Open House

Midcentury Magic

The McKinley Park Tudor started out with a garage. Over the years, the garage gave way to a storage shed. When Theo and Paige Martenis bought the home in 2015, they decided their growing family needed more living space.

The answer was an ADU—accessory dwelling unit. The shed that replaced the garage was replaced by an additional 1,000 square feet of living accommodations.

“We want to have another child,” says Theo, whose daughter Sofia is 4. “We needed a place where family could stay with us and help.”

There was just one big hangup. A giant heritage redwood stood on the lot line with neighbors to the rear. Both households love the tree and wanted it preserved.

The mission to save the redwood was accomplished by architect Dennis Greenbaum and contractor Michael Higgins with MT Higgins Construction.

“We gave the architect the directive to build around the tree,” Theo says. “And we worked diligently with the architect, contractor and an arborist to spare the tree as little trauma as possible.”

Living History

The 1937 Spanish Revival-style duplex in Land Park is the perfect place for retired architect Peter Saucerman and his wife Susan Twining.

The house features an owner-occupied unit of 2,200 square feet and another 1,100-square-foot rental. The owner’s side has three bedrooms and two bathrooms on two floors connected with a curving staircase, plus a two-car garage.

Local architect Leonard F. Starks designed the property for himself and his wife Eleanor. One of the city’s most prolific architects, Starks designed the Elks Tower, C.K. McClatchy High School, Downtown Post Office and Alhambra Theatre, the latter demolished but still missed.

Team Effort

Ryan and Heather Filippini go way back. They met as youngsters at St. Anne’s Catholic School in Lodi, followed separate paths to college, got reacquainted in Sacramento and married in 2010.

Now they work mostly from home. Ryan works in real estate. Heather works for a tech support company. East Sac is their base.

“Our first East Sac home was a two-bedroom, one-bath near Bertha Henschel Park,” Ryan says. “We then upgraded to a larger house across the street. We loved our neighbors and our tightknit neighborhood, especially during COVID lockdowns.”

Professional Help

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.”

Anything’s Possible

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.

Boulevard Perfect

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.