Reflecting on her family’s 16 years at 106 Lincoln Way, Monica Finn recalled driving the foothills area every weekend with her two young daughters and biologist husband, Rick, in search of the perfect home for their young family.
When they happened upon a cute ranch-style home on a near half-acre gently sloping lot across the street from Alta Vista grammar school in Auburn, Monica knew she had found their new home.
Monica contracted with architect Glenn Ovitt and builder John Luzzi to realize her dream of converting the nondescript rancher to the vision she and Rick had for their Arts and Craft-themed home.
What a fabulous transformation it is!
The detached two-car garage is offset to the right of the house connected via a portico breezeway to the kitchen at the far right of the house. Both are covered in dark cedar shakes and highlighted in hunter green trim.
To the left side of the house, the entry path is accented by a flowery walkway past the square columns tapered from top to bottom.
As you enter through the richly textured, custom designed douglas fir craftsman front door, you are greeted by an imposing floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace that projects a natural warmth to the long open space that encompasses the living room and dining room, and upward to the exposed beam ceiling and raised roofline.
To the immediate left along the front living room wall a tall craftsman cabinet is accompanied by a vintage morris chair, a Monica find that formerly graced the old Coloma Hotel.
From the doorway and through the French doors to a covered deck off the living room, the distant views of the Crystal range of the Sierra Nevada offer an inviting respite for a morning cup of coffee or an evening glass of wine.
Below the spacious cedar deck, Rick developed a vegetable garden that has accounted for much the family meals, and cultivated a mini-vineyard that has a decade of growth and is in its fourth season of harvests.
The wide expanse in the dining room to the right of the front door is made more dramatic by the reduction of the wall to a four-foot rise, allowing more light into the previously darkened stairway down to the lower level, and creating a more open feel in the entire upstairs.
Rick spent three years personally perfecting the country kitchen, with an abundant reliance of recycled wood, his favorite natural resource.
From the recessed lighting in the ceiling to the suspended lamps over the floating island, to the softwood floors that run throughout all upstairs, the flooring from a rain forest in northern New Mexico is the focal point that creates a fluid transition from craftsman to country.
Down the hall from the kitchen, the master bedroom features a wealth of Monica’s “finds” from scavenging yard sales, to local retail stores and the Internet.
From the mission style bed (Ethan Allen) to the long drop lamps over the bed (online at Rejuvenation.com) to a vintage chest of drawers (found online from Oklahoma) repurposed to accommodate a lavatory, to a handsome highboy chest (online from Texas).
Some of the douglas fir wood throughout the kitchen, and deck and patio, is recycled from the house during renovation. Wood for the dramatic ceiling was purchased at Auburn Hardwoods and through California Cascade in Sacramento.
Their home has always been a work in progress, evidenced by a large, dust laden workshop downstairs, Rick’s refuge from non-biologic pursuits.
Recalling fond memories of changes wrought from love, fun, and creative energy, Monica reminisced about meaningful moments in their stay — hosting their daughters’ Bat Mitzvahs, everyone helping out in the kitchen preparing dinner from the garden, relaxing in the hot tub with friends at sunset, and finally remembered, receiving a call a few years after they moved in from the previous owner, an old gold miner, who had since moved away from California.
After exchanging cordialities, he said he had stashed some gold in the house, but could not remember where.
He said he wasn’t calling to reclaim his stash, just wanted them to know it was there and they were welcome to it.
After an exciting, frenzied search, no gold was ever found. Ultimately, a more reasoned, somber assessment was reached: their home is the gold.
Vintage Home Guy runs occasionally in Gold Country Homes. Jerry Sellers is the owner of Sellers Realty Group. He can be reached at (916) 871-8801 or by email at jsellers11@gmail.com
