Spaces Magazine January 2019

THE

COMPROMISE

CONTENTS

SPACES WINTER/SPRING

FEATURES

56 FRAME OF MIND

Japanese-inspired modernism is built into a home in Ross.

By Zahid Sardar

Photography by Matthew Millman

68 PARALLEL UNIVERSE

A modern St. Helena hillside house fits right in

By Zahid Sardar

Photography by Cesar Rubio

78 DÉJÀ VU

A second life for a wine country house destroyed by fie.

By Zahid Sardar

Photography by Matthew Millman

86 THE NEXT WAVE

A Stinson Beach home perfect for indoor/outdoor parties.

By Reed Wright

Photography by Paul Dyer

94 OUT OF THE BOX

A creative way to stay put in the midst of a renovation.

By Sarah Moline

Photography by David Wilson

100 PARADISE CALLING

Michael Lucas creates a garden inspired by a California mission.

By Zahid Sardar

Photography by Marion Brenner

ON THE COVER

A glass-walled staircase adds drama to this home designed by Steven Ehrlich and Takashi Yanai.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:

MAKEOVER Designer Diego Pacheco worked with the owners to modernize this Mill Valley home.

diegopacheco.com

UP FLOOR LAMP by Marcel Wanders for Roche Bobois is available for $3,690 at Roche Bobois. roche-bobois.com

CARACTERE Tableware from Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance. revol1768.com

COLUMN TABLE TALL by Tom Corbin for Corbin Bronze is available to the trade at Sloan Miyasato. sloanm.com

PORTFOLIO Conceptual photographer Catherine Wagner. catherinewagner.org

DOMUS table is designed by Cardenio Petrucci and produced by Studio Roeper. $26,000–$45,000. dsegnare.com

DEPARTMENTS

18 EDITOR’S WELCOME

20 CONTRIBUTORS

22 LETTERS

25 DESIGN SPOT Design in unlikely places. By Zahid Sardar

31 GALLERY A roundup of irresistible objects for the home.

By Lisa Boquiren

42 ON THE RISE Repurposed structures float into modernit.

By Zahid Sardar

49 FOCUS SFMOMA focuses on The ea Ranch. By Zahid Sardar

53 VOICES Getting creative with Celia Tejada.

By Laura Hilgers

105 MAKEOVER Diego Pacheco goes modern. By Reed Wright

108 PORTFOLIO Conceptual photographer Catherine Wagner. By Reed Wright

117 IN BLOOM Regional experts go for evergreens. By Reed Wright

118 RESOURCES A guide to finding wha’s shown in the issue.

122 REAR WINDOW The Casto Theate and social change. By David Weinstein

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Zahid Sardar

EDITORIAL

MANAGING EDITOR

Daniel Jewett

EDITOR

Mimi Towle

GALLERY EDITOR

Lisa Boquiren

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Kasia Pawlowska

COPY EDITOR

Cynthia Rubin

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Eva Hagberg Fisher, Laura Hilgers, Sarah Moline, David Weinstein, Reed Wright

ART ART DIRECTOR

Victor Maze

PRODUCTION MANAGER

Alex French

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Marion Brenner, Paul Dyer, Lenny Gonzalez, Steve Kepple, Tim Maloney, Matthew Millman, Cesar Rubio, Braden Summers, David Wilson

ADMINISTRATION / WEB

CONTROLLER

Maeve Walsh

WEB/IT MANAGER

Peter Thomas

DIGITAL EDITOR

Jessica Gliddon

OFFICE MANAGER

Hazel Jaramillo

PUBLISHER Nikki Wood

ADVERTISING

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Debra Hershon ext 120 | dhershon@marinmagazine.com

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Michele GeoffrionJohnson ext 110 | mjohnson@marinmagazine.com

SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGERS

Leah Bronson ext 109 | lbronson@marinmagazine.com

Lesley Cesare ext 113 | lcesare@marinmagazine.com

ACCOUNT MANAGERS Dana Horner ext 107 | dhorner@marinmagazine.com

ADVERTISING ART DIRECTOR Alex French

REGIONAL SALES OFFICES

WINE COUNTRY Lesley Cesare lcesare@marinmagazine.com

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Leah Bronson lbronson@marinmagazine.com

NEW YORK

Karen Couture, Couture Marketing 917.821.4429

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Volume 4, Issue 1. SPACES is published in Marin County by Marin Magazine, Inc . All rights reserved. Copyright©2019. Reproduction of SPACES content is prohibited with out the expressed, written consent of Marin Magazine Unsolicited materials cannot be returned. SPACES reserves the right to refuse to publish any advertisement deemed detrimental to the best interests of the community or that is in questionable taste. SPACES is mailed as a supple ment to Marin Magazine to select homes and businesses in the Bay Area. SPACES is published biannually by Marin Magazine, One Harbor Drive, Suite 208, Sausalito, CA 94965.

