Healdsburg Victorian farmhouse asks $5.4 million

Built in 1871 for a local blacksmith, this Italianate Victorian jewel in Heldsburg fell into major disrepair over the years. A bit of a celebrity in the small wine country town, the famhouse—known as “White House” to many—sat vacant for 60 years, covered in Virginia Creeper, just off the Healdsburg Plaza.

It was until Mark Goff and Phillip Engel, a business analyst and graphic designer turned renovation experts, bought the home in 2009 and brought it back to life.

Curbed covered the extensive renovation process in our Renovation Diary series, with Engel noting:

Mark started by designing the house. He's always been able to think three dimensionally, and because he is a graphic designer, he knows his way around Adobe Illustrator. There were two big shortcomings in the home’s layout: It needed a larger kitchen and a master suite—features that weren’t important when it was built. We took five small rooms across the back of the house and reimagined them as a bigger kitchen, powder room, closet, and sitting room.

Photo via Healdsburg Museum and Historical Society

It seemed natural to add a master bedroom with a proper closet and bathroom on top of part of that space, on the second floor. A later addition on the side, probably added around 1903, was too far gone to save—it had never had a foundation. So we removed that. Mark drew it all up, and a structural engineer reviewed and stamped it for us.

We had been thinking about the layout for a long time, and Mark started designing the house before we even closed, so by the time the deal was done, we had a direction, a floor plan, and an elevation. We also decided that we would take some liberties, that it would be a renovation, not a restoration. For instance, they didn’t have central heat and air conditioning back then, and we wanted those features. We decided we aren’t Victorians, and we didn’t want to live like the Victorians.

The finished product later appeared in Curbed’s House Calls series. And for those who drooled over its Victorian charm, you’re in luck. Today 227 North lands on the market.

Featuring five beds, four and a half baths, and roughly 4,300 square feet, 227 North comes with such details as steeply pitched, side-gabled roof; eaves graced with scroll-sawn brackets; and a balcony, supported by four Doric columns, above the front door.

It also has a library, a wine cellar, a dining room, and a garden. Dreamy.

Asking is $5,485,000.

• Part I: Falling in love with a decrepit 1870s Victorian [Curbed]
• An 1870s Victorian farmhouse finally shines in Northern California [Curbed]
• 227 North [Sotheby’s International Realty]