Tracey Taylor

Photography: www.openhomesphotography.com

San Francisco Chronicle, September 27 2009

Hundreds of people walked through Strachan Forgan’s San Francisco home the other weekend, but probably few of them realized that the double-height living room, the dramatic open staircase and the luxurious Italian kitchen could all be theirs - should they be in the market for a rather stunning contemporary home with a $1,479,000 price tag.

The two-bedroom residence at 1223 Bosworth St. was one of 11 featured on this year’s American Institute of Architects Home Tour. Forgan, an architect at Sasaki, designed and built the house for him and his wife, Melissa, in 2007 after buying the snug, nonconforming lot overlooking Glen Canyon Park in 2004.

Forgan said the site was “a gaping tooth on the neighborhood block” - but it represented just the sort of challenge he relished: how to create a light-filled, stylish home on a steep infill lot just 25 feet wide.

The result - a streamlined, modern interpretation of a San Francisco row house with a multitude of green features - earned him a Custom Home Design Award this year with a write-up that describes the home as “a compact jewel of a house that packs a ton of sophisticated living on its speck of urban real estate.”

The design also earned Forgan the respect of his neighbors, because he thought carefully about how the new home would fit into its surroundings. In order to ensure one neighbor retained his view, for example, he carved a corner out of the home’s facade with its dramatic double-height bay window. This had the happy consequence of creating a second deck on the front of the house. Similarly, he chose all the paint colors to blend in with the soft greens and grays of the eucalyptus trees across the street. “I call them stealth colors,” he said.

The house has been designed on four stories. The lowest level comprises a generous garage, a built-in wine cellar and storage space. The first floor combines the living and dining areas as well as the kitchen with its Arclinea cabinets, Caesar stone countertops and Italian Graniti Fiandre tile underfoot. Folding Nana-Wall doors open onto a small, beautifully designed rear garden with Ipe hardwood decking, tiled planters, natural gas barbecue and water fountain.

The mezzanine level created by the double-height living area is used as a work space that leads to the guest bedroom with its adjoining bathroom. The large master suite takes up the top floor - the bathroom includes an Aquatic Air bathtub and separate Kohler rain shower. Forgan said people feel like they are in a tree house when they step onto the master bedroom deck.

Much consideration has been given to making the home as energy efficient as possible with its high-performance envelope, radiant heating under edge-grain amber bamboo floors and Energy Star appliances.

This is also what’s known as a smart home, for it has a wealth of features worthy of a James Bond movie. There’s the electronic latch and video intercom on the front door, the motorized skylights with rain sensors and the ability to check the home’s temperature and adjust both the lights and the shades with the flick of one’s iPhone. Indeed, the system goes one step further in automatically opening and closing the electronic shades in synch with the rising and setting of the sun - another way to conserve energy.

The house has been styled by Jhoanne Loube at Stage - although much of the furniture belongs to the homeowners, as does the majority of the art, which was much admired on the AIA tour.

The owners, who are moving on in order to build their next home - they already are scouting another infill site in the city on which to work their magic - say they have loved living in the Glen Park neighborhood with its library, restaurants and markets. Forgan added he will miss the “ping” of balls being hit in the baseball diamond across the street. “There’s something very soothing about that sound,” he said.

San Francisco Chronicle, July 12 2009

It’s a slice of history as much as a home that is for sale at 3733 21st St. on the crest of a hill in San Francisco’s Dolores Heights neighborhood.

Seen from the outside, the double-fronted Victorian oozes period charm. Painted a jaunty canary yellow, the home’s front door, inlaid with elegant stained glass, is reached by a curved set of brick steps flanked by palm fronds, creeping vegetation and scattered remnants of broken statuary. The scene is set for a step back in time.

Built in 1885, the three-bedroom “painted lady” was home for more than 40 years to two significant San Francisco artists, William Campbell and Frank Brown - lifelong partners who met at the California College of Arts and Crafts in the 1940s. Although the pair enjoyed success in the postwar period, with numerous exhibitions - including, in the case of Campbell, two one-man shows at the San Francisco Museum of Art (now SFMOMA) - it had been thought that they had effectively both retired as artists in the mid-1950s.

It wasn’t until the couple who inherited the home took up residence there in 2000 that it was revealed just how dedicated these men were to their art. Discovered in the house, stored in furniture, closets and the home’s full-length walk-around attic, were nearly 800 paintings, along with a treasure trove of artifacts and antiques.

Now that the artists’ affairs are in order and the house upgraded, the owners are ready to sell.

Although the detached home has been cleared out in preparation for a sale, a selection of those paintings still adorn the walls - a mix of landscapes, still lifes and portraits - and some choice antiques also remain. Walking through the high-ceilinged rooms now, the impression is of wandering through a time capsule, albeit a very gracious one.

Entry to the home is through a long central hallway which leads, to the right, into a double parlor, with a deep bay window, a carved marble fireplace surround, the original six-panel doors and softwood flooring.