BY:

PHOTO BY: PHOTOVINO, WWW.1225ALLYN.COM

IT IS A SOBERING TIME. As the fog settles in and the air seems less choked by smoke and haze from the recent spate of California fies, some that have not fully abated at press time, we pause and pay homage to the losses of lives and homes.

Perhaps there is no escape from such disasters that have grown too large and too enveloping. But for those rebuilding, there are, one hopes, ways to better live with the changing patterns of weather and wind, fire and water.

In this issue, we celebrate the ways Northern Californians have approached the environ ment since the back-to-the-land experiments

in Sonoma at The Sea Ranch, where pioneer ing architects listened closely to nature. For instance, there, some homes emulated the angle of windswept grasses for shed roofs to help deflectthe force of Pacificwinds. In another corner of Sonoma, the high walls of a garden designed by Michael Lucas provide comfort able, elegant shelter outdoors.

There are other strategies. Architect Jim Zack of the firmZack/de Vito Architecture + Construction has designed a St. Helena, Napa Valley home on a rocky fire-prone hilltop with a swimming pool that doubles as a fie reservoir.

Next to a lagoon at Stinson Beach, where rising tides could affecthomes in the future, architect Cass Calder Smith has built a C-shaped home that wraps around an enclosed courtyard and sits high above the water on a stepped deck and a higher-than-normal foundation. Architect David Wilson found a novel way to weather the vagaries of remodeling while living at home in Berkeley: he built a large box around the parts of the house he wasn’t going to change and the family moved in. A cut-out window allowed them to witness the “storm” of change. In an ecotone where riparian redwoods meet dry-weather oaks on a hilltop site above Ross, Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects have designed a stunning Japanese-style compound that replicates the colors of the surroundings and opens to bay views, all fortifiedagainst fies by stone courtyards, infinitypools and spare landscaping by Surfacedesign.

Finally, a house by Aidlin Darling design is a reminder that there is no guarantee that the forces of nature won’t prevail. Thehouse the firm designed in Glen Ellen — with every pre caution in mind — was burned to the ground a year and a half ago in that season’s fires. Still, as the pictures attest, it provided a kind of per fection for the owners and it will be rebuilt just as it was, once again.

In this issue we also highlight the work of conceptual photographer Catherine Wagner, who has sometimes documented the changing cityscape in San Francisco.

In On the Rise you can read about inte rior designer Ken Fulk, who has revived an abandoned church building, and artist Ann Hamilton’s site-specificinstallation at Converge 45, an arts event in Portland, Oregon. In Bloom presents the objects gathered by Piraneseum and evergreens by horticulturist Margaret Majua.

Designer Celia Tejada, who until recently led some of the innovations at Restoration Hardware, lends us her voice, and San Francisco designer Diego Pacheco’s Mill Valley remodel showcases space-saving ideas with Henrybuilt built-ins. And on a lighter note — because we need that too — we spotlight the Castro Theate, the ribald, exhilarating scene of recurrent social change. We hope you enjoy these stories.

ZAHID SARDAR

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, SPACES

EMAIL ZAHIDSARDARDESIGN@GMAIL.COM

SOCIAL MEDIA FACEBOOK.COM/SPACESMAG; INSTAGRAM.COM/SPACESMAG

MARION BRENNER

“Paradise Calling” (p. 100), “In Bloom” (p. 117)

Berkeley photographer Marion Brenner’s work has appeared in national and international publica tions, including House & Garden, Garden Design and Martha Stewart Living magazines and The New York Times . She specializes in landscape and garden photogra phy and did photography for the book In & Out of Paris: Gardens of Secret Delights. You can also see her work in the collections of the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Berkeley Art Museum.

MATTHEW MILLMAN

“Frame of Mind” (p. 56), “Déjà Vu” (p. 78)

For more than 20 years, Matthew Millman has been photographing architecture and interior design in the western U.S. His work has appeared in a wide range of pub lications, including TheNew York Times, Dwell, Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, Vogue and more. Millman also photographed the recently released book West Coast Modern

BRADEN SUMMERS

Editor’s Welcome (p. 18)

Braden Summers is an artist and an award-winning photographer whose 2013 Kickstarter-funded All Love Is Equal photography series became a viral sensation and gar nered global attention. He is equally known for his portraiture and lifestyle photography in national and international publications. In his words, the Connecticut-born artist/photographer, who is also forging new ground with his video portraits, alerts “the viewer to the beauty in people and their environ ment.” His work aims to highlight diversity in every sense of the word. When he is not on assignment, he spends his time on the West Coast and New York City.

