One of the city’s popular holiday attractions, the Sacred Heart Holiday Home Tour, is this weekend, Dec. 2 through 4. Among the houses on this year’s tour of five elegantly decorated homes is the two-story, Georgian-style, 46th Street home of John and Carolyn Reid.
THE REID HOUSE will be one of five Fabulous Forties residences featured during this year’s edition of the Sacred Heart Holiday Home Tour, which is a fundraiser for Sacred Heart Parish School. / Valley Community Newspapers photo, Lance Armstrong
This stop along the tour is highlighted by the fact that Carolyn was one of the founding committee members of the tour, which began in 1973.
The house was built in the late 1920s. Carolyn grew up in Seattle and moved into the house with John in 1966.
Design by Twiggs
The Reid house is already visually appealing enough on its own to satisfy guests of the tour. However, Carolyn said that her home is becoming even more attractive with the assistance of Wes Green of Twiggs Floral Design.
“Wes is doing all of the interior decorations all by himself,” Carolyn said. “I don’t know what you want to call him, because he does everything from inside, outside to design, flowers – the most beautiful flowers. He does weddings, things for the Crocker (Art Museum) and lots of people in town.”
Welcome by an angel
Green’s creativity can be quickly recognized by those entering the house, as it was his idea to place a large, gold-colored statue of an angel several feet past the
ANGELIC WELCOME. This gold-colored angel statue will greet guests of the event as they enter the Reid home. / Valley Community Newspapers photo, Lance Armstrong
front door for guests to immediately view.
Carolyn said that although the statue always sits at the top of the home’s staircase, Green decided it would serve as a great way to greet the home’s guests.
“Wes said, ‘I want this to be a welcoming from the guardian angel as everyone comes through the house,’” Carolyn said.
Among the other rooms that Green has enhanced in the Reid home are the dining room and the breakfast room.
Working with the Reids’ china, glassware, and other pieces, Green intermixed the pieces to dress the table, which will also have gold-beaded, metallic chargers and a white floral centerpiece in a silver bowl.
The table in the breakfast room has been set for children, since children often enjoy having their own space.
In celebration of the holiday season, the children’s table is enhanced with Christmas decorations, including a festive and decorative carousel music box, which plays multiple holiday tunes, as the centerpiece.
Carolyn explained that Green’s creativity and dedication has worked well in meeting her interior design expectations.
“We wanted to show how you can design, in different ways, different things in different rooms, and that you can change these things by changing a cup or a plate or whatever, so you have an opportunity to do two or three different things out of one set of dishes, so you’re not just having one thing all the time,” Carolyn said.
Green said he is honored to embellish the already elegant nature of the home.
LOCAL ART SHOW. With her husband, John Reid, Carolyn Reid presents one of her favorite paintings during a home tour preview of her residence. / Valley Community Newspapers photo, Lance Armstrong
“The Reids have been great clients, so when (Carolyn) came to me (to request assistance), I was excited and honored to be able to do the job for her,” Green said. “The home has a traditional elegance, so I just tried to keep with the theme of the elegance of the home.”
Local art
In addition to Green’s artistic designs and arrangements, art enthusiasts should find the Reid home to be an important destination spot for its display of local art.
Carolyn said that she and her husband are looking forward to presenting their art in a convenient, informational manner.
“We have art in all of our rooms and so we felt that it was really important to (showcase the art),” Carolyn said. “It’s all local art (with few exceptions). What we have done is we’ve put little tabs on the bottom of every piece that tell them the title of the art and also who the artist was, so they get an idea and a feeling of the beautiful work that we have artists doing in Sacramento. It’s amazing. We’ve been collecting (local art) for 40 years.”
Homecoming memories
During this year’s tour of the Reid home, a special moment will occur when former residents of the 46th Street house will tour their old home.
Shingle Springs resident Kathy Goldman, plans to visit the house with her sister, Joanne Fitzgerald, a 1963 Mira Loma High School graduate who lives in Soldatna, Alaska. She noted that her time living in the home was cut short, since her mother, Thelma Gray, moved her family out of the house following the death of her father, John E. Gray.
John E. Gray, who died at the age of 42, was an eye surgeon at Mercy Hospital.
KATHY GRAY – now Kathy Goldman – is shown at the age of 11 in 1955, the year she moved out of her 46th Street home. She plans to visit the house during this year’s Sacred Heart Holiday Home Tour, with her sister, Joanne (Gray) Fitzgerald. / Photo courtesy, Kathy Goldman
Goldman, who graduated from Encina High School in 1961, shared some of her memories regarding her former Fabulous Forties home:
“We moved there in about 1951 and, for sure, we left in the summer of 1955. The two bedrooms at the top of the stairs to the right were my sister’s and mine. My bedroom, the furthest to the right, had fluffy, white curtains and blue wallpaper with larger than life pink roses. Very fussy. My sister, the tomboy, had a more tailored room, green, yellow and brown. The bedroom at the top of the stairs, to the left, was converted to a study. Downstairs, the living room was really the ‘living’ room. There was no ‘family’ room. There were French doors in the back that opened onto a patio. The dining room hosted many large dinner parties where the menu was usually wild duck hunted by my parents. The entry hall was big and we played there a lot. The kitchen was a large square and mostly white – white tile with red trim, white and red linoleum floor and a red Formica table in the middle. The maid’s quarters next to the kitchen had two built-in twin beds, toe-to-toe, and a bath, home to an au pair. Between the kitchen and dining room was an odd little room, sort of a mini family room. The piano was there, where my sister and I had to practice a lot, and we could leave puzzles set up in there. We had no TV. A stairway led from the hallway down to the basement and it was creepy. It was a neighborhood with quite a few kids and summertime meant (playing the game) ‘kick the can’ in the middle of that wide street (which once included PG&E streetcar tracks down its center).”
Updates, upgrades
Changes to the house and property since that time include an additional room outside where the French doors were located, a guest house, an outside pool, the elimination of the maid quarters, as well as various remodeling upgrades.
Altogether, six rooms, including the guest house, will be featured on the tour.
Admission for the Sacred Heart Holiday Home Tour is $30 and proceeds will benefit Sacred Heart Parish School.
For additional information regarding this event, call (916) 556-5050 or visit www.sacredhearthometour.com.
JOANNE GRAY – now Joanne Fitzgerald – who was 10 years old at the time this photograph was taken in 1955, enjoyed playing kick the can near her house on 46th Street. / Photo courtesy, Kathy Goldman