On the opposite side of the hall are two bedrooms connected by a walk-through closet. In the back, the kitchen and dining space - which have not been updated - are enhanced by a newly created opening to an adjoining sunroom that looks over a large, south-facing garden. There is mature planting, a potting shed, several fruit trees and also space for parking two cars on a recently built driveway.

The top floor, which was used by the former owners as a painting studio and is accessed by a narrow staircase, provides space for guests or a home office.

Other recent upgrades to the property include a new roof and a new concrete perimeter foundation, as well as other seismic retrofits.

The home is in what is now part of the Dolores Heights Special Use District, a designation established in 1980 to preserve the unique character defined by the historic architecture and dramatic topography of the area. Residents speak with some pride of the neighborhood’s sunny microclimate as well as its architectural diversity.

The home, which is priced at $1,975,000, has been featured in two books about San Francisco architecture: “Then and Now” and “Painted Ladies: San Francisco’s Resplendent Victorians.”

San Francisco Chronicle, September 30 2009

Photos: Frederic Larson

Like “Tuscan palazzo” or “Provencal villa,” “Storybook house” is a delightful real estate label whose reality rarely lives up to its moniker. Pay a visit to Julie and Gerry Gorham’s home on Fernwood Drive in Oakland, however, and that “Storybook” label barely begins to cover the charm of their beautifully restored 1924 cottage.
The impression begins with a walk over the property’s romantic bridge spanning Temescal Creek and a view of the house, nestled in a beautiful garden with a cascading waterfall, a sea of green and white planting and a grouping of magnificent old oaks.

The Gorhams bought the two-bedroom home - which is on Sunday’s Oakland Heritage Alliance Houses of Fernwood tour in the Montclair district - 13 years ago. At the time it was, they say, “a wreck.” But Julie Gorham had coveted it for some time. The couple are serial remodelers - over the years they have refurbished and lived in 14 homes across the Bay Area - but they always had a special place in their hearts for Montclair.

“I had walked past this house many times and admired the garden, which was kept fastidiously neat by its owner,” Julie Gorham says. “But the house had suffered lots of abuse. There was so much to do.”

Clear vision

From the beginning, Gorham had a clear vision of how the home should look. Although she says she’s not a designer, she spent many years immersed in the world of interior design - 14 working at San Francisco’s Decorator Showcase - and is skilled when it comes to pulling together a look. Combine that with her love of the French rustic style, a passion for antiques and a commitment to sensitive restoration, and the result is a veritable jewel of a house.

The Storybook architectural style was popularized in 1920s England and the United States and echoes Hollywood design sometimes known as Fairy Tale or Hansel and Gretel. Architects who worked in this genre in the Bay Area include W.R. Yelland, W.W. Dixon and Carr Jones. Characteristics include turrets with conical roofs, swaybacked rooflines, sloped walls and round-topped doors.

The Fernwood neighborhood boasts one of the most concentrated collections of Storybook houses in the country, and both Montclair’s library and its firehouse are built in this style.

Another feature of these homes is their size. The couple have never been drawn to large houses, and this one is no exception.

“It has everything you need,” Gorham says, “a living room, dining room and study. Why does anyone want a mausoleum where half the rooms are never used?”

Originally a modest one-bedroom cottage, the house had an addition built on the rear, probably in the 1930s. Given the house’s condition, the couple decided they needed to strip it to its skeleton, except for the pretty bay window on the front. The result was so extreme that not long after the major work began, the Gorhams’ son stopped by and asked them where they had put the house.

They installed heating, double-paned windows and several sets of French doors; had all the walls refinished in a thin-wall plaster; and introduced lots of curves, which are typical to this style of home.

“Everything was so square,” Gorham says.

There are now several open archways instead of doors, rounded moldings and even a porthole-style window.

The original railing on the stairs leading from the double-height living room up to the second floor looked like a picket fence, Gorham says. She commissioned a friend of a friend to create an undulating one in Douglas fir to be more in keeping with the whimsical Storybook style. Salvaged wood was used to make exposed joists to complement the existing ceiling beams. These were finished with intricate metalwork designed by Eric Clausen, the Oakland master blacksmith.

The home’s imposing fireplace is made with clinker bricks - the discolored and distorted kind once often rejected by craftsmen but now coveted for their distinctiveness. There’s a small book-lined study where the couple read and watch TV.

“Sometimes we get all the family in here,” Gorham says. “It’s cozy but nice.”

Just enough space

Gorham returns to the question of size when recalling a house she lived in San Ramon. “It was so big you could fit this entire house in its living room,” she says. “Who needs all that space?”

With a new sage green and marble kitchen, the house was coming together beautifully. The icing on the cake was some new furnishings, and for this Gorham embarked on two shopping trips, one to France, the other to England.

Accompanied by a designer friend, she headed for a vintage fabric shop housed in a Cotswolds manor house and the antiquarian flea market in Paris, among other places. The expeditions yielded a distressed bibliothèque used to store crockery in the kitchen, an elegant secretary in the living room and a grand old armoire in the master bedroom. She bought two ironwork chandeliers from a man sitting on the curb in France and added to her collection of miniature military hats at a specialist shop near the Louvre museum.