STEVE KEPPLE

Rear Window (p. 122)

Marin resident Steve Kepple spent a decade in the Colorado Rockies as a ski patroller and framing carpenter before turning his long-running photography hobby into a profession. He now captures images of architecture and hospi tality for a diverse set of clients.

Rear Window (p. 122) Dave Weinstein is a longtime El Cerrito author and journalist whose books include It Came from Berkeley: How Berkeley Changed the World and Signature Architects of the San Francisco Bay Area. He was a reporter and editor for many years at the West County Times and Contra Costa Times. He also wrote a popular series of profilesof Bay Area architects for the San Francisco Chronicle Today he is features editor for CA Modern He’s the leader of El Cerrito Trail Trekkers and Friends of the Cerrito Theate and president of the El Cerrito Historical Society.

“The Next Wave” (p. 86), “Makeover” (p. 105)

Bay Area photographer Paul Dyer’s work has appeared in many pub lications, including Architectural Digest, Elle Decor and House Beautiful . “I like working with architects and interior designers and a good mix of people who bring me to amazing locations and offera diffeent set of challenges each time,” he says.

LISA BOQUIREN

Gallery (p. 31)

Marin-based editor and writer Lisa Boquiren, who was on the steer ing committee for the American Institute of Architects National Convention, is a design and archi tecture aficionada who also main tains a marketing consultancy.

LENNY GONZALEZ

Voices (p. 53)

Alameda portrait photographer Lenny Gonzalez works for com mercial clients IDEO, Stanford Medicine and Glassdoor while maintaining a steady involvement in the local arts scene working for TheThingQuarterly, Kronos Quartet and InterMusic. His focus for the past fie years has been on documenting the local creative music scene. A selection of these photographs can be seen in SFMOMA’s blog Open Space.

Cesar Rubio, a San Francisco–based photographer, has been documenting the work of architects and designers for more than 25 years, using an approach informed by his early studio work and a life long love of motion pictures.

LAURA HILGERS

Voices (p. 53)

Laura Hilgers, a regular con tributor to Marin Magazine, is a Bay Area writer whose work has appeared in O, Sports Illustrated, Vogue and other publications. She enjoys the hiking trails of Marin.

PAUL DYER

DAVID WEINSTEIN

CESAR RUBIO

“Parallel Universe” (p. 68)

LETTERS

READERS RESPOND TO THE SUMMER/FALL 2018 ISSUE

Just saw the piece (“Playland”), and thank you so much for the thoughtful and fun coverage. I think Zahid Sardar captured the spirit of the house (and us) so well. We’re receiving the most lovely notes about the piece.

Kristine Boyden, president of Edelman, U.S. western region

Kudos on your Summer/Fall issue of SPACES

I loved Eva Hagberg Fisher’s piece (“Beach Babylon”) on interior designer Lauren Nelson’s beautiful Stinson Beach home design. Nelson’s use of subtle color is beautiful and complements the breathtaking views. I also enjoyed reading the piece (“Field of Dreams”) on experiential design in wineries. I’m looking forward to seeing all the amazing art at the Donum Estate this fall.

Cherie Slane, Gold Collective

Many thanks for the mention in the Design Spot section. I cannot thank you enough. TheCollege of Marin’s firstthematic show Marin Collects had a successful launch in March. Now the focus will be on the makers this fall. I so appreciate the assistance in getting the word out.

L.J. Cella, Kentfield

CORRECTION

In our story “Country Airs” we incorrectly called Frederika Moller a landscape designer. She is a landscape architect.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Your comments may be edited for clarity and brevity. Send letters to SPACES at letters@marinmagazine.com. Please in clude the town where you live and a phone number.

Who says your garage is just for parking cars? With real estate prices soaring, our clients are taking advantage of every square foot their garage has to offer. Are you? Our experienced team can transform your garage into that “Man, Kid or Mom Cave”, Craft Room”, “Exercise Room” or a great place to park your cars with lots of storage.

BY ZAHID SARDAR DESIGN SPOT

Here, There, on the Ground, in the Air

Design in unlikely places.

THE JEWELED ISLE: ART FROM SRI LANK A , an exhibition organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and on view through June 23, is a rare showing of the fabled island’s Buddhist and Hindu treasures. About 250 works, including paintings and colonial British photographs addressing nearly two millennia of Sri Lankan history, shine a new light on this Indian Ocean island that has suffeed many cultural battles. The latest, a 30-year-long ethnic and religious struggle, ended in 2009. A decade later The Jeweled Isle celebrates the island’s resilience as well as its creativity exemplified in bejweled gold and ivory artifacts and rich textiles known and admired even in fourth-century B.C. Greece. lacma.org

