercials and multifamily homes.

Like many couples who meet, marry and combine households in middle age, Elaine Lintecum and Anthony Herrera wanted a new home unique to them.

Lintecum, retired CFO of McClatchy Corporation, and Herrera, a retired state manager, took the challenge and made decisions together.

As a single woman, Lintecum purchased and remodeled a McKinley Park Tudor. Herrera lived in South Natomas. Together, they decided they wanted a one-story house for Herrera’s two dachshunds. Stairs are not a good idea for the sleek low-to-the-ground breed.

They also wanted a home where they could age in place.

The couple toured properties and, in 2006, discovered something unique, a home at 46th and M streets different from other stately homes in the Fab Forties. It was a mid-century modern from 1959, set among large Tudors and Spanish-style designs.