Major funding for his program was provided by the Nevada Department of Cultural Affairs State Historic Preservation Office.

Additional funding was provided by Nevada Humanities and the Nevada Arts Council.

MUSIC >>Alicia Barber: It was 1951 when Sol and Ella Savitt drew up plans to build a house on the fashionable corner of La Rue and Marsh streets in Reno.

They hired a well-known architect from Los Angeles and designed a home that incorporated innovations from Southern California.

Details abounded.

From radiant heat, angled doors and five unique fireplaces to a swimming pool set in the middle of a slate patio, the design said Los Angeles.

For about $50,000, Ella and Sol built one impressive house.

MUSIC The house sits low, curving around the corner lot presenting a closed façade to those who pass.

The roof is a dominant aspect - shake shingle giving it a natural, textured look.

The surrounding driveway is brick - wide, flanked with brick planters along the edges, interrupted with brick planters at its center.

The low wall encompassing the property is undulating brick broken by imposing wrought iron gates.

The exterior of the house is embellished with brick benches, curved brick chimneys and scattered brick planters.

The house itself is used brick - salvaged from a Virginia City Bank.

>>Mercedes de la Garza: Something that was done in the '50's and became very popular in later times in the U.S., was this use of the, um, what looked to be like used bricks.

And, if you look on the exterior of the home you'll see, uh, uh, pieces of white paint and, and concrete, straight concrete, and that was, actually, it had to be hand done at the time.

And, what it did is it created a home that looked like it had been here awhile or had been remade out of reclaimed bricks or, it tended to anchor the home in a more historic fashion than of just a home made out of clear red brick.

And, it was very expensive to do at the time.

The front door is unassuming, planked in a cottage style.

At the entrance is the beginning of a green, Vermont slate path that winds its way through the house.

To the left is a half bath.

It's amazing.

This is where we first experience the impact of prev Marjorie Collins.and What was once a pine and wallpapered powder room has been transformed into an elegant, highly reflective space.

It's here we first encounter Larry's love of detail and his penchant for wood carving.

To the right is what appears to be a half-wall built in brick.

It was originally a planter, but has been capped in a black marble.

The living room is now done in neutral colors, and the architectural detail is obvious.

The curved wall, the fireplace flanked by bookcases, the wall of windows overlooking the pool.

>>Mercedes de la Garza: The ranch-style home evolved, um, from an era in America when we were moving from the pedestrian life to the car, um, lifestyle.

And, uh, which is why you had the attached garage, you would drive into an attached garage, enter your home, and the home was more about family and less about the context of the home and the context of the family in the neighborhood.

And, the homes were more open from the interior to the exterior via the more private area, which would be the backyard, which is why you find the, the large pane windows, the large sliding doors, um, that made, that created that transparency from inside to outside.

The pool area used to be decorated with a profusion of flowers - as was the front.

Ella was an avid gardener.

However, Larry and Marjorie wanted something that would have a year-round presence.

Thus the topiaries - thirty-tree to be exact.

They also came across the original Wedgewood stove that had been a part of the barbeque, and had it re-installed.

The area around the pool has been replaced at least twice.

Originally it was Vermont slate, but that didn't adapt well to the Nevada winters.

In Ella's time, a greenhouse helped her cultivate her passion for gardening.

However it had fallen into disrepair, so Larry and Marjorie enclosed the space --- turning it into a comfortable sitting room.

MUSIC Though there are many windows, the exterior overhangs are generous, shading the interior.

However in Ella's time the darkness had other causes.

Every wall had wallpaper, as well as many of the ceilings.

The wood was a beautiful pine, much of which Larry and Marjorie retained.

But here, in the living room, they chose to remove the substantial wainscoting, and paint the remaining wood white.

The ceiling here is beamed, and we will experience a variation of this theme throughout the home.

>>Mercedes de la Garza: The cottage style is, is typified by, uh, the smaller panes, the irregular rooms, the low doors, the sort of charm, uh, the, the scale is really what addresses the cottage on this house, and the use of materials on, uh, at the entryway.

Just sort of a mix of natural materials, um, but when you walk into the entry room you have a very heavy ceiling over your head.

You have a, um, a, a what I call a "dual-pitched roof".

You have a beam running along the center the length of the living room and you have a sort of a three and twelve pitch, which is a slight pitch, on one side and then you have an eight and twelve pitch facing the front of the house, um, which is more cottage style and which is, would, would lend itself more to a street front cottage presence, um, because that particular pitch is more of an eight and twelve, more steeply, um, done and then in the rear of the house, of course, more ranch with a, a less steeply pitched roof.

