Open House

A Century in the Making Midtown bungalow is home and studio to local artist By Cathryn Rakich July 2020 For 100 years, a quaint bungalow on a corner lot in Midtown has sheltered its occupants and kept watch over a peaceful neighborhood. The century-old...

Terry Grabowy purchased his “really old, really small” home, tucked away off a quiet road in Carmichael, in 1989. More than 30 years later, it was time to level the 1,200-square-foot dwelling and start anew.

“It was meant to be torn down and something new built because the house was just so old and the foundation was really lousy,” Grabowy says. “Part of it was raised and part of it was slab. The concrete was falling apart.”

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.”

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.

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.