Highland Park Modern Concrete and Glass Home Is a Feat of Engineering

James E. Langford is the design mind behind some of Highland Park’s most innovative modern homes, and now one of his creations — distinctive for its underground pass-through parking and use of concrete — is on the market. Chris D. Bentley of Bentley Fine Properties has listed the four-story luxury home at 3610 Lindenwood Avenue for $5 million.

This 5,647-square-foot home features luxury at every level, including a roof veranda, workout area, saltwater pool with covered patio, and more. An underground gated garage fits four cars in tandem and is adjacent to the private office on the first floor.

“There’s full natural light in the office, which looks out onto the street,” Langford says. “So many times, the street and sidewalk is divorced from the home and feel very separate. This house is all about the sense of sidewalk and street that are connected with the house.”

On the second, a massive kitchen with commercial-grade appliances opens to the dining and living areas with nearly 20-foot ceilings. Because the living room sits about six feet above street level, homeowners are afforded privacy that’s so difficult to achieve with this many windows.

“The windows pull the park that’s across the street into the home,” Langford says. “Sitting there in the living room, you literally feel like you’re under a shady tree in the park across the street.”

The third floor features three spacious bedrooms with ample closet space and media room with full bath, closet, and wet bar with covered sitting porch, and the fourth floor houses the primary suite with his and hers stunning bathrooms. An elevator services all four floors.

“The sitting porch is midway between the backyard, the garage, and the porch at the main living level,” Langford says. “Sitting there looking out onto the pool, it’s like a David Hockney painting out there.”

Shifting to the practical here, building a four-story residence in Highland Park is no easy feat. That’s why this Lindenwood home is such a testament to engineering and architecture.

“We built a four-story that fits in a two-story zone,” Langford says.

That doesn’t sound possible until you compare this home’s roofline with its neighbors and sure enough — a four-story in a two-story zone. To create the modern concrete home, James E. Langford Architects worked with structural engineering firm Datum Engineers and builder Nedderman & Associates.

If you’re not familiar, modern concrete homes are built with concrete as their primary structural element, which provides the architect flexibility and the homeowner outstanding durability and energy efficiency. Also energy efficient, the geothermal heating and cooling system.

“Concrete design allows an architect to maximize the volume of the house while keeping the open space open,” Langford says. “Specifically, the reinforced concrete slabs on each floor are only 7 inches thick, whereas a typical home construction has 14 to 22 inches of interstitial space on each floor.”

Chris Bentley of Bentley Fine Homes has listed 3610 Lindenwood Avenue for $5 million.