Perhaps Gorham’s favorite purchase was the 19th century tapestry that she bought on the Paris trip and that hangs on a dining room wall.

All the soft furnishings in the home have been chosen to be comfortable as well as stylish.

“We don’t like stiff and formal,” Gorham says. “We want our grandchildren to have fun when they are here.”

All of the homes on the Oakland Heritage Fernwood Tour are small and intimate. Many of their owners have lived there for decades and raised families there - with no notion of needing extra bathrooms, media or family rooms. This and the thoughtful way these robustly built homes have been maintained and preserved serve as a reminder that the concept of living modestly and sustainably, while back in vogue, is hardly a new invention.

Financial Times, October 3 2009

houseplans.com

Tim Young, a freelance editor in Mahopac, New York, drew a sketch of his dream home on the back of a cocktail napkin. It would, he decided, be modern, with a loft-like feel inside. Next, he put his art school training to use and built a model of the house. The project stalled, however, when he worked out what it would cost to engage an architect to create blueprints, on top of the funds required to buy a plot of land and sub-contract builders.

Young’s solution was to buy a ready-made home plan online. It cost him $1,000 and, after a few modifications for the hillside site he had secured, he used it to build his new home, to which he is now putting the finishing touches. Surrounded by trees in a neighbourhood of predominantly colonial-style houses, the three-bedroom, “retro-modern” home should be ready to move into this month. Young estimates he saved $22,000 (£13,750) on architect’s fees. He paid $325,000 for the land and the home cost $650,000 to build.

Like any new-build project, Young’s home had its share of challenges – securing permits, making 11th-hour alterations and handling negotiations with local conservation groups. He still can’t quite believe he has achieved his vision. “The jumping off point was getting the home plan. I couldn’t have done it otherwise,” he says.

Building a new home usually involves two choices: you find a model you like on a residential development under construction and perhaps customise it before it is completed to make it more to your taste; or you hire an architect to design your home from scratch. The latter requires a considerable financial outlay, which puts the option out of the reach of most people. Typically, a client pays an architect 15 per cent of the cost of their home. In the US, less than 3 per cent of new homes are architect built.

There is a third way that is emerging as an option for the design-savvy. As with Young’s case, it involves buying a pre-existing blueprint and a plot of land and putting up the house yourself or with the help of a builder.

Young bought his plan from houseplans.com, one of a new breed of companies that is creating innovative home designs, some commissioned from well-regarded architects, and using the internet to market them. They are banking on tapping into a growing demand for modern, even modernist, homes from a generation that takes design cues from the likes of Dwell magazine.

houseplans.com

The most well-known home plans are arguably those that were first made available in 1908 by US retailer Sears Roebuck & Company. Its Book of Modern Homesfeatured both plans and building materials and offered 44 house designs, ranging in price from $695-$4,115. Once a customer had chosen their style and placed an order – with a $1 deposit – it was only a few weeks before their home, in 30,000 separate pieces, would arrive, packed into two train boxcars, at the nearest train depot. “A 75-page, leather-bound instruction book told homeowners how to assemble those 30,000 pieces,” writes Rosemary Thornton in her book The Houses That Sears Built. “The book offered this sombre (and probably wise) warning: ‘Do not take anyone’s advice as to how this building should be assembled.’”

According to Thornton, the kit included 750lb of nails, 22 gallons of paint and varnish and 20,000 shingles for the roof and siding. Sears estimated in 1908 that a carpenter would charge $450 to assemble one of the homes. Many were also assembled by the new homeowner along with friends, relatives and neighbours, in a fashion similar to the traditional barn raisings of farming families.

The Sears Catalogue homes have been enjoying a revival recently, with fans seeking them out and prices rising accordingly. But the concept of home plans on which they were based has lost its allure over the past few decades. This can mainly be attributed to the paucity of interesting designs on the market. There is no shortage of companies selling plans – the US has several dozen – but many of the homes on offer resemble the type of cookie-cutter suburban house that can be bought built and ready to move into. The motivation for acquiring a plan and orchestrating an entire construction project has been lacking – particularly if you wanted something out of the ordinary or uncompromisingly modern. Developers have been slow to offer genuinely contemporary designs too.

“There has been a stigma attached to home plans,” concedes Stephen Williamson, chairman of houseplans.com. “They were seen as something cheap you might buy on the bottom shelf of Wal-Mart, and architects looked down at the idea.” Now, however, a significant number of well-known architects is signing up to create blueprints. The incentive can be financial: in the economic downturn many architects have seen their client base decline dramatically and home plans represent an additional, albeit modest, income stream. But the inducement can be more idealistic too. “For architects who strive towards the goal of affordable design for all – espoused by many modernists but achieved by only a few – home plans can be a way to put it into practice,” says Allison Arieff, author of The New York Times’s By Design column.