A GARDEN TAKES TIME to grow, so modernist San Francisco landscape designer Katharine Webster, at her new outdoor fur nishings showroom on Sacramento Street in Presidio Heights, offers instant gratificati in the form of artisanal works by Andrew Molleur and Birch & Brush at Dash Lane. Also displayed there are curated selections of garden accessories and outdoor furniture from global brands such as Dedon and Hawkins New York that can be special-ordered. Open by appoint ment. 415.757.0794; Instagram @dash_lane

IT TOOK A GLOBAL VILLAGE to create Hotel G’s three new loftlike black/white/gray open-plan penthouse suites near Union Square in San Francisco. Los Angeles designer Gulla Jónsdóttir, who is originally from Iceland, worked with Chicago artist Charles Nitti on metallic wall finishes for distessed concrete walls that add a gritty urban air to the establishment, where bleached oak floors and had-edged Dalmata marble details are juxtaposed against floor-to-ceiling wood shelving, brass fixtues, and curvilinear room dividers, lighting and furniture. The bedooms feature fieplaces, and several terraces with fie pits have city views. From $699 to $1,899 per night. hotelgsanfrancisco.com; Instagram/Twitter @hotelg_sf

HONG KONG–BASED DESIGNER Michael Young designed Silk, a new collection of glazed hexagonal wall tiles for famed Turkish tile company Gorbon that lists Norman Foster Studio among its clients. Young’s riff on geometric Islamic patterns and arabesque swashes was developed with 3D modeling software. The lw-relief indented glazed Silk tiles can be combined to form a lively monochromatic or multihued surface. Prices to the trade range from $40 to $65 per square foot. Instagram @gorbontiles; gorbontiles.com

In a related item, Sausalito’s Heath Ceramics is now producing a line of handmade glazed tiles for the Finnish company Artek to be combined with classic Alvar Alto–designed tea trolleys and stools. See Gallery, page 40.

DESIGN

HENRYBUILT FOUNDER Scott Hudson has launched a new line of furniture in the spirit of the streamlined handmade kitchens the company is known for, but with innovative details that vary from piece to piece to suit a variety of moods and create consistency without monotony in a space. Finding balance in the imperfect match is his holy grail. Credenzas and freestanding storage can be combined with built-in pieces for customized effects. rices vary per finish. henrybuilt.com

LONDON-BASED BRITISH DESIGNER Luke Irwin’s exclusive line of distressed mosaic-patterned handwoven silk and wool rugs — inspired by extraordinary geometric Roman-era stone mosaics discovered three years ago under sections of his Wiltshire country home — are now available in reconfigued, affodable woven versions through Williams Sonoma Home. Prices vary by shape and size. lukeirwin.com; williams-sonoma.com

THE NEW RAVENNA stone and glass mosaic company in Exmore, Virgina, has recently developed a new line of stone, glass and shell mosaics called Tissé (French for woven) that replicates the feathery effects of cotton ikat textiles and other texturally rich rattan, jute and esparto weaves. Some of the pattern names are illustrative of what to expect: tweed, gingham, chevron, cabin weave, wicker or twill ombré. Thomas, coduroy and cane weave are more heavily textured and meant just for walls. The mosaics, made of custom hand-cut, tumbled, long and short pieces that are carefully assembled into 23 diffeent patterns, are either tape-faced or mesh-backed for installation. Prices, through the trade, range from $30 to $129 per square foot. newravenna.com

ALESSI’S COLORFUL JAPANESE-STYLE Food à Porter bento boxes will make brown bag lunches less drab. Designed by Sakura Adachi, each thermoplastic resin box set has three stackable, lidded dishwasher- and microwave-safe containers that can be held together with optional, colorful silicone straps with or without handles that make the ensemble look like a clutch bag. Available in three colors — red, gray and blue-green — each set costs about $50. alessi.com

OTHER WALKS, OTHER LINES, through March 10 at the San Jose Museum of Art, has an intriguing premise: walking has become politicized and, as at the 2017 Women’s March on Washington, D.C., can be a mark of protest as well. Mass migrations touch on issues of urban planning, immigration and the French notion of dérive — a walk toward a less monotonous life. Curated by Lauren Schell Dickens, Rory Padeken and Kathryn Wade, Other Walks, Other Lines also highlights work by global artists who use walking as a creative leitmotif. Topics include pilgrimages, processions and protests. Other Walks: Gabriel Orozco, consisting of photographs and videos by Orozco, is a tandem exhibit showing through February 17. sanjosemuseumofart.org

SPEED IS AT THE CORE of AS2, a conceptual 12-passenger supersonic passenger aircraft that the Aerion Corporation, paired with Lockheed Martin, GE Aviation and Honeywell, hopes to fly acoss the Atlantic by 2023. Powered by GE’s still-in-the-works supersonic engine, the AS2 will presumably travel over 1,000 miles per hour — outpacing its predecessor the Concorde. That translates to about 60 times faster than most commercial jets, with time saving of three hours across the Atlantic and fie across the Pacific

