Imagine buying a luxury home and everything inside it: every stick of furniture, every work of art, every single accessory. All you have to do is move in, unpack your bags and start living. It’s a growing trend in the luxury-home market in places like New York, Miami, Paris and London. Now it’s come to the Sacramento region—specifically Granite Bay, where a fully furnished, high-end custom home recently sold for $3.7 million.
It’s proof that today’s luxury buyer wants to simplify, explains John Packowski, a longtime residential building designer in Sacramento who headed up the Granite Bay project for Elliott Reserve, the custom-home division of Elliott Homes. For upscale buyers, he says, “the house just needs to do its job, which is to give you your life back.”
Packowski designed the 5,600-square-foot house to appeal to empty-nesters who like to entertain, with an open kitchen surrounded by spaces where people can gather to eat, drink, watch TV or socialize. There’s a breakfast room, dining room, bar, wine room, concealed second kitchen (for the caterers!) and two salons: one for TV watching, the other for quieter pursuits. The home’s private spaces consist of four bedrooms and four bathrooms, including a guest suite with its own entrance and garage.
Interior designer Barb Ford of Carlsbad (a longtime collaborator of Packowski’s) selected all the finishes—things like flooring, cabinetry and stone—and worked with RH Modern in Corte Madera to choose the furnishings. Packowski actually designed the house with RH furniture in mind from the get-go. “RH has a strong architectural style that’s very rectilinear and large in scale,” he says. “It suits the style and scale of this house.” Local artists Marc Foster and Micah Crandall-Bear were commissioned to create sculptures and paintings that would stay with the project after the sale.
Packowski always assumed the house would sell to a deep-pocketed Bay Area buyer. But in the end, a local developer saw it, fell in love and scooped it up, lock, stock and bath towels.
Resources
HOMEBUILDER: Elliott Homes
DESIGN: John Packowski Design
INTERIOR DESIGN: Ford & Associates
FURNISHINGS: RH Modern
LANDSCAPE DESIGN: John Nicolaus