Hometta, a new online home plan company that specialises in modest, sustainable designs, opened in July. Founded by a builder and real-estate developer, Mark Johnson, and an architect, Andrew McFarland, and based in Houston, Texas, it says it wants to provide architect-designed homes for people who can’t afford architects. Its plans, most of which are for homes no bigger than 2,500 sq ft, sell for about $3,000 and are all penned by architects or designers. The portfolio includes Doug Garofalo, of Chicago-based Garofalo Architects, Far Frohn & Rojas, which has studios in Cologne, Santiago de Chile and Los Angeles, and Kiel Moe, whose two-bedroom “stacked house” is raised above ground on a series of shipping containers.

“The people who shop at Target, Ikea and Apple who are looking for clean, modern design: that’s our target market. The age of the McMansion is declining – I hope,” says Johnson, adding that the biggest hurdle his company faces is convincing customers they can do it on their own. “Building a house on your own land is a long journey involving lots of work,” he says. Hometta hopes to pave the way by providing construction guides – which it recommends customers read before they buy a plan – and eventually introducing resources on its website such as a nationwide network of builders.

Philadelphia architect Greg La Vardera also believes there is an emerging subset of homebuyers interested in building modern homes. He offers plans through his own firm, LaMiDesigns, and via houseplans.com. He was inspired by reading early issues of Dwell magazine, which launched in 2000, after which he started connecting with the magazine’s readers on its online forums. “From a design sense there’s a tremendous hole in the market and I saw home plans as a way of plugging that,” he says.

LaMiDesigns

One of La Vardera’s customers is Colin Smith, a building contractor in south-central Texas who specialises in interior remodels. Smith spent $1,500 on La Vardera’s Plat House plan and built the residence largely by himself with some help from his son, a carpenter. “I wasn’t crazy about the idea of a home plan when my wife first showed it to me,” he admits. But he’s happy with the result: a 1,492 sq ft open-plan home with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and decks on three sides. Smith estimates he spent $50,000 on construction costs and that the result is worth about $225,000.

Home-plan company FreeGreen focuses on smaller homes and offers some of its plans free. As its name implies, it also has an eye on sustainability. It says its homes are designed to perform 30-50 per cent better than prescriptive building codes on energy performance. An Open Source section on its website allows architects to showcase home plans but very few have yet been bought, according to FreeGreen’s own online counters.

Even plans that are purchased might end up gathering dust. “I can’t help wondering how many people buy with a vision of one day building their dream home and then hold on to them without actually doing it,” says Arieff.

At the moment, the renaissance in home plans appears to be concentrated in the US. Eighty per cent of houseplans.com’s online traffic is from the US and the lion’s share of its business is there too, although orders have come in from further afield. A UK customer in Bicester, Oxfordshire, central England, bought a blueprint for a traditional-style, five-bedroom, five-bathroom home “with elements from the European, luxury, French country style”. A master plan for such a house costs $1,299. Another order came in from Bermuda, for a $725 design for a 1,270 sq ft cottage with a wraparound front porch.

The home plan concept mirrors other current trends in home building – such as the revival of interest in prefabricated homes and the small-house lobby – which suggest there is a hunger for innovative ways to build homes. Customisation and sustainability often go hand in hand with these movements.

Arieff, for one, looks forward to a time when developers work together with home-plan companies. “Anything that brings the hand of the designer into home building is good,” she says. “And it would help scale up the dissemination of well-designed modern homes.”

San Francisco Chronicle, September 6 2009

“Always check the size of the freight elevator.” That’s the first piece of somewhat pragmatic advice offered by interior designer Joel Hendler, of Hendler Design, when discussing his approach to high-rise condos.

He makes a good point. You may envisage a scene of elegant European sophistication, marrying the highest-quality furniture with some choice pieces of art, but if the beautiful sectional sofa you have ordered from Italy - and on which the entire vision is founded - can’t make it up 42 floors, it’s all rather academic.

Hendler has recently worked on two condos in San Francisco, one on the 17th floor of a Nob Hill building and the other on the 35th floor of the gleaming new Millennium Tower downtown. The finished look for each home is quite different. In the Nob Hill building, period architectural detailing and a smattering of antique pieces make for a luxurious traditional setting. At the Millennium, the feel is city-slick, with a more contemporary twist on comfort.

But there are aspects of designing a high-rise condo that apply irrespective of its finished style. First and foremost is how to handle the views. “It’s a mistake to in any way ignore or obscure the views,” says Hendler, who gives careful consideration to how people will enjoy the vistas. In the Millennium condo, he switched the floor plan so that the spectacle of the Bay Bridge is enjoyed by the homeowners and their guests when they are sitting at their dining table rather than lounging in the living room. This also allows people to walk up to the floor-to-ceiling windows, an instinct Hendler says the design should encourage.

Windows in both condos are framed with silken drapes that are never drawn. The Nob Hill home offers panoramic views from the Golden Gate Bridge all the way to the Bay Bridge, so why would you block those out? In both cases, concealed shades are used for sun protection.

A key consideration is the way large swaths of glass metamorphose into mirrors at night. To prevent glare and too much reflection, Hendler uses a palette of soft colors on the walls - never white, which would be too bright a surface - and thinks carefully about where to position lights.

