Tracey Taylor

San Francisco Chronicle, June 28 2009

The home at 1 San Marcos Ave. in San Francisco’s upscale Forest Hill neighborhood was built in 1954, with construction, land and material totaling $39,622. More than half a century later, it retains much of the feel of that period - if not the price tag.

While passionate about the midcentury aesthetic, the current owners have seen fit to make several upgrades - including a sleek new kitchen and bathroom - that bring the house firmly up to the minute. But they have done so with the clear objective of retaining its essence.

The 2,344-square-foot, one-level home, on a corner surrounded by greenery, was designed in a style known as Usonian - an approach pioneered by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Usonia is an abbreviation for United States of North America and reflects Wright’s aspiration to create a democratic, distinctly American style that was affordable for the “common people.” Like many social reformers of his time, Wright believed that well-designed, tasteful dwellings would produce a happier, more harmonious and enlightened society.

The home’s architect is unknown but clearly was a keen student of Wright and his ideals. Many typical Usonian features are apparent, including the use of natural materials, such as wood and concrete; natural cooling and lighting provided by clerestory windows and radiant-floor heating; and a strong visual connection between the interior and exterior spaces.

As you enter the open-plan living area, the first thing to notice are the polished concrete floors stained a warm shade of Navajo red. The living room features a slanting, exposed-beam ceiling, concrete block fireplace, original built-in seating and, like the rest of the house, concrete-block walls.

A partition creates a separate study. The owners, who are only the home’s second custodians, hired a craftsman to lengthen the built-in desk, and the job has been done with such skill that the addition is seamless.

A sliding pocket door can be used to close off the living room from the dining area. Originally a wall separated the dining room from the kitchen, but this has been removed to create easier flow and a more convenient setup. Cooking and dining are now more integrated in line with a contemporary lifestyle.

The kitchen combines espresso-hued American walnut cabinetry and smooth white Corian countertops. There’s a Viking convection oven and glass-fronted Sub-Zero fridge.

To the other side of the kitchen is a comfortable family room whose built-in bookcase also allows it to function as a library. When the owners had the bookcase made, they discovered a deep, extremely slim cubby in the original cabinetry. It turned out it had been specifically created to house a pingpong table. The owners were so enchanted with the concept they reproduced the cubby in the new bookcase and they slide the pingpong table out to play when friends come over.

The entire garden-facing wall of the home is made up of floor-to-ceiling windows that flood the living spaces with natural light and provide soothing views of the landscaped yard.

A corridor splits the public side of the house from its private, street-facing side, which embraces two bedrooms and a bathroom. Clerestory windows provide light but also allow for privacy in this part of the house. The master suite has been completely renovated, with bookshelves, a bed and a storage space all built in.

A recently remodeled bathroom features mocha-colored tile from Sausalito’s Heath Ceramics, a freestanding tub made by Wet and a glass-enclosed shower.

Other modernizations include the installation of a multi-room sound system and California Closets in the second bedroom. The lower level includes a two-car garage, a room being used as a gym and lots of storage space.

The owners, serial renovators who have their eyes on some other homes to remodel, say the home is perfect for entertaining, as the interior spaces flow into one another and the living areas give directly onto a secluded red-brick garden terrace with a profusion of planting and seating areas. They add that living there is a little like being in a big loft - except that when you step outside you’re in a leafy neighborhood rather than an urban downtown.

Michelle Kaufmann Designs Closes Doors

San Francisco Chronicle, June 14, 2009

When Oakland architect Michelle Kaufmann, known for designing sustainable, prefabricated homes, announced late last month that she was being forced to close her firm, reaction was swift.

More than a few observers expressed dismay because they had been intending to buy one of Michelle Kaufmann Designs’ homes.

“This is sad. I love her designs and was actually planning on purchasing one in the fall,” wrote a commenter on The Chronicle’s On the Block blog. “So sorry to hear this is happening,” said another. “We, too, looked forward to a green retirement in a Breezehouse.”

