Chris Ursitti home in Pacific Palisades is on the market

Chris Ursitti, chief executive of GreenHouse Holdings, a global energy and ethanol company in San Diego, has listed a house he built on spec in Pacific Palisades for $9,495,000.

Overlooking and adjoining Will Rogers State Park, the gated estate has unobstructed canyon views. The home features formal living and dining rooms, a gourmet kitchen with an attached great room, an office and wine and media rooms. Details include walnut floors, Walker Zanger tiles and custom cabinetry.

Verandas enhance the indoor-outdoor feel of house, which sits on nearly a half-acre of landscaped grounds with a swimming pool, spa, a rock waterfall with a grotto and dining terraces. The backyard leads to the park’s hiking trails.

Ursitti comes from a theater background and used to design sets and stages. Later he worked in the entertainment industry as a location manager.

“I try to make a house flow like a movie. The plans are my script,” he said. “I try to lay down all the components that are the drama of a house.”

Sometimes there’s even comedy. Ursitti put a 1920s phone booth from the Subway Terminal Building in Los Angeles in a previous home he built.

Beyond the double-paned windows, eco-friendly dry wall, green insulation and other sustainable materials, the home’s environmental features include an on-demand hot water system that Ursitti designed using the pipes as a reservoir.

His brother, Rick Ursitti, was project manager on the seven-bedroom, 71/2-bathroom house. The pair designed the residence for family living and entertaining, making it “small in all the right places,” Chris Ursitti said. “You don’t feel like you are in a cavernous space.”

The site was purchased in 2006 for $2.1 million, according to public records.

Madison Hildebrand of Coldwell Banker, Malibu Colony, and Aaron Kirman of Hilton & Hyland, Beverly Hills, are the listing agents.

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