We continue down the hallway, and climb three slate stairs to enter the master bedroom.

When Larry and Marjorie owned the house, this bed dominated.

It's remarkable.

Not only aesthetically, but also historically.

This bed belonged to Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

But more about that later.

Other than removing a portion of the pine paneling, a built-in chaise lounge, and a great deal of wallpaper, the room is very close to the original design.

This room has another of the home's unique fireplaces.

>>Mercedes de la Garza: The fireplace in the master bedroom is very interesting.

Um, it's, it, it shares the, the chimney stack with the one in the bedroom in the opposite room, but it's very interesting to see the, um, the, the decorative tile placed on that and then the entire fireplace is denoted with the lowered ceiling, with this big, wonderful curved beam that's pegged together up over your head so it sort of brings the scale even further down in that room to a very intimate little fireplace that is very, uh, um, specifically designed for the owners.

You have, of course, the Italian tiles with the, the hunting on the left and the, and the gardening on the right.

And, it's very, it speaks very much to the people who, who used that room on a daily basis.

Ella brought the Italian tile from a previous home on La Rue.

One half of the tiles depict hunting and fishing, since Sol was an avid outdoorsman.

The other half shows gardening - Ella's passion.

The house is a mass of curves.

Rounded lines that accentuate the squarish form of bricks and beams.

The master bath is an intriguing example of this.

The space is a semi-circle.

The cabinets were milled on site - built to fit the specifications of the house.

Even the shoe rack is round.

The tile has been replaced, as well as the tub, but the cabinetry is original.

>>Mercedes de la Garza: In the master bath area it's, it's broken into a "he and she", uh, closet component and, um, the craftsmanship on the cabinetry is, is amazing in there.

It's, it's very interesting from a, uh, a design standpoint they, they did the, the woman's, um, Ella's bath in a curved motif with this beautiful almost Art Deco, um, type of curving wood, um, uh, cabinetry, um, and facing the garden, just really wonderfully executed.

And then you go into the, the, the man's side and it's, it's more rectilinear and, and tall with just a tiny hint, uh, reminding you of the opposite side.

It has a little bit of a curved corner.

It's just the most, um, beautifully executed cabinetry I've seen in a long, long while, uh, with, of course, the faux wood finish, which was very popular at that time.

O n the woman's side you would see the, the tile curved in, into this more glamour vanities that were, uh, really wonderful, uh, very Hollywood-like, and in this house it's done in wood.

Um, the, for a long time that fell away in, uh, the layouts of homes.

I would say from the early '60's all the way through to the '80's.

And, in the '90's, we've just started to see those return.

People are looking back.

They say it takes forty years to go, to begin to reminisce about, uh, styles and I think people are looking back on those designs and wanting them again.

It was a California architect who caught the essence of Ella's design.

>>Mercedes de la Garza: This particular architect, um, in that era of time in Los Angeles, they had split the aesthetic, um, between, um, a very modern direction using new sort of atomic materials and then there was, there was also this vocabulary being more fully developed in more organic materials.

And, R.L.

Byrd was, um, very successful in creating these Hollywood glamor storybook homes out of these organic materials, including brick and heavy shakes on the roof, um, I've seen examples of his work done in shingles wrapped around the, the building.

Um, lots and lots of wood, heavy scaled wood, um, and then sometimes where he'll, he'll throw in an element of a very delicate, um, type of building, um, in the middle of a very heavy structure.

It's, was something that was, um, uh, very popular in Los Angeles at that time and in Reno, this home is very unique in that respect.

MUSIC Sol Savitt and Ella Levine were natives of Poland, brought to America in early childhood.

Their families knew one another in Chicago, and ultimately both moved west.

>>Jim Ellis: Sol, uh, is an engineering graduate of the University of Illinois and worked for a short while for the Pullman Railroad Car Company, and then apparently made a decision that what he really wanted to do was to get into the news distribution business which was the same business Ella's father was in.

And, that is what brought him to Reno.

Ella's father, she told us, helped to make it possible for him to get the franchise or distribution rights or whatever for the Racing Form which was distributed to the casinos here and at Lake Tahoe.

And, he established what became Sierra News Company in, uh, somewhere in the early '30s, 1932, '34, somewhere in that area.

By 1950 the Sierra News Company was a thriving business, and the couple began their philanthropic work.

As a child, Ella inherited a generous nature from her father.

Jim relates one story she loved to tell.

>>JIM ELLIS: She said that her father had a summer place on a lake in Indiana and, uh, that they would go there in the summertime and her father discovered that the local Methodist church did not have a musical instrument.