On a different Bay Area property blog, reader Audan wrote: “This is terrible news. I have been looking for land in Sonoma County to put an mkHearth home on.”

A lack of clients was never Kaufmann’s problem, according to the architect.

“There is definitely a demand for efficient, healthy homes,” she said. “And it’s going to increase as more people view homes as somewhere they want to live for the long term rather than as a short-term investment.”

Since 2004, MK Designs has built 40 single-family homes, mostly in the Bay Area, and Kaufmann is working on two multi-unit projects, one in Denver, the other in Los Angeles.

MK Designs has completed significantly more homes than other independent Californian firms specializing in prefab homes, such as LivingHomes and Marmol Radziner, both based in Los Angeles. And Kaufmann says another 100 homes were scheduled for construction over the next two years.

If anything, the issue was more about supply than demand - that, coupled with the financial crisis. As Kaufmann, 40, put it in her blog post: “Despite our best efforts, the financial meltdown and plunging home values have caught up with us. The recent closing of a factory partner, as well as the gridlocked lending faced by homeowners, has proved more than our small company can bear.”

The Sacramento factory partner that shuttered a few weeks ago was the second factory MK Designs worked with to go out of business. The first time, with a factory in Los Angeles last year, MK Designs was left in the lurch. They had several homes under construction when the supply of materials dried up.

The difficulties Kaufmann faced finding a reliable source for the building blocks of her homes - be it reclaimed wood flooring, folding glass doors or high-performance insulation systems - go to the crux of the issue for MK Designs: scale.

“Our mission has always been to create sustainable, accessible architect-designed homes,” she said. “That was why we chose the modular system. But in order to achieve cost efficiencies, we required scale, and that took longer than we wanted.”

Kaufmann founded MK Designs with her husband, wood craftsman Kevin Cullen, in 2004. The company quickly gained a reputation for its attractive home designs, including the mkLotus, the Glidehouse and the Breezehouse, the latter produced in conjunction with Sunset magazine.

Kaufmann led the way in lobbying for more environmentally responsible building practices, and the firm won several awards for its green building credentials.

It all began when she and Cullen were looking for a home to buy and, when it became clear they weren’t going to find what they wanted, decided to build their own. Kaufmann had moved to the Bay Area after working for five years for noted architect Frank Gehry in Santa Monica. She describes that experience as inspiring: “You would go to an opening of a museum he had designed and see people weep. It really demonstrated the power of good design,” she said.

Unfortunately, good design was in short supply in the houses she and Cullen viewed as potential homes. “So much of what we saw was poorly designed. It’s a significant problem in the United States: Most homes are not healthy or efficient,” she said. “And hiring an architect takes time and can be expensive, so not many people do it - only 3 percent of homes are designed by architects.”

The home the couple built on-site in Novato was admired by several friends who asked if the couple could build similar homes for them. Thus, a company was born. Having determined she wanted to embrace a modular building method to minimize costs and waste, Kaufmann went on to replicate her own home using prefabricated materials.

Modular homes produce about 50 to 75 percent less waste than site-built ones, which average about 7,000 pounds of waste, said Kaufmann, who likes to quote the fact that few people would build a car on their driveway, so why build a house from scratch on site?

As the business grew, it became apparent that being able to control the whole process, from manufacturing through completion, was essential. Kaufmann hit walls trying to innovate with new approaches or alternative materials. “Most of the factories we talked to had the same mind-set based on high margins and low volume,” she said. “They weren’t interested in discussing creating some crazy new countertop made out of recycled paper.”

So MK Designs took what seemed the obvious step and bought a factory. It was in Seattle, which was close to several other companies they did business with, including a window supplier and a factory that provided them with Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood. “That changed the game for us,” Kaufmann said. “It opened up the ability to design the elements we wanted and to grow.”

The business thrived and, even as recently as last summer, Kaufmann was talking to venture capitalists willing to put up $100 million to help buy half a dozen factories across the United States. But when the economic slump hit the offers of funds dried up.