DESIGN

GREENS RESTAURANT at Fort Mason, a Bay Area landmark since 1979 and owned by the San Francisco Zen Center, was closed for four long months due to a kitchen fie. Restored in time for its 40th anniversary, the restaurant proudly retains the original details by Zen Center carpenters, including Zen priest Paul Discoe. A black walnut front door, a carved redwood installation by artist J. B. Blunk, landscape paintings by Willard Dixon, and an entryway designed by Jason Lees are all intact. As if the design and chef Annie Somerville’s organic vegetarian fare made from Green Gulch Farm produce were not lure enough, Greens has a grandstand view of the Golden Gate Bridge. greensrestaurant.com

EDWARD BARBER & JAY OSGERBY designed the Bellhop lamp for the London Design Museum’s Parabola restaurant. Now, the take-it-anywhere 8-inch-high dimmable LED table lamp whose polycarbonate form

JOIE DE VIVRE Hospitality

founder Chip Conley, who is also former Global Hospitality leader for Airbnb (where he was surrounded by staff half his age), has predictably gotten older. And with age has come a cumulative wisdom that he shares in an insightful new book called Wisdom @ Work: The aking of a Modern Elder. Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky’s foreword calls it an effectie guide by a sage counselor who knows how to cultivate “a beginner’s mind.” One of the book’s key directives is that because your “vintage” is always growing in value, nurture it and rewire — don’t retire. Taking his own advice, Conley has postponed retirement and designed the

evokes a hatted hotel porter is made by FLOS. Cordless, it has a rechargeable 24hour battery and is available in white, gray, burnt orange or dark brown. Costs about $295 at Dzine. dzineliving.com

FRENCH ARCHITECT AND DESIGNER

Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance has created an understated dark-edged tableware collection for French purveyor Revol to mark its 250th anniversary. Called Caractère, the collection has a design that starts with charcoal circles and shapes drawn on paper that are then translated into porcelain cups, plates, oval platters and a centerpiece — replete with the imperfections of the charcoal line — in colors of seven diffeent spices. Individual pieces range in price from about $20 to $120. revol1768.com

Modern Elder Academy in Baja, Mexico. chipconley. com/modern-elder-academy; Currency, $27

SAN FRANCISCO interior designer Jay Jeffer’ latest book, Be Bold: Bespoke Modern Interiors, written with Vicky Lowry, has a

HEARD OF CLIPPINGS? This cleer startup from London founded by Adel Zakout and Tom Mallory might revolutionize the way consumers buy furniture and furnishings and the way designers source and manage such items for interiors. From inspiration boards to actual purchase to in stallation, Clippings is designed to re duce management time, friction and cost, by offerin transparency and

foreword by Michael Purdy and principal photography by Matthew Millman. It gives some insight into Jeffer’ taste for vivid colors, patterns and textures at home and for clients. Fourteen sumptuous interiors, filled with beautiful objects, offer a oyeuristic high. Gibbs Smith, $50

tracking for anyone planning a particular proj ect or simply placing an order. You can identi fy, source and buy products from anywhere on the web, yet get a single invoice and arrange group deliveries. Design teams from firms such as oster & Partners are already on board. Thee are 6.5 million products, like this Era sofa from Normann Copenhagen, to choose from. clippings.com

BY ROBERT FEDERIGHI

Local and global, limited-edition and mass-produced treasures.

BAKKER’S POT Dutch designer Aldo Bakker’s Pot is a limited-edition collectible. Made of bone china, the teapot is manufactured by Frans Ottink. Available online for $2,200. aldobakker.com

EDITED BY LISA BOQUIREN GALLERY

MARGAUX SWING ARM SCONCE by Charles de Lisle for Phoenix Day is made from solid brass. Trade pricing upon request at Sloan Miyasato. sloanm.com

HYG LOUNGE CHAIR HIGH OAK by Simon Legald for Normann Copenhagen consists of a molded polyurethane form with a molded lumbar support, steel-reinforced shell and oak wood legs with Main Line Flax upholstery (as shown). Custom order from $2,045 through Koncept 22. koncept22.com

PAPER TABLE M by Mei-Lan Tan and Victor Lefebvre features a thin, steel sheet top supported by a series of V-shaped, welded steel legs in polished steel or stained black finish(as shown). Other sizes and designs available. Pricing upon request. ume-studio.com

JWDA TABLE LAMP by Jonas Wagell for MENU features an egg-shaped glass bulb atop a metal base of either stainless steel, concrete, marble or solid brass (as shown). From $159 to $295. menu.as

CHUNK (limited edition collection) by Anna Karlin and Fernando Mastrangelo is made with cement, salt, glass, quartz and silica. Available by appointment through Fernando Mastrangelo Studio. fernandomastrangelo.com

