Open House
Suburban Glory
Suburban Glory Who needs urban cool when you have ranch houses? By David Lukenbill June 2020 For as long as I can remember, living in the suburbs was reserved for the uninformed and decidedly unhip. It was a narrative I bought into for many years....
Master Class
Bill Harms is an artist and craftsman who studied with a master in Germany. In 1957, Harms migrated to New York with his parents and siblings. A year later, they crossed the country by bus and landed in Sacramento.
“We got out on L Street where the Greyhound bus station was,” Harms says. His first impression was a sleepy village. But the family soon found an apartment at 23rd and G streets, and “that’s when we started loving the area.”
Wow Factor
Similar to a scene in a Nancy Drew mystery novel, homeowner Cathy Skeen pushes open a secret door concealed within a library bookcase and walks through the hidden passageway.
What’s on the other side? Another complete house.
Small But Mighty
The East Sacramento bungalow, built in 1949, had the original kitchen, original bathroom, original flooring and no insulation. There was even the old knob and tube wiring when Nar Bustamante purchased the home in 2018.
“As pretty and cute as the house was, it was just done,” says Bustamante, who looked at numerous homes before finding the two-bedroom, one-bath house on a quiet street off Elvas Avenue.
Contemporary Living
When you walk into Uri and Lea Carrazco’s remodeled house in the Fab 40s, don’t expect to see refurbished light fixtures, original hardwood floors or carefully preserved crown molding beckoning back to the home’s heyday in the 1920s. The previous owners gutted the interior in 2015, leaving one wall standing, and started anew.
The two-story home, built in 1927, is now a showcase for contemporary living, complete with a black-and-white color palate and chic furnishings. The Carrazco’s East Sacramento abode is one of five on the annual Sacred Heart Holiday Home Tour this month.
Tile With Style
As a “Spanish-house addict and self-diagnosed tile freak,” Kim Heartman set out to bring back the original splendor of the 1926 Spanish-style home she and her husband, Bill, purchased in 2018 in the Fab 40s.
“The house had undergone a remodel that removed whatever Spanish elements it contained prior,” Heartman says.