Today, Kaufmann remains optimistic. She believes MK Designs achieved proof of a concept and that when the economy recovers, more home buyers will be looking for the types of homes she specializes in.

As for affordability, mass-market accessibility was always the long-term goal, but Kaufmann would be the first to admit they hadn’t quite cracked that nut. She says a regular MK Designs home costs about $160-$180 per square foot - and up to $250-$300 per square foot for a customized version. The site cost is not included in those estimates. A typical developer-built house, she says, is at least 10 percent more expensive, but Kaufmann’s goal was to offer more significant savings over a conventional home.

She is also quick to point out what she sees as the flaws inherent in using the square-foot calculator. “Unless you’re paying cash, this measurement is not meaningful,” she said. It also addresses only up-front costs. The utility bills on a genuinely green home immediately translate into significant savings compared with a conventional stick-built home, she said.

Kaufmann is proud of the fact that her work so far has helped spread the word about the benefits of sustainable modular architecture. A fully built mkSolaire model house can be seen on the grounds of Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, for instance. Sited in the footprint of a Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian home, the smart home features a solar electric generation system and a living roof. Its purpose, according to the museum, is to “show consumers what the future may bring.”

Kaufmann is in talks with a number of large home-building companies about the possibility of joining forces. She also is keen to work on the creation of well-designed, sustainable communities. “I think we need new models for extended families, co-housing and retirement communities,” she said.

And to those people out there who had hoped to one day build their own Michelle Kaufmann-designed home, the architect said: “Stay tuned.”

Berkeley Home Has Many Faces

San Francisco Chronicle, June 14, 2009

People like to talk about flexible homes, homes that adapt to suit the evolving demands of their owners and the changing nature of how they go about their daily lives.

We may want the option of a studio or home office, a gym or separate guest quarters. We might look ahead to a time when spaces can expand or contract - after the kids have flown the coop, for instance, or if there’s a need to accommodate elderly parents.

Most homes are not so malleable, however, and without actually building a house from scratch, it’s often difficult to achieve such adaptability. Not so at 720 Channing Way, a striking home that is on the market in West Berkeley for $1.8 million.

Originally built as a machine shop in the 1960s, this 3,500-square-foot corner building elegantly wrapped in a curving wall of glass brick is eminently flexible, as its current owners - artist Deborah Oropallo, her husband, architect-designer Michael Goldin, and their two children - can testify.

“We’ve explored all the possibilities and enjoyed all sorts of permutations with this home,” said Oropallo, who moved there in 1991, and has since overseen a raft of upgrades and updating to the house. “That’s the beauty of a big box: You can have interconnectivity or privacy, open spaces or hideaway lofts.”

For many years, Oropallo - who has exhibited work at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum and whose work is in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and New York’s Whitney Museum - had her studio in the home. It was a huge white-walled space with 15-foot ceilings and radiant-heated white concrete floors. Today, it has been transformed into the home’s living room and offers unlimited potential for furniture configurations, as well as lots of natural light courtesy of dramatic glass roll-up doors and several of the home’s 14 skylights.

The airy space opens onto a private landscaped courtyard with a pair of mature Japanese maples and a hot tub.

The open-plan kitchen and dining area make up the first floor’s other generously proportioned living space. The kitchen is a chef’s delight, outfitted with commercial dishwashers, three sinks, two deep laundry sinks with foot pedals and a white marble pastry table. The Montague gas range has two ovens and six burners. This is a kitchen that cries out for an owner who loves not only to cook but also to share the fruits of his or her labor with friends - many friends. And the house, with its ample rooms, easy indoor-outdoor flow and industrial-chic vibe, is perfectly suited for entertaining.

The home is zoned for a variety of uses, including live/work, office space, artist studio/gallery and commercial kitchen/restaurant. Several years ago, Oropallo and Goldin rented out two offices at the front of the building while they used the rest of the space as a home. Today, two large bedrooms lead off to the right and left of the entrance hallway on the first floor, which also houses the home’s main bathroom.

This was recently completely renovated and features a custom shower basin and sinks from Concreteworks in Oakland.

