Rambling La Crescenta compound with homes designed by Neutra, Maltzan asks $4.5M

A pretty pair of pedigreed properties is once more up for grabs in La Crescenta, on the northern Glendale border.

Occupying a 5.71-acre parcel just south of the Angeles National Forest, the unique compound’s homes were constructed half a century apart. First up, the Dorothy Serulnic Residence, designed in 1953 by Richard Neutra for his secretary and her husband.

A quintessential California Modern, the 1,350-square-foot open-plan residence features two bedrooms, one bath, walls of glass, a Bear Valley stone fireplace, and a bounty of fantastic Neutra-designed built-ins, including a sofa, vanities, a desk, and a “sliding” kitchen table.

Serulnic resided in the house for more than four decades, until 1997, when she sold it to artists Lari Pittman and Roy Dowell, who commissioned architect Michael Maltzan to build a second home on the rambling lot.

Completed in 2009, the Pittman-Dowell Residence is a seven-sided structure “dissected and portioned into a series of triangles and polygons” that reveals rooms in a pinwheeling progression rather than the traditional linear fashion. Measuring 3,100 square feet, it has one bedroom, one and a half baths, and a raised interior courtyard.

The hilltop property also contains an open-air pavilion and extensive cactus garden. Listed at $7.9 million in 2014, it’s now asking $4.5 million.

• 3947 Markridge Rd [Sotheby’s]