Model units in condominiums often use small furniture to give the impression of more space. Real life dictates larger, more comfortable pieces while avoiding clutter. Here, Hendler’s view is straightforward: “Elegant spaces are not overcrowded.”

Condos throw up restrictions that you wouldn’t encounter elsewhere. There’s the limited access - you can’t crane a larger piece of furniture through the window as you might in a freestanding home. Any building work requires you to have all the materials on-site, which can result in moving supplies from one room to another while you remodel - which is both labor intensive and expensive. And the owners of the building itself are likely to have rules on what can and can’t be done.

The Nob Hill condo is owned by a socially prominent San Francisco couple who use the 2,800-square-foot home mainly as a pied-a-terre and to entertain. When they bought it three years ago, it exuded its original 1970s charm - or, rather, its lack thereof. With the help of Hendler and architect Andrew Skurman, the couple opted to gut the place and start with a blank canvas. All the electrics and plumbing were replaced, the walls were given new moldings, and beautiful inlaid white oak floors were installed by Farnese, an Italian company that also happens to have supplied floors to the Kremlin in Moscow.

Hendler’s mission was to create a high-quality, comfortable setting - but it was to be understated. “No showing off,” as he puts it. A 19th century Oushak rug from western Turkey was the jumping-off point for the color palette, which is a blend of deep pastels, including raspberry, celadon and peach.

The public spaces are designed to be flexible: As many as 30 people can sit comfortably for dinner, and space can be created for 150-guest cocktail parties by breaking the dining table down into two console tables and placing them against walls.

Because the owners like to play music, the condo’s walls have been upholstered. There’s a moss green fabric by Dedar that has a “nubby texture” in the living areas, and the entry gallery features a raffia-colored textile by Pollack. The effect is to soften the look of the home and absorb sound.

Several of the owners’ existing pieces were given pride of place: a sculpture by Tom Holland is showcased in the main entry, and a custom cabinet was built to highlight the owners’ collection of glass. On the whole, though, Hendler is not a believer in using artworks as a cue for decor. “I always tell my clients good art won’t match your sofa,” he says. Instead he creates a relatively neutral backdrop for the art to shine. In this case, a painting by Marc Chagall that hangs over the custom-carved fireplace is undoubtedly the star of the show.

The standout pieces in the two-bedroom Millennium condo, the main residence of a professional couple, are a pair of striking French Art Deco chairs in the living room. They were made by Hugh Chevalier and upholstered in a black-and-white Italian fabric by Bergamo. Hendler chose them to add drama to the room. They also fit in with the clients’ desire to create a sophisticated city space. “We talked about a modern, clean, tailored look,” Hendler says. “The words Milan, Armani and New York came up in our initial conversation.”

As the home is newly built, the approach taken with its interior design was based on using finishes to enhance the background architecture. Wall treatments played a key role. As in all the homes he designs, Hendler chose colors that flatter people’s complexions, such as grayed and smoky tones.

The overall effect in the Millennium condo is a blend of mocha, taupe and gold shades. In the open-plan living area, columns were given a dark chocolate hue for “beefiness.” But a close look reveals some intricate custom finishes. The back wall in the media room was clad in woven leather, while a wall in the master bedroom is covered in hammered metal. In the hallway, which acts as a mini art gallery, New York designer Lori Weitzner has created a striking decoupage wall covering made from silver-painted tree bark. It all contributes to a dressy, urban feel. Hendler notes that wall coverings, particularly those with interesting textures, are making a comeback.

Most of the furnishings were custom made for the unit, including the sofa. The curvaceous coffee table with its Macassar ebony top is by Wendell Castle in New York.

As with many recently constructed buildings, the Millennium condos have concrete ceilings, which means options for overhead lighting were limited because you can’t install new junction boxes. According to Hendler, the only choices are to lower the ceilings - not always desirable if they aren’t very high to begin with - or find a solution such as a system of track lights, which is what was done here.

Although the condos are quite different, they are equally successful in terms of meeting their owners’ style objectives. Hendler attributes this to his underlying philosophy about interior design: “It’s like the old adage that form should follow function. I subscribe to the view that you first make it work and then you make it beautiful.”

Photos: Toshi Yoshimi

San Francisco Chronicle, August 23 2009

Like so many home renovations, this one began as a relatively modest kitchen remodel - then it developed project creep.

Architect Gregg De Meza first saw the three-bedroom home, located on a beautiful 7-acre site in Sonoma’s Wine Country, in 2007 when its owners asked him to help them design a new kitchen. Soon, however, De Meza found he was sitting with the couple in their living room talking about how the home’s interior flow could be improved. “Eventually we made a pass at rethinking the whole house,” he says.

The home and its separate guesthouse had replaced a cluster of 1970s stone buildings on the property. The owners were happy with what they had achieved so far, but felt the home lacked cohesion.