An upper level offers an additional 1,500 square feet of living space and is currently used for a third bedroom and office.

Although four of the home’s rooms have wood floors, the overall effect is one of polished concrete floors, lashings of natural light and swaths of snowy walls - just waiting to showcase a new owner’s art collection.

Much of the furniture in the house - including storage units, gym lockers and shelves - has been purchased from commercial catalogs, and many items are fitted with wheels and casters.

“I like the versatility of being able to use something in say, a studio, and then put it in a bedroom when it’s needed there,” Oropallo said. Some pieces have been designed by Goldin and manufactured by his furniture-design company Swerve.

The owners also have a penchant for outsize French antiques, such as the giant pine baking table in the kitchen, and quirky pieces found locally at Berkeley’s Ohmega Salvage, some of which may be sold along with the house. Combined with the home’s soaring ceilings and exposed steel trusses, it all makes for an eclectic, creative vibe.

The home is convenient to Berkeley’s Fourth Street as well as to the other workshops, cafes and restaurants that are contributing to the gradual gentrification of this neighborhood by the bay.

California restaurants focus on suppliers

Financial Times, June 6 2009

The cocktails have been ordered, the birthday greetings extended. Now comes the complicated part – deciding what to order from the menu at Pizzaiolo, an acclaimed restaurant in Oakland, California, known for its blistered wood-fired pizzas and regional Italian specialties. The conversation among friends gathered for a celebratory dinner centres not on appetite or taste but on the intricacies of provenance.

A dish of braised goat prompts the most debate – the meat is listed as being from Bill Niman’s ranch in Bolinas, 50 miles north of Oakland. Niman’s humanely raised Niman Ranch beef was the darling of the foodie set for years. But Niman left the company and has started afresh with a small herd of grass-fed goats, as well as a young wife nicknamed Porkchop. So what about the goat? No one doubts it will have lived a good and healthy life. But has anyone tasted the squid pizza with aioli whose main ingredient was sourced just down the coast in Monterey Bay? Another diner is leaning towards the Becker Lane pork with cannellini beans, artichokes, fennel and spring onion salsa because he’s heard the pork from this organic farm is unequalled.

Such menu dissection is not uncommon among northern Californian diners. They are choosy and, invariably, knowledgeable about where their food comes from – a result of interaction with producers at farmers’ markets and the fact that restaurants routinely highlight the provenance of food on their menus. They also live in a fertile part of the world with a climate conducive to producing quality ingredients.

The focus on suppliers is not new. Its local pioneer was Alice Waters, owner and executive chef of the legendary Chez Panisse restaurant and café in Berkeley, who, along with her peers and protégés, has been interpreting farm-to-table cuisine for years, providing shout-outs on her menus to all her favoured producers.

Chez Panisse was also one of the first restaurants to proclaim unadulterated fruit a more than suitable dessert option. It has been featuring a simple offering – whether a single peach from Frog Hollow orchard in Brentwood or a bowl of Sparkling Red nectarines – on its menus for several years. Last month’s café menu listed a bowl of Pixie tangerines from Churchill-Brenneis Orchard and Medjool dates priced at $8.

In January, Todd Kliman, the food and wine editor of Washingtonian magazine, pondered on National Public Radio’s Monkey See blog: “Do we really need to know the provenance of an egg?” And more to the point: “Shopping is not cooking.”

Russell Moore, chef-owner of Camino in Oakland, agrees that there is a way of writing menus that can make them seem like shopping lists. He and his partner Allison Hopelain don’t put producers on the menu. “There isn’t a bigger supporter of farmers than me,” he says. “But ultimately it’s about customers liking the food.” Moore only serves organic or biodynamic wines and doesn’t touch refined sugar but neither of these facts is conveyed to diners. “I don’t want to come off as holier than thou,” he says.

A backlash against showcasing suppliers doesn’t seem likely. For those who live in one of the gastronomic capitals of the world, there is profound satisfaction in knowing that the lamb chop you are about to tuck into was not only raised humanely but done so on local pasture land by a farmer whose name you recognise.

