Berkeley Hills Tudor with theatrical pedigree asks $1.79M

Built in 1924 by John K Ballantine, this Tudor in the Berkeley Hills has played host to a series of literary readings and theatrical shows over the years inside the spacious living room.

Featuring three beds, three baths, and 2,240 square feet, 765 San Luis Road is comprised of open spaces and small cozy areas, mixing old and new. Highlights include brick walls, beamed ceilings, and vintage touches blended with recent updates to keep this property up to speed. It even comes with a guest house in the back.

But the house is most notable, at least in recent years, for hosting a series of plays in the grand living room. So noted, in fact, that the neighborhood productions merited ink in the San Francisco Chronicle and other local publications.

The shows were put on by the current homeowners, two retired doctors turned actor and novelist, as evidenced in a 2015 San Francisco Chronicle article, which reads, in part:

Actor and in-house producer Ron Dritz and his wife, co-producer and stage manager Margaret Cuthbert, live in such a place, near Indian Rock Park, and on Friday and Saturday their spacious living room was packed with friends and neighbors for performances of Harold Pinter’s cryptic drama Old Times.

[...]

Downstairs, guests are mingling over wine or water in the living room and kitchen or on the deck looking out to the bay, as more climb the old stone steps to the handsome Tudor-framed brick house or enter through the back door. The opening night crowd is diverse enough—by race, age, and gender—to serve as a Berkeley promo.

What’s more, prior Cuthbert and Dritz’s residency, “the previous owners were literary people who loved short stories, and they would hire actors from Berkeley Rep to do readings of the stories” inside the Berkeley Hills home.

Asking is $1,795,000 though Rick Richetta of Compass.