“We wanted to make the most of the panoramic views and really make indoor-outdoor living a reality,” says De Meza. The owners were also keen to combine the fine architecture with the best artisanal craftsmanship - “Arts and Crafts ideals with a contemporary twist,” as they put it.

The first step was to visualize the home as three distinct zones - a public living area, a two-bedroom suite and a separate master suite that includes an art studio. Defining the spaces helped generate ideas on how to furnish them.

The open-plan living and dining space was the key challenge in terms of how it worked in practice. “One idea was to have the functioning spaces pushed out to the perimeter,” De Meza explains. After brainstorming with the owners, he decided to do a flip and to pull all the rooms into the middle of the house. This meant the kitchen became the heart of the space and the windows and doors were left free to provide uncluttered views and easy access to the outdoors.

The open kitchen and dining area is cleverly separated from the sitting area with cabinets made from Honduran mahogany. These conceal the television and audiovisual components on one side and function as kitchen storage on the other.

Anchoring the center of the house is the home’s piece de resistance, a fireplace with a 5-foot-square opening and a soaring chimney swathed in patinaed copper. “This began as a straightforward feature and became a piece of art,” say the owners, who credit De Meza with having the vision to design the piece.

Also on the wish list was a desire to incorporate natural materials, another concept in keeping with the philosophy of the original Arts and Crafts movement. The tone was set with the home’s 2-foot-thick exterior walls, which were built from fieldstone gathered on site. But it doesn’t stop there - one wall of stone bisects the home’s entrance, making for a seamless flow from outside to in.

The interior walls are a mix of hand-troweled Italian plaster and Honduran mahogany wood paneling. The main floors are made of integral colored concrete, while in the kitchen, crafted by Berkeley Mills, De Meza used stained end-grain oak. “Everyone loves the contrasting textures and how the rough interacts with the smooth,” he says. Using two very different materials side by side can produce creative effects, he notes.

In the master suite, De Meza put the skills he has acquired working on yachts to good use, tucking much of the storage space into a sleek, freestanding wall that separates the sleeping and dressing areas. Custom-made paneling, built-in cabinets, nightstands and an upholstered headboard bring to mind a captain’s cabin.

The spa-like master bathroom is one of the owners’ favorite spots. Accessible from the bedroom through glass doors, it features a large set of French doors that open up 180 degrees to a private terrace overlooking a sweeping vista that takes in many of the property’s several dozen old oak trees. A softly curved freestanding tub is sited to fully exploit the views. The owners say the etched glass shower enclosure resembles a glowing lantern when it is lit at night. Limestone floors, walls and countertops complete the picture.

The renovation was not without its challenges. “Because we wanted something truly original, we were asking people to do things they had never done before,” say the owners. “We were pushing craftsmen and designers to an edge.”

This inevitably involved a measure of trial and error, and some projects had to be started over. Access to the rocky, hillside lot was problematic too, and items such as steel beams had to be brought up in small sections and welded together on site.

But the owners took a sanguine approach. “We had realistic expectations, and we took risks on our own nickel,” they say.

The result is a home that is very much in tune with its surroundings - framing glorious views and naturally cooled on hot summer days by its substantial walls - but that makes no compromises when it comes to creature comforts.

Photos: Scott Hargis Photo

San Francisco Chronicle, August 9 2009

Cool contemporary homes are few and far between in Berkeley, which is better known for its traditional Craftsmen and brown shingles.

The two-bedroom townhome at 2211 Fifth St. is modern in a number of ways - it is environmentally friendly, technologically smart and adaptable as a live-work space.

The home is among six condos built in 2005 by husband and wife team Liz Miranda, a developer, and Tim Rempel, an architect, on an infill site. The couple lived in one of the condos before moving to Sausalito, and many of their principles about sustainability, durability and creating a high-quality urban residential environment are apparent in this home’s design.

The home’s current - and first - owners, who are moving to Daly City to be closer to family, say living in the open-plan home with their young daughter has been a pleasure. “We love all the natural light, the open spaces and the clean lines,” said Desiree Alinea, who commutes to San Francisco every day and is therefore grateful for the home’s location close to the Bay Bridge.

And the fact that the home’s photovoltaic panels ensure that the family’s monthly PG&E bill never exceeds $13 is a bonus.

The home, which is set back from the street, is accessed through a pleasantly landscaped yard with mature trees and outsize bamboo. The front door opens into a large room that has an adjacent full bathroom and French doors leading onto a secluded patio. Several storage closets are tucked into otherwise redundant spaces. This first-floor level is being used as a family-media room but easily could serve as a home office or guest room.

The gray polished concrete floors, which are radiantly heated, contrast nicely with the dark Brazilian cherry wood used for the stairs and second floor living room and kitchen-dining area.

The open stairwell is just one of the many ways Rempel ensured that the home is flooded with natural light. There are numerous windows of varying sizes throughout the home, which also help cool the house naturally.

Rempel’s goal, he said, was to provide maximum light and air, as well as privacy. Most of the home’s rooms have natural light from three sides, but you are not overlooked when inside the home and barely sense the presence of the other condo units.