There is no doubt that producers have taken on minor celebrity status. Chefs on both US coasts are discovering goat meat from sources such as Niman’s BN Ranch and Marin Sun Farms. Chef-owner Daniel Patterson at Coi in San Francisco is serving it with “sprouted beans, seeds, nuts and wheatgrass”.

Thomas Keller, owner of French Laundry in Napa and Per Se in New York, likes to highlight the fact that he uses yogurt made by Soyoung Scanlan at her Andante Dairy in Santa Rosa for his yogurt sorbet with a cream scone, sour cherry and proprietor’s blend tea foam. And Boulevard, one of San Francisco’s most venerated restaurants, is proud to proclaim that the quinoa used in its quail stuffed with duck merguez is from Rancho Gordo, a producer whose heirloom beans have become so well-known they have spawned a blog and a book.

They may not appear on his menu, but Moore at Camino is happy to name-check several producers he holds in high regard, including Annabelle at La Tercera, “whose chicory and shelling beans are superb”. Just don’t go to Camino any day soon expecting to eat chicken. If Soul Food Farm isn’t sending Moore its “spectacular” fowls, they’re off the menu. “We haven’t served chicken since November,” he says.

www.pizzaiolooakland.com
www.caminorestaurant.com
www.chezpanisse.com

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Who’s hot in California

Coffee
Ritual Roasters, along with Blue Bottle and Four Barrel, represent the new breed of San Francisco “artisanal micro-roasters”.

Chocolate
Scharffen Berger is closing down its Berkeley factory, so the mantle for best chocolates has been passed to Recchiuti in San Francisco. Also winning plaudits are edible chocolate boxes from Emeryville’s Charles Chocolates; and truffles from Oakland’s Sôcôla.

Dairy
Cream-top organic milk in distinctive glass bottles from Straus Family Creamery in Marin; French brothers David and Benoît de Korsak bring the concept of terroir to their creamy Saint Benoît organic yogurt made in Sonoma County; goat milk, yogurt, kefir and cheese from Sonoma’s Redwood Hill Farm.

Meat
Ducks from Liberty Ducks in Sonoma; lamb from Napa Valley Lamb Company and Cattail Creek Ranch; chickens from Mary’s Farm in Fresno, Hoffmans in the San Joaquin Valley and Soul Food Farm; quail from Wolfe Farm in Brentwood; goat meat from BN Ranch and Marin Sun Farms; guinea hens from Grimaud Farms in Stockton; hormone-free rabbit from Devil’s Gulch Ranch; pigs from River Dog Farm in Capay Valley.

Produce
Vegetables and herbs from Star Route Farms in Marin, Chino Ranch near San Diego and Cannard Farm and Greenstring, both in Sonoma; spring garlic from Full Belly Farm in Capay Valley; gold cipolini onions from Dirty Girl Produce in Santa Cruz; heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo in Napa; shelling beans from La Tercera in Bolinas; Frog Hollow Farm’s signature Cal Red peaches available at the Ferry Building Marketplace, San Francisco.

Cheese
Soft-ripened Mt Tam from Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes; goat cheese from Petaluma’s Andante Dairy; award-winning cheddar from Modesto’s Fiscalini Cheese Co; raw-milk San Andreas sheep cheese from Bellwether Farms; Original Blue from Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company.

Preserves
British expat June Taylor shows Californians how to make fruit butters and lemon marmalades at her workshop in Berkeley (www.junetaylorjams.com). Newer arrivals include Blue Chair Fruit, whose artisanal preserves are served at Oakland’s Brown Sugar Kitchen for breakfast; and Loulou’s Garden in San Francisco.

Fred Quezada had an inkling that if his wife, Cecilia, visited Mill Valley, their life would change dramatically.

“He said to me, ‘If you see how beautiful it is, you will want to move there,’ ” said Cecilia, recalling a time 14 years ago when the couple, who were living in Walnut Creek, were invited to dinner with friends in Marin County.

