Inside a Northern California Modernist Tree House from 1963 | House Tour

[Music] we're in carmichel California which is just outside of Sacramento beautiful leafy suburb of Sacramento we we're few hundred yards from the American River this home was designed by John Harvey Carter for a uh a young physician who was building a house for his family family uh his name was Milo Dr Milo knitler so we call this the knitler residence the architect behind the house is John Harvey Carter kind of coincidentally the other big mid-century design architect in the area is named Carter spars so they're two Carters but this is John Harvey Carter he's a little bit less wellknown when it comes to residential design he's designed about 400 buildings in the northern California area most of most of them were larger Civic places and then there's just a few commissioned Custom Homes like ours in the area John Harvey Carter graduated from USC architecture school he grew up actually in Red Bluff which is north of here just north of Chico so a Californian through and through he kind of went down to SoCal to get his education and I assume probably gleaned uh some of his inspiration from from the scene down there there and came back up here to Sacramento Northern California that's where he practiced for the majority of his career Sacramento is very flat so while we have a lot of trees here finding a house on a hill is not common and I think ni's parents live in Berkeley and when we saw this place we thought like ah it's like a little slice of the bay area in Sacramento so it's a special special place when we first toured this house I went for fun as has a looko and called our realtor um you know cuz it's it is a unique property it's always fun to sneak inside when you can we thought this there's no way this would work for a family it's you know Florida ceiling glass windows and hard floors and spiral stairs the main entry but then we thought about it for a few months I think the house was on the market and fell off the market and then came back on again and we were like wait what about that house though like could it work for a family and it really does like not only are there you know kids playards and that kind of stuff but there's kind of a whole children's Wing that's really special and I actually think this house is perfect for a family just a wonderful family space and we we love being in it we have not done a lot to the inside of the house everything was kind of done or left in way from the previous owner that they hadn't really done anything that was offensive I guess as you know happens with a lot of I don't know modern homes people will come in with ideas that maybe don't fit and I think that what was done here previously to the Interiors was really sensitive like the kitchen was done but done in a nice way and we bought the house a lot because of the exterior the landscape is really interesting and unique in in the Sacramento area to have a house on a hill tucked into a hill with a bunch of trees it's it's rare the house is also really inwardly focused it's a U-shaped house that is focused on the backyard so all those spaces as you Terrace up the backyard I think make a really Dynamic yard and really fun place to hang out so the original design was getting old you know a lot of the original features were run down as they would be after a lot of years so we focused our first project on the backyard so renovating the pool adding uh kind of studying the historic landscape drawings the original Landscape Architects drawings and bringing in a new landscape architect to kind of rethink it for how we want to use the yard and make it a fun place for our family to live John Harvey Carter was one of the founding board members of the Sacramento County Parks preservation committee and so he was a big proponent of nature he loved the landscape out here he was one of the early champions of uh the American River Parkway that we have which is about 30 miles of Parkway from that starts in Downtown Sacramento and goes all the way up to fulam and that was a a big big passion project of his so and clearly you can tell from from the way the house is situated on this site that he really was in tune with nature he really cared about the site and and fitting the home into this Hillside as you could see we're you know when we're sitting in the house we're about 5 ft under almost it feels like we're not we don't feel underground because there's a courtyard that's cut uh into where we move out but you're about 5 ft below the next Terrace so there's a bit of a what they call Earth BM construction against the back walls behind where our fireplaces are and you can kind of see the way he even connected the outdoor space so you can see how it flows the landscape from outside to inside flows through the planner box where we have the snake plants in the back when we considered this home the first time it seemed like there there was no way this could work for a family but then upon discovering what it's like to have a family in this house this was built for a family and we have the kids Wing the room that can be you know one big shared kids room or subdivided into you know two kids rooms it's a really special room with the cool built-in desks and you know memories of the kids that have lived here before so I think if you have a family be open to like a spiral stair or a plate glass window and know like they were family homes and actually ours functions really well and when we look back at the architect's drawings now that we have them you can actually see the children's Playard in there or learn about the kids Wing really being designed for kids which is something I didn't notice at first pass through the house I mean this home just functions really beautifully like I can throw a dirty towel from the kitchen into the laundry room basket so there it's definitely a I guess family friendly living here every day is awesome we love it you you wake up and you see the green out the window you there are times where I'll just walk up these stairs and you know the big dining room glass wall situation I'll just stand there and just kind of peer out for a while and just like wow this is great this is so cool and try not to take it for granted you know try to really really enjoy it and I think we do even in the little ways when you're not thinking about it there's a lot of little design tweaks and quirks in the house that are really like made for a family there's like this little pass through window if you're preparing something in the kitchen and you're taking outside to to have dinner outside there's this little slide window you can pop open right behind the sink there and just pass the food through and those that's like one of the things which is funny cuz like you'll have people come visit it and see the house and they'll like you know they'll say oh well this is cool and then they'll see that little window and be like that's amaz that's awesome that's the coolest part of this whole house I think mid-century period was a time when people were really experimenting with Material Science and it's kind of cool and some of it worked and some of it didn't and you don't have to be too precious about anything either I think it's fun to have a house that's like a relic but we can also have houses that we can adapt and and work for us today the advice I would give for someone purchasing a house like a mid-century modern house or historic house I would say don't be too precious with it it's not going to be perfect in fact I would say embrace the imperfections there are a lot of things about this home that you know are a little they're worn they're lived in you can tell that a family lived here before we lived here and you know there are little things here and there little Nicks or little things that are imperfections that you might be hung up on but don't be just you're going to have to live with them yeah don't get too scared when the inspection comes back and there's a lot of things try and have a analytical mind when you're looking at and think is this really an issue or is this is I mean if it's something like a safety issue you should fix it but otherwise there are a lot of little things that I think come with owning a house like this that you're just going to have to live with and [Music] embrace

Channel: OPEN SPACE

Views: 140,520

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Id: Vz_TFIvRVmQ

Length: 8min 51sec (531 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 14 2024