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A Carmel Valley home on the market for the first time, and designed by renowned architect Marcel Sedletzky, is listed for sale at $4,995,000.
The 4,091-square-foot home on a 1.35-acre lot in the La Rancheria neighborhood, was built in 1971 and is being marketed by Sotheby’s International Realty, Carmel Valley Brokerage. It comprises five bedrooms, five full bathrooms and one partial and two fireplaces. The house features expansive windows that bring the interior natural light and views of the manicured landscaping, pool and surrounding oak grove. The property also offers a separate guest house, wine cellar, game room, workshop and ample storage space, along with a three-car garage and two-car carport.
Sedletzky had his own architectural practice in Carmel for 14 years, from 1960 to 1974, before moving to San Luis Obispo to teach at California Polytechnic State University. According to the Bill Staggs book on the architect titled “Marcel Sedletzky: Architect and Teacher,” “Sedletzky managed to balance and integrate two powerful, radically different views of architecture, manifest in the writings and work of his two heroes, (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) Le Corbusier the modernist and (Frank Lloyd) Wright the proselytizing ‘organicist,’ the European and the American. Perhaps because he was an immigrant himself, born in one world and working in another, Sedletzky was able to meld the two visions of the built world, and, over the course of a dozen years, from 1960 until 1973, to translate theoretical notions into distinctive and sometimes extraordinary residences on the Central Coast of California.”
The home at 50 La Rancheria in Carmel Valley seamlessly transitions between indoor and outdoor space, says Sotheby’s International Realty, offering “a serene retreat where the organic design of the home harmonizes with the natural beauty of the environment.”
Besides the Carmel Valley home’s design that visually brings the outside in to its inhabitants, the property is in a prime location with easy access to shopping, dining, wine tasting and local events, providing the owner a home to relax in or a perfect place to entertain guests, says Sotheby’s.
By the late 1950s, Sedletzky had left the architectural firm Victor Gruen and Associates in Los Angeles to take a job in Carmel with the small architectural firm of Robert C. Jones.
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Sedletzky rose quickly in the Jones firm, becoming the unofficial principal designer in the office, according to Staggs. From the outset, he demonstrated expertise in planning and design innovation, and in the production of presentation drawings. Jones’s appreciation of his new employee’s talents translated into free reign for Sedletzky.
“As he had done in Los Angeles,” says Stagg’s book, “Sedletzky eagerly explored the spectacular environment around Carmel. He hiked more than ever before, alone or with his wife and three children. By the time he left the Jones firm in 1960 to launch a private architectural practice, Sedletzky had acquired a set of skills and experiences that provided a strong underpinning for a bold designer who was not afraid to strike out anew. He had a natural talent at both engineering and drawing, and his European and American architectural training had sharpened those innate skills. The years at Victor Gruen Associates steeped him in the complexities of planning, and the time at Jones gave him confidence in his ability to translate a vision into a practical, buildable set of plans.”
In March 1974, Sedletzky was hired as an Associate Professor of Architecture at Cal Poly. Later that year, he closed his practice in Carmel and moved to San Luis Obispo with his second wife.
Although he would continue to design additions and remodels for previous clients and his own Casa Concha, the days of bold ideas translated into dramatic houses were essentially behind him, states Staggs’ book. He retired from teaching in 1992 and moved permanently to Casa Concha in Bahia Kino, Mexico where he died in 1995.
The home at 50 La Rancheria in Carmel Valley is being listed by Courtney Stanley and Skip Marquard of Sotheby’s International Realty, Carmel Valley Brokerage.
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