Fred was right.

The pair, who are both architects, quickly decided they wanted to live in one of the beautiful, leafy canyons that embrace Mill Valley, and set out to make a home there.

Their search for a property they could remodel led them to a funky 1950s house with redwood siding and steel windows on half an acre of wooded land in the Middle Ridge neighborhood. Not very promisingly, the locals referred to it as “the tear-down.”

It was small - about 1,000 square feet - and in poor shape: The decks were rotting, and water would stream down the inside of the windows when it rained. But the Quezadas were charmed.

“We spent three hours at the open house and talked with the owner, a respected geologist, about how we envisaged a renovation. We were determined to keep the essence of the original,” Cecilia said.

This commitment probably swung the sale for them and, in 1995, the couple forsook their comfortable Walnut Creek condo to move in.

The far-reaching remodeling project was undertaken in three stages, with the first priority to make the house habitable. The layout was little altered and the fireplace was retained, although the pink-block chimney and surround have since been clad in sumptuous Bordeaux-colored leather tiles. The outsize floor-to-ceiling steel windows mirror those of the original house - and the new ones do not leak. Rather, they frame the home’s glorious canyon views, which include a creek, a stone bridge and more than 40 mature oaks.

The second phase of the conversion in 1998 was prompted by a need for more space (the Quezadas now have two children) and involved adding bedrooms as well as a separate studio.

An open staircase made of reclaimed timber leads down to the home’s lower sleeping level. The master suite was located to allow it to drink in the lush greenery outside and includes French doors leading out onto the garden terrace. There are his-and-her walk-in closets with custom-built cherry-wood cabinetry, and a lacquer-red wall provides definition behind the bed. The board-form concrete on an adjacent wall deliberately has been left exposed after the couple decided they liked the contrasting texture.

There’s a spa tub and a granite and etched-glass double shower in the master bathroom, while the main bathroom features a Philippe Starck-designed freestanding tub and slate floors.

A foyer with large glass pivot-doors leads to the lower terrace and separates the master suite from the rest of the house.

The studio is reached across the entry terrace, which comprises a breezeway topped with a white-glass canopy. Designed to echo the architecture of the home, with identical redwood siding, steel windows and a gently sloping zinc-aluminum roof, the studio offers a full bathroom and sleeping loft, as well as open live/work space.

The final challenge for the owner-architects was designing a new kitchen. The diminutive galley-style kitchen that they had put up with for many years clearly had to go, but the couple wanted to retain the home’s symmetry and were reluctant to bolt on an addition that would spoil the property’s clean lines.

They opted for a combined kitchen and den housed under a ceiling of translucent panels. Combined with a bay window with a sitting shelf overlooking the canyon, this has allowed for maximum light. Materials used in the kitchen include antique-brushed black granite for the countertops - including on the 10-foot-long island - a steel tile backsplash and more wood. A dramatic built-in wine rack was custom built using steel plates and glass rods. It is particularly arresting at night, when its back-lights penetrate the rods and illuminate the wine bottles.

The den features recessed custom-glass shelving, a built-in flat-panel plasma television and floating cherry-wood cabinets. French doors lead from the kitchen/den addition to a sandstone slab patio with room for outdoor entertaining and distant views of the Marin Headlands.

The home was completed in 2006 and featured in “Dream Homes of Northern California,” published the following year.

Cecilia says managing the remodel was always enjoyable, although the process was not without its tensions.

“When you have two married architects working on a project, the decision-making can be more difficult because you almost know too much,” she says. “Once you have chosen one material over another, for instance, there’s nobody else to blame if you later come to regret it.”

Happily, there is nothing the Quezadas say they would have done differently. Perhaps even more surprisingly, the geologist who owned the original house was invited back to see the transformed home, and he loved it, too.

“He spent seven hours here, carefully scrutinizing everything we had done,” says Cecilia. “We still come across some of his expansive rock collection dotted around the property - it’s like a treasure hunt. It meant a lot to us that he was pleased with what he found.”