Homeandgarden

Screenwriter Tedi Sarafian has listed his renovated Normandy-style 1920s home in the Hollywood Hills for $1,749,000. The ivy-covered two-story has three bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, a formal dining room, a den with a fireplace, beamed ceilings and dark hardwood floors. French doors open to a side terrace and a covered back porch designed for al fresco dining and entertaining. There are mature trees, gardens and a swimming pool adjacent to a guesthouse that doubles as a music studio.

Remember Sir Thomas More in HBO's "The Tudors"? The good guy who had his head chopped off by Henry VIII for challenging the king's will? This scholar wrote a philosophical tale about an island called Utopia, far from England, where a fair and equitable society lived without poverty, the tyranny of a standing army and rebarbative lawyers. At times of optimistic faith in social progress, Americans have turned to the Utopian writings of More and others. Henry Thoreau, the Quakers and the Shakers were enlightened thinkers who built houses and towns as models of a perfected world.

It's not always easy to pinpoint the biggest sale of the year. Mega-million-dollar transactions can take place outside of the Multiple Listing Service, with the homes marketed by agents as "pocket listings." Other times, the buyer and seller work through lawyers, and a transaction is discovered only when the sale is recorded with the county. Here's a look at the Top 5 most expensive residential sales of 2009 in the Los Angeles area last year, as identified by real estate data provider PropertyShark.

They may be cast in steel, assembled out of driftwood, machined on industrial lathes or hand-carved out of salt, but ultimately all of these urns have two common purposes: to contain and to heal. Rather than be burned, buried or sequestered in a columbarium, the vessels are destined for a more visible final resting place -- a mantel, perhaps, or a family room bookshelf, maybe even a spot in the garden. The dead, you see, are coming home. Though the majority of Americans are still buried in a casket, more are choosing cremation.

Music industry executive Phil Quartararo has listed his walled and gated Brentwood home for $13.25 million. The hacienda-style residence was built in 1936 and designed by John Byers, known for the Spanish Colonial Revival style. It was expanded during Quartararo's ownership in keeping with its Mexican and Spanish architectural roots. The six-bedroom, 7 1/2 -bathroom house has about 7,200 square feet of living space in two stories and sits on nearly a 1 1/2 acres, about 85% of which is flat.

So what if the name, for all its alliterative bounce, seems not quite right? And who cares, really, if the quality has ebbed ever so slightly in the last few days? The website Unhappy Hipsters ( www.unhappyhipsters.com) is the most welcome addition to the often self-serious world of architecture and design in recent memory, not to mention a pocket of satirical warmth in the middle of a soggy, recessionary, earthquake-wracked, Martha Coakley winter. Produced anonymously on a simple Tumblr blogging platform, it adds brief, deadpan captions to photographs from Dwell magazine (and a few other publications)

Television writer Daniel Freudenberger has listed his historic Cheviot Hills home for $3,695,000. The Spanish-style house, built in 1925, was constructed on a double lot for the developer of the tract, W.R. McConnell. The 4,200-square-foot home sits on 14,180 square feet at the high point of the neighborhood, providing expansive city views. The U-shaped home has a center courtyard. There are four bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms, original archways, an updated kitchen with two butler's pantries, high ceilings and living room and den fireplaces.

Sitcom star Joely Fisher has sold her Encino compound for $2.4 million. The four-bedroom, seven-bathroom contemporary had been on and off the market since mid-2007, perhaps prompting the actress to wonder whether she would own it " 'Til Death," to borrow the name of the Fox comedy on which she plays opposite Brad Garrett. Constructed in 1955, then rebuilt in 2005 to incorporate Asian and Craftsman details, the home has 4,511 square feet of living space and city and mountain views, a detached home theater and a lagoon pool with a pool house.

Actor Conrad Bain has listed his longtime Brentwood home for sale at $3,175,000. The custom-built post-and-beam house, designed by A. Quincy Jones, is on a half-acre flat site with ocean, city and mountain views. The expansive, light-filled living room features a stone fireplace, high ceilings and a terrazzo floor. Designed for indoor-outdoor living, the 1962 one-story has a large fenced garden with a swimming pool, a spa and a patio. The theatrical and film actor is best known for his starring roles on TV's "Diff'rent Strokes" (1978-86)

Dream House The White House as an American Home Ulysses Grant Dietz and Sam Watters Acanthus Press: 304 pp., $75