GINA RECAMIER by Piero Lissoni for JANUS et Cie features an aluminum frame with JANUScoat and includes handwoven seat and back made from polyolefinyarn ropes. From $7,510 at JANUS et Cie. janusetcie.com

CHESS COCKTAIL TABLE by Marcel Wanders for Roche Bobois is made from solid wood or from fibeglass and lacquered polyester resin in various finishes.Starts at $2,175 for acacia wood and $2,444 for oak wood (as shown) at Roche Bobois. roche-bobois.com

EDA-MAME by Piero Lissoni for B&B Italia is made of molded foam, upholstered in a stretch fabric with a light stitching. The support base is made of crosspieces with rounded steel feet connected to each other by a bar, all in a pewter-painted finish Price upon request through Arkitektura. arksf.com

ONOS by Florian Schulz at Hector Finch Lighting is an adjustable, side-pull pendant with a black cotton-covered cord. Available in nickel brushed or polished, brass polished unlacquered or lacquered (as shown). Trade pricing upon request at Shears & Window. shearsandwindow.com hectorfinchcom

BEL AIR WEDGE VASE by Jonathan Adler is made from solid acrylic. Available for $195 at Jonathan Adler. jonathanadler.com

ARRAY SIDEBOARD by Says Who, for Woud consists of a solid wood cabinet atop a thin metal frame and legs. From $2,350 through Koncept 22. koncept22.com

I-BEAM STEEL ROUND SIDE TABLE by John Birch consists of a slim, vertical plane joining the tapered-edge base and top. $446 at RH Modern. rhmodern.com

MARIPOSA SMALL STAINLESS STEEL SUSPENSION LAMP by Marcel Wanders for Roche Bobois features an LED light in either two-tone gessato white-striped cotton, glass diffuserwith satin finishor Supermirror finis (as shown). $1,050 at Roche Bobois. roche-bobois.com

SLATTED SHIP MEDIA DISPLAY AND SHELVING UNIT by Michael S. Smith is made from hand-planed oak with carved-reeded detail on the facade. Pricing upon request at Jasper Showroom. michaelsmithinc.com

KNITTING CHAIR (reissued from the original 1951 design by Ib Kofod-Larsen) is made from darkstained solid oak and plywood with Anilin leather upholstery in gray-brown. From $3,600 through MENU. menu.as

ASILOMAR CIGARETTE TABLE by Tuell + Reynolds is made from blackened, waxed iron with hand-brazed bronze edging. Trade pricing upon request at De Sousa Hughes. desousahughes.com

Interior Design by Kelly Hohla Photograph by Matthew Millman

DUNA 02 by Lievore Altherr Molina features a plastic shell and full upholstery with an accessory cushion and leg bases in either powder-coated steel or wood (as shown). Price upon request through Arkitektura. arksf.com

TENSE MATERIAL INTARSIA by Piergiorgio Cazzaniga for MDF Italia features a marble powder and wood inlay top with an internal aluminum frame and steel legs. Available in 24 table sizes. Finish options for wood inlay include white Carrara marble, bronze or ebony black (as shown). From $7,200 to $18,300 at Dsegnare. dsegnare.com

DEDON CIRQL ARMCHAIR AND FOOTSTOOL by Werner Aisslinger for Dedon features weather-resistant fiberwoven on a pow der-coated aluminum frame. Trade pricing upon request at Dunkirk. dunkirksf.com

EVERETT DESK by Iatesta Studio in rift-sawn white oak features two floting shelves on the guest side (as shown) with drawers on concealed soft-close slides on the working side. Custom sizes and finishesavailable including Sonoran (as shown). Trade pricing upon request at Shears & Window. shearsandwindow.com

YANZI SUSPENSION by Neri & Hu for Artemide is an LED light fixtue featuring brushed brass “swallow” bodies with blown white glass sphere “heads” perched on a black steel stem and base. Price upon request through Arkitektura. arksf.com

Finding the right home is more than the square footage and number of rooms. It is about your quality of life and how you live outside those walls. Carey Hagglund Condy is one of the most respected luxury real estate agents in Marin County and one of its most passionate residents. She provides a unique and personal perspective to living in Marin County, with unparalleled knowledge, standard of care and attention to detail to help guide your journey to the perfect home.

