1903 home on 3rd Street sold
By Dolores Quintana
The renovated Craftsman home at 2623 3rd St in Santa Monica, CA sold for slightly over its listed price. John Baldessari originally purchased the single-family, 3 bedroom, two bathroom home, built-in 1903, in 1990 for $660,000.
After ten years, the artist sought the design skills of two prominent architects to modernize the house, bringing more light, space, and creative energy into the house while still maintaining the home’s classic Craftsman design. Additional windows and skylights were added to increase the available light for the artist’s work. The back of the house was built out and a kitchen and library were added in the new space. Baldessari also hired a designer, Roy McMakin, to custom-build new furniture, some of which were available for sale with the house. In the end, the living space of the home was increased to 2,798 square feet.
The color schemes in the bathrooms are bright and unusual, one bathroom is creamsicle orange with a steel toilet and vanity, the other has aqua tiling with steel fixtures. The kitchen has a cobalt blue tile scheme, a butcher’s block countertop atop a modern island that was custom built. The large outdoor space is of a terraced design with olive trees and many plants for relaxation.
The home is in the Ocean Park neighborhood of Santa Monica, close to both Main Street and the beach. Baldessari was a painter who destroyed his work up to the late 1960s and switched to a different aesthetic of text and photographs and added filmmaking, videos, sculpture as time went on. He passed away in January of 2020 and worked as an art teacher as well. All told his work was part of 1,000 group shows and 200 solo exhibitions.
