This Japanese-inspired Sacramento home is wrapped around a reflecting pool

Local architect John Harvey Carter designed this midcentury-modern Sacramento home in 1968 with borrowed elements of Japanese design, including a zen courtyard reflecting pool and ‘floating’ interior walls.

Located at 729 Columbia Drive, the ranch-style California property has been owned by the original family for 50 years, preserving Carter’s vision for the single-storey residence.

Its living spaces, particularly the formal living room, dining room and family room, peer onto the reflecting pool through floor-to-ceiling glass, while the overhanging eaves of the roof nod to those favoured in Japanese dwellings, shading the house from the California heat.

Walls of wood have clerestory windows, helping light flow through the recesses of the three-bedroom home – listed for $1,385,000 via Susan Pillon of Nick Sadek Sotheby’s International Realty – which has been updated ahead of its sale. Don’t worry though, there’s plenty of original features and character to be found in the sunken living room, with a dramatic floating fireplace, and the midcentury kitchen with teak cabinetry, plus room for its new owners to leave their stamp (shag pile carpets aren’t for everyone.)

John Harvey Carter has a very prominent following in this pocket of California with his crop of ranch-house designs highly coveted half a century on.

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