1965 LAMP, originally designed by Paavo Tynell in 1947, is made from brass with a triangular perforation pattern and frosted glass diffuserin Bordeaux finish(as shown). From $709 through Koncept 22. koncept22.com

NOA by Tronk Design consists of a powder-coated steel seat and solid oak wood legs. Available in a variety of color finishes,including gray (as shown). From $350 through Tronk Design. tronkdesign.com

UNIVERSE SILK SCREEN STOOL 60 by Artek features a birch wood frame and plywood seat with a silk-screened pattern designed in San Francisco by Heath Clay studio director Tung Chiang. From $450 at Heath San Francisco. heathceramics.com

LUXICOLE is an LED, rechargeable indoor and outdoor table light available in a variety of finishes including white, matte black, matte silver and satin gold (as shown) and in three heights. From $575 through Bright on Presidio. brightonpresidio.com

ATOLL SOFA by Antonio Citterio for B&B Italia features a die-cast metal frame in either pewter or black chrome (as shown). Bolsters attach by leather straps to become either an armrest or backrest. Price upon request through Arkitektura. arksf.com

SILVIA ARMCHAIR by Paolo Tilche for De Padova features rattan canes from Indonesia, hand-tied with rush bark and finishedwith transparent acrylic paint atop thermoplastic feet. From $7,520 at Dzine. dzineliving.com

CAPSULES

How repurposed classic structures flot into modernity.

BY ZAHID SARDAR ON THE RISE

Artist Ann Hamilton’s billowing fabric installation called Habitus swirls above a vintage wood model of Portland, Oregon, during that city’s recent Converge 45 art event.

ON THE RISE

ART CAN REVITALIZE URBAN LANDMARKS that might otherwise get erased. Two evocative installations — a tempo rary site-specificwork in a historic industrial pavilion in Portland, Oregon, and an adaptive reuse of a former church in San Francisco — vividly illustrate the growing potential.

IN PORTLAND LAST FALL during Converge 45/Art on the 45th Parallel, the city’s annual visual arts gathering now in its fourth cycle, the defunct Centennial Mills flourfactory with its iconic water tower came alive with an infusion of art. Thetower had languished for decades because Portlanders can’t agree on what should happen to its 7-acre site on the northwest banks of the Willamette River.

The site-specific installation called habitus, originally created in 2016 by Ohio conceptual artist Ann Hamilton for Philadelphia’s waterfront and the Fabric Workshop and Museum, consisted of 12 giant cylindrical white cur tains that can be spun at will by pulling on bell ropes connected to pulleys.

Reconfigued to fitCentennial Mills’ outdoor steel-frame pavilion that until recently served as a paddock for mounted-police horses, habitus, swirling around a hand-built scale model of Portland that city planners used in the 1970s to assess possible new structures against existing ones, here became a metaphor for clouds of controversy. Printouts of images and writings/thoughts related to “habitus,” or dispositions on shelter, sanctuary and dwelling, were gathered online by volunteers and stacked daily during the monthlong presentation on tables for attendees to read or take and perhaps ponder what the Centennial Mills site should become.

Hamilton’s often-interactive work has the power to move people to action; among her other projects is a 2007 cast-concrete cylindrical tower with a double-helix stair case serving as both performance stage and audience seating at the Oliver Ranch near Geyserville, California. Invited by Converge founder and Portland gallerist Elizabeth Leach and guest artistic director Kristy Edmunds, who heads the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, Hamilton explains that she worked with fabric here because cloth is a primal material for architecture. Habitus, she adds, is a “conversation” that makes room for questions, and any collabora tive conversation “is like pushing a threaded needle through cloth. Thee is a space you cannot see for a moment until you pull up the thread to make a form. Theseen and unseen, the known and unknown together form the work.” converge45.org

MORE ECCLESIASTICAL in tenor, interior designer Ken Fulk’s Saint Joseph’s Arts Society had a giddy, theatrical opening last October in San Francisco’s Saint Joseph’s Church. Filled with costume, song and dance, the event marked a shining new chapter for the 1913 historic steel-frame landmark designed by architect John J. Foley.

Left: During Converge 45, artist Ann Hamilton’s 2018 Habitus installation at the Centennial Mills flour actory’s steel-frame pavilion in Portland, Oregon, included swirling white fabric curtains as well as takeway printouts of literary excerpts and images related to “habitus” or dispositions on shelter, sanctuary and dwelling. Top: Visitors were also encourgaed to interact with the installation. Above: A child looks closely at a 1970s model of the city.

ON THE RISE

ART CAN REVITALIZE URBAN LANDMARKS that might otherwise get erased. Two evocative installations — a tempo rary site-specificwork in a historic industrial pavilion in Portland, Oregon, and an adaptive reuse of a former church in San Francisco — vividly illustrate the growing potential.

IN PORTLAND LAST FALL during Converge 45/Art on the 45th Parallel, the city’s annual visual arts gathering now in its fourth cycle, the defunct Centennial Mills flourfactory with its iconic water tower came alive with an infusion of art. Thetower had languished for decades because Portlanders can’t agree on what should happen to its 7-acre site on the northwest banks of the Willamette River.

The site-specific installation called habitus, originally created in 2016 by Ohio conceptual artist Ann Hamilton for Philadelphia’s waterfront and the Fabric Workshop and Museum, consisted of 12 giant cylindrical white cur tains that can be spun at will by pulling on bell ropes connected to pulleys.