Rempel also was committed to making the home as low maintenance as possible. “We used materials which minimize maintenance,” he says, citing the sustainable exterior lime plaster, the thermally shaded wood siding and the aluminum window frames.

The kitchen features powder-blue Scavolini cabinets from Italy, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. The upstairs bathroom is fitted with bamboo cabinetry, Duravit sinks, tub and shower and marble tile from Greece.

The Alineas say they love the home’s convenient location. Favorite haunts include Tomate, 900 Grayson and Caffe Trieste for breakfast and lunch, Aquatic Park for jogging and Fourth Street for window shopping - all of which are in walking distance.

Asked about downsides, Desiree Alinea mentions the sound of the trains that pass nearby, particularly at night when their horns can wake her up. And the lack of a nearby grocery store had been an issue for Gary, until the recent opening of Berkeley Bowl West on Heinz Avenue and Eighth Street.

San Francisco Chronicle, September 30 2009

Architect Michelle Kaufmann, who closed her Oakland firm in May, citing the impact of the financial meltdown and the plunging housing market, has sold the building rights to several of her signature prefabricated, sustainable houses to Boston company Blu Homes.

The deal, announced Monday, means Blu Homes will now offer versions of the Kaufmann-designed Glidehouse, Breezehouse, mkLotus and mkSolaire nationwide. The terms of the purchase have not been revealed.

“I’m happy for all the people who put such hard work into making MK Designs happen, and that these designs are going to have a new life,” Kaufmann said.

Blu Homes, which opened last year, has its own factory and has built 10 houses, mostly on the East Coast. Co-founder Bill Haney said that by applying it’s technological know-how to Kaufmann’s designs, Blu Homes hopes to offer the homes at a more economical price.

“We share Michelle’s vision of creating beautiful, healthful homes and admire the West Coast sensibility her homes represent,” he said. “Our technological innovations will allow her homes to be brought to a bigger audience, both economically and geographically.”

Blu Homes founders spent three years researching modular home construction with a team of designers, scientists and engineers from the Rhode Island School of Design and MIT before starting the company. Their goal is to build preconfigured, sustainable homes that are affordable to the average American - and whose energy efficiency can be constantly monitored.

They have developed a proprietary unfolding modular technology that will enable cost savings to be made on Kaufmann designs at the shipping and on-site building stages. Elements that make up the homes such as wall panels are created with hinges so they can be compacted for transportation and unfolded on site. The MK Designs homes will have slightly different floor plans, proportions and elevations from the originals, although, Kaufmann said, the design principles should remain the same.

Kaufmann, who has built 40 eco-friendly preconfigured homes since 2002, has led the way in lobbying for more environmentally responsible building practices, and her firm won several awards for its sustainable architecture. The Sierra Club called Kaufmann “the Henry Ford of green homes.”

She will serve as a design consultant to Blu Homes and join its advisory board. She also continues to practice architecture with her own studio, with current projects including a housing community in Denver and a luxury eco-resort in the Bahamas.

Photos: Bruce Damonte

San Francisco Chronicle, August 2 2009

The home for sale at 147 Laidley St. in San Francisco’s Glen Park neighborhood is truly one of a kind.

Designed by architects Jim Zack and Lise de Vito, partners in life and work, as their family home, it is striking on many levels, and although not even 2 years old, it has won prestigious architectural and building awards.

From the moment ground was broken for the home in 2007, it caught the attention of the design world.

The Chronicle reported on its use of panel construction, as the city’s first factory-made wood-panel home. This method, used by Forma Home Systems, saved the owners money and time - it took six weeks rather than the usual 14 to erect - and minimized the amount of on-site waste.

Perched atop a hill with panoramic views of the city, Laidley Street has more than its share of architecturally interesting homes. But with its boxy light gray facade, a huge square protruding bay window, and the punch of its vibrant, chartreuse front door, this one stands out.

Step inside and the first impression is of an abundance of light and the staggering views through expanses of glass on each story of the house. The core of the home features a three-story translucent staircase crafted from opaque acrylic and steel. A big skylight floods light down the well through to the basement level.

The open-plan kitchen and living area take up the lion’s share of second floor. The bay window that projects over the street doubles as a generous sitting cubby. The kitchen is a blend of stainless steel and custom-made wood cabinetry. Adjoining the kitchen is a flexible space that could easily become guest quarters, as it has a sliding partition and a full bathroom.

Throughout the house, ceilings are as tall as 13 feet - including on the lower levels, which accommodate a master suite, two other bedrooms and a laundry room.

Zack and de Vito, who set out to create a “really modern house,” point to the exposed steel beams as an example of how they like to spotlight a building’s anatomy. “We aimed to create something very open and simple where there was a visual connection between rooms and everything was rationally organized,” said de Vito, who masterminded much of the design work.

Both the home’s steep site and the decision to use a modular building system restricted what Zack and de Vito could do in terms of its architecture. But they found some creative solutions. The cut-out section at the back of the house, for instance, allows their next-door neighbor to have an unobstructed view and, they say, makes for a more interesting interior layout.

