A latter-day Greene and Greene
The Culbertson House, designed in 1911 by Charles and Henry Greene and one of the last homes that the brothers worked on together, has come on the market.
A departure from the Greenes’ earlier bungalows, the Culbertson House is Euro-Asian in style with its roof of porcelain tiles glazed in green and dashes of burnt red. But the U-shaped house also reflects the California Mission influence while maintaining its Arts and Crafts details.
The house is listed in the Historic American Buildings Survey and is on the national Register of Historic Places.
About this house: It was built for the three maiden sisters of James Culbertson, a wealthy lumberman and a benefactor to Throop Polytechnic Institute, which later became Caltech. The sisters were Cordelia A., Kate and Margaret Culbertson.
The cost of maintaining the house and its then-extensive gardens wound up being more than the sisters could afford, so they sold the house and its furnishings in 1917. A year later, the new owner asked the Greenes to change a basement billiard room into a ballroom. The land drops down from the street into a canyon so that the front wing of the house is at street level, but there is still room under the back wing for the ballroom, complete with a stage.
The house was once on several acres, but the land was subdivided over time, starting in the late 1940s. The house also has been updated through the years. In 1994, the kitchen was redesigned by Randell Makinson, an expert on Greene and Greene, and in 2000, the house was re-roofed, using a polyglass underlay with original tiles placed over it. More recently, a master suite was created.
The young couple who have owned the home since 1998 plan to relocate due to a job transfer.
Asking price: $3.75 million
Size: The house has seven bedrooms and six bathrooms in 8,559 square feet. The lot is 30,060 square feet.
Features: The home also has a workshop; basement catering kitchen, in addition to the redesigned gourmet kitchen; a laundry room, three zones of air conditioning, radiant and gravity heat systems; a detached garage; and an extensive garden. The grounds are fenced and gated.
Where: Pasadena
Listing agent: Barry D. Jones, (626) 844-2221, and Tink Cheney, (626) 356-8129, both at Coldwell Banker, Pasadena.