So, she said that he talked with the people in the church and asked if he could buy them a, a, a musical instrument and it turned out to be one of those small, uh, pump organs, you know, you pump with your feet.

Well, Ella says he had the organ shipped out from Chicago to this little, uh, community in Indiana and when it, they got it in and got it set up, they discovered that nobody in the church could play the organ.

(Laughs) And, she said, "My father told them 'that's all right, Ella will play for you.'"

So, Ella would play the organ for their weekly services in this church.

I, I assume they were weekly services.

And, I'd, I used to kid her, I told her that, uh, she was the only Jewish girl I knew who knew every single word to Amazing Grace .

Ella and Sol Savitt were well-loved philanthropists.

Both Sol and Ella had a strong belief in the value of education, so when they had the money to indulge their generosity of spirit, they began giving it away.

Initially they offered to pay the tuition of their employees' children.

Then they endowed scholarships.

They contributed to a number of churches and a variety of denominations.

But their generosity was most obvious in their contributions to the University of Nevada: the School of Medicine, the Medical Library, the School of Journalism.

Their names resonate across the University of Nevada Reno campus.

Ella was Sol's second wife.

His first wife had died shortly after giving birth to their son, Ron.

Ella stepped into the business and the family, sharing the hard work.

>>Jim Ellis: The business, Sierra News Company.

Uh, to her gardening.

Uh, she was, had a justifiably, um, marvelous reputation as a gardener.

And, the, the whole business of philanthropy which was centered on her interest in education and my, my feeling about that is that the interest in education came from her father.

She always spoke, uh, a, a great deal about how her father laid great emphasis on education and how he had helped other immigrants to this country, uh, in getting located and all, and she said that he always insisted that they learn to speak English and that they get an education.

I would say that, uh, Ella grew old the way most of us would like to grow old.

She, she kept her wit and her wits about her, uh, up until her, her last days.

She was very much her own person, much to the dismay of a whole lot of people from time to time.

When Ella designed the house, there wasn't a formal dining room.

When she entertained, it's possible she did so in what is now the "Pub Room."

When the Collins' owned the home a pool table rested on the patterned brick floor.

Another highly designed brick fireplace with a copper hood dominates a corner, and again, the ceiling is a variation on the beams we've seen previously.

Under the shuttered windows is a semi-circular, built-in couch.

The corner bar is also rounded.

The bar stools are reminiscent of those Marjorie saw sketched in a Vincent Price cookbook of an 1875 Boston pub.

The lion heads were added to match those on the pool table.

The room is scattered with an eclectic mix or memorabilia that the Collins' acquired on their travels.

MUSIC >>Larry Collins: As far as my favorite room in the house, I think you're sitting in it.

Uh, this is the pub.

And, uh, with the, uh, beautiful beams and a pool table and the, uh, uh, just the overall feeling of it, uh, this, with the fireplace.

This is where Margie and I spent most of our time.

Uh, it's filled with, uh, uh, the things, uh, Margie and I have collected over the years in Europe and, uh, Cottington Forge, all the Martingales, our horn collection, bugles.

Uh, guns, uh, uh, of course, I'm very, uh, uh, proud of, uh, some of my songwriting awards there and blessed with those.

The swords from Europe, uh, and, of course, my guitars.

Uh, the guitar is unique in that it was the, uh, second double-neck guitar ever made, uh, by, uh, uh, Semie Mosely, and, uh, it was presented to me on stage on, uh, on the, uh, uh, weekly television show that my sister and I did called Town Hall Party , uh, in the, uh, middle-'50's.

And, uh, and the one up above that is actually the first guitar that I played on the show, which was also customized by Semie Mosely.

MUSIC The kitchen butts up against the pub room.

It's divided into two sections, one for the preparation of the food, the other for its cooking.

The flooring is a continuation of the brick.

Windows overlook the pool area.

Larry lightened the original pine cabinets, painting them and carving floral borders into the surface.

The current owners are now remodeling them, but say they are still keeping with the personality of the room.

The fireplace in the Pub Room saunters around the corner into the kitchen and becomes an interior barbeque.

At the back of the area is a narrow staircase highlighted with bottle glass windows.

It leads to the second floor bedrooms.

The first one has remained virtually unchanged.

The removal of the wallpaper, new carpet, a gas addition to the fireplace, that's the extent of it.

The basics of this lovely room remain intact.

There's also a bathroom upstairs.

Its tiles have remained vivid for more that 50 years.

The only change: a pedestal sink has been added.

On the main floor, if we exit the kitchen, we move into an area that now looks like a hallway.

At one end are two oversized doors with bottle stained glass.