Along with its eco-sensitive construction, the home’s other sustainable features include a photovoltaic electrical system, solar-assist hot water panels for the radiant heating system and a flat garden landscaped with drought-tolerant plants.

Soon after it was completed, the home was featured on the 2008 San Francisco American Institute of Architects Home Tour. It also won a San Francisco AIA Design Award. The jury praised the couple’s house for its efficient use of a narrow lot, the “nice use of light,” and its many environmentally friendly features.

And Custom Home Magazine gave the home its 2009 Grand Award in the 3,000- to 5,000-square-foot category, citing its sophisticated design, cutting-edge construction techniques and sustainable approach.

The owners, who are selling out of financial necessity, have loved living in the home and are full of praise for the neighborhood, which borders Noe Valley and is sometimes referred to as Fairmont Heights.

Zack said it is both friendly and convenient. “It’s very peaceful and we know all our neighbors,” he said. “We’re three minutes from the freeway, 10 minutes from BART and five minutes from the J-Church line, and there are parks close by.”

In fact, having lived in the same area with their young family for many years, they have every intention of staying close by when they move.

Photo by Russell Yip.

San Francisco Chronicle, September 23 2009

It seems wrong, somehow, to be bickering in such a beautiful, serene space. But Craig Newmark and his girlfriend, Eileen Whelpley, appear to fundamentally disagree on how the newly remodeled basement room in Newmark’s Parnassus Heights home is to be used.

The space, a soothing blend of pale poplar wood and Japanese-style shoji screens, is a work of fine craftsmanship, and Whelpley insists the Craigslist founder will be practicing yoga there. Newmark is less sure. “I have no illusions about yoga. I’m interested in the birds that visit me,” he said, referring to the bird feeders he has set up on the deck outside his home office upstairs. Newmark likes to snap photos of the birds when he’s not responding to customer service queries from Craigslist users.

“Craig is going to do yoga although he doesn’t know it,” said Whelpley with a fixed smile. “He will if we’re going to continue with this relationship.”

But back to the room. Newmark says the original idea was simply to create more usable space in his relatively compact home. “The room had dirty walls, a cement floor, an exposed fiberglass ceiling, exposed ducts, cords, one fluorescent light and lots of dust,” Whelpley said. “We thought we’d be lucky to turn this dead space into a clean storage area.”

Standing in what clearly evolved into something much more sophisticated than a storeroom, both Newmark and Whelpley say their ideas for the area were not ambitious. There was talk of perhaps making it into a sewing room for when Whelpley visits.

“The instructions were ill-defined,” said Russ Latta of Latta Construction in San Francisco, who oversaw the project. But his business partner, design-builder Satoshi Kuriyama, recognized potential in the dingy 300-square-foot space. “I saw it straight away,” he said. His original drawing shows a streamlined room highlighted with Craftsman-style touches such as the slim wooden beams that crisscross the walls and ceiling, the built-ins and alcoves.

All the mechanical elements, including the water heater and furnace, have been concealed behind doors or handmade panels. A part of the home’s foundation that jutted into the room has been transformed into a long built-in wooden bench and the screens hide shelving for storage.

Good design

But the room is far from utilitarian. A set of open shelves under the high window has been designed in a gentle cascade formation, and an open alcove in the center of the room helps retain a sense of airiness and includes two display shelves. A full-length mirror on casters with a Japanese-influence frame was designed by Kuriyama specifically for the space.

One of the most surprising aspects of the room is how light it is, given that it is largely underground and has just one tiny window. The whole area is bathed in a diffused glow provided by light fixtures hidden behind the fiberglass shoji screens and by two custom-made boxed ceiling lights. A pair of back-lit alcoves provides another source of light. The walls are painted pale green.

“It’s the best room in the house. There’s a good energy that is palpable when you’re here for any length of time,” said Whelpley, who used to work as a senior executive at Gap and is now training to be a yoga teacher. “It certainly shows how with the right skills you can transform a dark room into an inviting space.”

There are plans to put in some large eye screws for yoga ropes as well as a “whale” back bender bench, and Kuriyama will make some additional pieces of furniture for the room - a long narrow table, perhaps, to be placed alongside the bench.

More changes

Conversation turns to the possibility of holding intimate dinner parties there, perhaps serving sushi and preceded by some light yoga. Whelpley says the success of this project has given her the remodeling bug and she has had Latta begin converting part of the home’s garage into another livable space. “Maybe that could be the sewing room,” she said. “This room is far too nice for that.”

Which brings us back to the room’s function and, specifically, how Newmark plans to use it. The consensus among the small group gathered in the new space is that it should not be tarnished by electronics, whether a television set or a computer. “I would hope no one would come in here with computers,” said Latta, looking at nobody in particular. “Craig spends too much time on electronics,” Whelpley said. “This space is a perfect place to relax.”

“Relax? I’ve heard that word before,” Newmark said. When asked directly whether he will be taking up yoga, he said: “I’m looking forward to learning yoga. But you can only quote me on that if you put it in the appropriate quotation marks.”