History meets modern lifestyle as East Sacramento home hits market at $1.725 million
There is a home sitting on a unique double lot in East Sacramento that seamlessly combines local history with today’s modern lifestyle.
The three-bedroom, 3,147-square-foot house at 724 44th Street is listed for $1.725 million, having just hit the market at the turn of the new year.
It’s a one-of-a-kind property that joins an original pre-1915 brass foundry and a 1920s bungalow to create a single-story gem with a private backyard and pool.
Michael Paris, president of Black Pine Communities, bought the house in 2008. He designed and built the middle section connecting the foundry building and cottage.
Paris used the foundry’s original corrugated siding and rough-sawn interior trusses in the renovation.
His goal was to make the building “look, feel and live as if two structures had always been one,” he said.
One step inside the home shows he succeeded.
The most difficult part of the work was “balancing the interior elevational grade between each area and space.”
The old foundry building now showcases a dramatic family room with a 23-foot vaulted ceiling, a cozy loft accessed by a spiral staircase, and a fireplace.
The rest of the home features a remodeled kitchen, three en-suite bedrooms, a 300-bottle wine room, a master bathroom displaying Calcatta marble, and French doors that open onto the pool area, covered patio and built-in grill.
Parking on this quiet, charming section of 44th Street isn’t an issue—there’s a two-car tandem garage on the property.
Lorna Westrick of Sac Metro Homes Inc. is the listing agent. She said the house is a neighborhood favorite and has been featured on the Sacred Heart Holiday Home Tour and the East Sacramento Garden Tour.
“This home gets so much interest and it’s so well known,” she said. “People are just drawn to it.”
The cottage and foundry were originally built by Joseph Blasofel, a brass molder for Southern Pacific Railroad. The foundry is believed to have been erected around 1915, when Blasofel was still in his mid-teens. He apparently used the shop to supplement his income. Around 1919, Blasofel began construction on the house.
An example of Blasofel’s work can be seen in a monument at 2nd and L streets in Old Sacramento. The bronze bust of Theodore Judah was cast in five sections. The monument, which was dedicated in 1930, honors Judah’s vision for what became the Central Pacific Railroad, according to the history book “Images of Rail—Sacramento’s Southern Pacific Shops.”
Ryan Lundquist, a Sacramento area home appraiser, has seen his share of properties. He likes what’s been done to the historic house.
“Combining a foundry with a bungalow sounds like a really bad idea on paper, but in this case the combination works well because it creates a unique feel,” he told the Bee in an email. “In the wider region there are a sprinkling of examples of homes that have resulted from joining two separate structures, but the end-product can feel disjointed and often cringeworthy. In contrast, this property in East Sacramento is something where buyers are going to appreciate the history and feel like they’re getting something unique that is not found in the rest of the market. The reality is, when a house has an interesting story to tell, it can be something that really appeals to the masses.”
Paris sold the house in 2010, Westrick said, and it changed hands again when the current owner bought the place in 2014.
In the past three years, 96 homes have sold for above $1 million in East Sacramento, Lundquist said.
“In short, we’ve seen more million dollar sales than ever in the East Sacramento market,” he said. “Over a decade ago the million dollar market used to be concentrated almost exclusively in the Fab 40s and McKinley Park area, but it’s definitely expanded into other places.”
This story was originally published January 8, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
