A Beautiful Southern Colonial Style Estate Located in San Marino

This gracious Southern Colonial Style Estate is located on beautiful Chelsea Road, a wide street north of Huntington Drive off Old Mill Road and near Lacy Park. Designed and built by Norwood & De Longe in 1951, this home has been owned by the same family since 1964. Sited on a flat 28,622 SF lot (0.66 acres), this property offers privacy and plenty of room for entertainment and recreation, from the swimming pool and spacious pool cabana to the expansive lawn and basketball court. The estate retains a sense of understated elegance in combination with function and a comfortable layout. The grounds provide a peaceful setting with its tall perimeter hedges, beautiful mature trees, and mountain views.

The architectural features of the property are noticeable from the curb and continue throughout the home – the handsome columns on the facade of the home, the wide circular driveway, the pitched roof, the dental molding detail, the solid wood paneled doors, wainscoting, moldings, and the solid wood built-in cabinets.

In keeping with Norwood & De Longe’s style, this home is characterized by a feeling of spaciousness, an open kitchen, extensive storage and closet areas, expanses of glass, with easy access to the outside, and living areas well separated from bedrooms. Enter the home through the gracious foyer which features a beautiful curved staircase and continues into the formal living room with natural light on three sides and access from a large set of French doors to a generous covered rear patio and spacious grounds. There is also access to the covered rear patio and yard from the wood-paneled den with fireplace, built-ins and wet bar, and from the charming, sunny breakfast room with wainscoting, built-ins, solid wood doors, garden views. The formal dining room features a bay window, wainscoting, and double door formal entry. Large kitchen with center island/ butcher block and a beautiful view of the yard.

Wonderfully arranged, the home has 5 Bedrooms and 5.5 Bathrooms; 4 Bedrooms and 4 Bathrooms are upstairs, including spacious dual master suites, a large deck with views of the rear yard. Downstairs, there is one bedroom suite with full bathroom plus a formal powder bath with vanity area.

Additional features include:

• Entry hall with 2 entry hall closets and leaded glass window sidelights.

• Hardwood floors throughout most of the home.

• Separate laundry room with built-in storage and utility sink.

• California basement.

• The swimming pool was re-plastered in the last year.

• Fruit trees, mature trees, tremendous privacy plus a formal rose garden with mature rose plants.

• Large covered brick patio with built-in cabinets and bar area measures approximately 250 SF.

• Large pool cabana with 2 changing rooms, pool equipment room, basic kitchen space, covered entertainment space.

• Wide, circular driveway.

• Lot is approx. 300+ SF deep on the south lot line, approx. 100′ wide.

• Beautiful wood details including paneled solid wood doors wainscoting, built-in cabinets, crown moldings, dental molding detail at the exterior façade.

• HVAC – Air conditioning is located upstairs and in the kitchen area; two furnaces for both floors

• Automatic driveway gate.

• 2-car garage with sliding glass doors, used as a recreation room and separate storage room.

• Home 3,755 SF per tax assessor

According to local building biographer, Timothy Gregory, “Norwood & De Longe concentrated on the construction of single-family residences, many of which they designed themselves and some of which they built on a speculative basis. Their houses were characterized by a feeling of spaciousness mixed with compactness, dual-purpose rooms that could be used to the maximum, open kitchens adjacent to family rooms (the latter still considered a novel use of space in the early 1950s), extensive storage and closet areas, expanses of glass, with easy access to the outside, and living areas well separated from bedrooms. Norwood & De Longe’s later projects tended to be multi-family residential, tract developments, and large-scale remodeling work.”