There's a second staircase to which Larry added ornamentation.

A wall and two doors were removed from the area giving it a more open feeling.

A small, inviting office at the end of the hall was once the maid's quarters.

Two of the stained glass pieces framing the window behind the desk match the design in the hallway doors.

An ornate secretary is another of the pieces from Humphry Bogart's house >>Larry Collins: in the library, uh, that's another one of my favorite rooms, it has it's own character as, uh, uh, you've seen.

Uh, but, uh, uh, the bookcase, the hidden door in the bookcase, when my wife and I were in San Francisco and, uh, they'd demolished an old church and we bought the, uh, two altars, uh, from the church.

Uh, Stations of the Cross, I believe.

And, uh, one is, uh, the secret door.

And, the other one is in the, the bathroom.

And, uh, um, uh... and we left the crosses on them.

Here we find the second piece that the Collins' purchased from the church.

Larry has added a wood design that connects the rooms and continues the divine motif.

It's interesting to note that he shares Ella's love of detail.

When Sol and Ella Savitt were designing and building their new home, previous owner Larry Collins and his sister, Lorrie were beginning a singing career in a newly established genre called Rockabilly.

The Savitts were at the peak of their careers; the Collins' at the beginning.

The 8-year-old and his 10-year-old sister were taking the industry by storm.

They performed with a variety of country-western greats.

Tap dancing with Dan Dailey, and schooling with Ryan O'Neal, Tuesday Weld and a smattering of Mouseketeers.

They traveled Europe, the states, and were regulars in the Tahoe casinos.

>>Larry Collins: M y family were dairy farmers in, uh, uh, around Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Actually, a little town called Pretty Water, Oklahoma.

And, in, uh, 1951, I was probably, uh, exploring the creeks and the valleys and the rolling hills of Oklahoma.

Uh, and riding my horse, Dolly.

Within three years, my sister and I were in, uh, California, Hollywood, and, uh, regulars on a television show called Town Hall Party .

MUSIC The Collins Kids' careers took off.

By the time Larry was 20, he'd reached the point where he could afford to buy Humphrey Bogart's home nestled beneath the "Hollywood" sign in Los Angeles.

Though the Savitt house is very different from the Bogart house, Larry feels it still has the old Hollywood feel.

And so seventeen years ago he and Marjorie bought it.

>>Larry Collins: O ur original thought was, "What do we do with it?"

(Laughs) Uh, of course, it was all here with the beautiful ceilings and the flooring and the slate, the Vermont slate, the Italian marble and, uh, uh, but, uh, wallpaper.

Ella loved wallpaper.

A fter the wallpaper had all disappeared, which took maybe a year in itself, uh, uh, it's amazing all the beautiful wood and the hand carving and the hand-hewn beams all jumped right out at you.

And, uh, you wake up in the morning here and the light comes in through the windows and it's like living in a park.

It's just, the privacy is amazing.

Larry and Marjorie decided when they bought the house that they would try to retain the spirit that was Ella's.

Each decision to alter the house was carefully thought through so as not to change the home beyond recognition.

The bricks in the front of the house have an "S" inlaid into them.

"S" for Savitt.

So when the house became Larry's, he changed the name to Villa Sierra Shadows, a name that could fit into what was already there.

He even wrote a song about the house, and the Nevada that he loves, "Sierra Shadows".

MUSIC >>Larry Collins: (singing) Sierra Shadows, starlight bright as can be, Sierra Shadows, she holds on tightly to me.

I can stop all of my runnin', I don't have to search anymore, Sierra Shadows, I found the way to heaven's door.

>>Alicia Barber: Ella lived to be 100 years old.

By all accounts, she was active until the end.

Still interested in others, in education, interested in her gardens.

She actually mowed her own lawn at the age of 96 in the condominium where she resided.

She was a strong woman with a zest for living life.

As the co-owner of a distribution company, she and Sol were frequently visited by publishers who wanted to work with them.

It's been said that one day she was entertaining a gentleman who commented on the red and white checked gingham dress that she was wearing.

He asked her if he might use the pattern for the cover of a new book they were releasing.

A cook book.

Better Homes and Gardens .

For decades every new bride would receive one of these as a wedding gift, and the book would be "dressed" in the same gingham plaid that Ella had worn.

If you'd like to know more about the Savitt House or any of the houses in our series, please go to our website, knpb.org.

Until next time, preserve the architecture and enjoy the heritage in your neighborhood.

MUSIC Major funding for his program was provided by the Nevada Department of Cultural Affairs State Historic Preservation Office.

Additional funding was provided by Nevada Humanities and the Nevada Arts Council.