Reconfigued to fitCentennial Mills’ outdoor steel-frame pavilion that until recently served as a paddock for mounted-police horses, habitus, swirling around a hand-built scale model of Portland that city planners used in the 1970s to assess possible new structures against existing ones, here became a metaphor for clouds of controversy. Printouts of images and writings/thoughts related to “habitus,” or dispositions on shelter, sanctuary and dwelling, were gathered online by volunteers and stacked daily during the monthlong presentation on tables for attendees to read or take and perhaps ponder what the Centennial Mills site should become.

Hamilton’s often-interactive work has the power to move people to action; among her other projects is a 2007 cast-concrete cylindrical tower with a double-helix stair case serving as both performance stage and audience seating at the Oliver Ranch near Geyserville, California. Invited by Converge founder and Portland gallerist Elizabeth Leach and guest artistic director Kristy Edmunds, who heads the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, Hamilton explains that she worked with fabric here because cloth is a primal material for architecture. Habitus, she adds, is a “conversation” that makes room for questions, and any collabora tive conversation “is like pushing a threaded needle through cloth. Thee is a space you cannot see for a moment until you pull up the thread to make a form. Theseen and unseen, the known and unknown together form the work.” converge45.org

MORE ECCLESIASTICAL in tenor, interior designer Ken Fulk’s Saint Joseph’s Arts Society had a giddy, theatrical opening last October in San Francisco’s Saint Joseph’s Church. Filled with costume, song and dance, the event marked a shining new chapter for the 1913 historic steel-frame landmark designed by architect John J. Foley.

Left: During Converge 45, artist Ann Hamilton’s 2018 Habitus installation at the Centennial Mills flour actory’s steel-frame pavilion in Portland, Oregon, included swirling white fabric curtains as well as takeway printouts of literary excerpts and images related to “habitus” or dispositions on shelter, sanctuary and dwelling. Top: Visitors were also encourgaed to interact with the installation. Above: A child looks closely at a 1970s model of the city.

ON THE RISE

TheOctober 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake had rendered this Romanesque Revival structure with two gilded domed towers unsafe, and it remained shuttered for decades until now. Fulk, along with co-owners Chris Foley and Palisade Builders, enlisted preservation architects Page & Turnbull (who also restored the enormous Ferry Building) to judiciously transform and expand the 13,000-square-foot multistory edific into a versatile club where members can celebrate and promote the arts, design, fashion and food.

Starting with 20 subscriber members who will sup port 20 nonpaying artists, the society and its nonprofit philanthropic arm, Saint Joseph’s Arts Foundation, hope to attract as many as 400 members. Each subscriber will be able to support an artist whose creativity will in turn feed arts and education programs and residencies. Many ticketed art exhibitions and theatrical and musical performances will be open to the public.

Lounges upholstered in Pierre Frey fabrics and communal dining tables float in the nave atop a show-stopping 32-by-46-foot 1920s Persian rug made for New York’s Union League Club. Alongside it, eight equally sumptuous niches that were once private chapels are now reservation-only curtained salons finshed by Dawson Custom Workshop.

A raised stage for performances, fittedinto the domed apse, is flanked by drinking bars and backed by Rome Prize–winning artist Catherine Wagner’s 30-foot-high photographic mural depicting the Room of the Scholars from the Capitoline Museum in Rome. Several rooms on either side of the apse and within the reconstructed tow ers are hidden dining destinations, with the original stained oak trim, gold accents, plaster walls and stained-glass windows all restored by artisans.

A new freestanding steel mezzanine and bridge structure — like a mod ern-day baldachin — in the center of the nave adds 9,000 square feet for two art galleries and a full kitchen; the wide-ranging arts programming will include immersive dinners by guest chefs and pop-up stores from tony retailers. Already Saint Joseph’s is brimming with vintage glassware as well as goods from French apothecary brand L’OfficinUniverselle Buly and book publisher Assouline, fashion from Respoke and Lingua Franca, and blooms from Mr. Fulk’s Flower Factory. Sculpture, photographs and taxidermy by Dutch creatives Darwin, Sinke & van Tongeren; works by Dutch artists Studio Drift and Nacho Carbonell; a trompe l’oeil mural by Rafael Arana; and collectibles from the Carpenters Workshop Gallery are also among the highlights.

Perhaps the last time something like this happened in the city was during the 1980s when famed costume and set designer Tony Duquette created his moody Duquette Pavilion of St. Francis in an abandoned Fillmore District synagogue. Thepavilion regrettably was destroyed by fire in 1989, but perhaps Fulk’s Saint Joseph’s has risen as its conceptual phoenix. saintjosephsartssociety.com n

San Francisco’s 1913 Saint Joseph’s Church designed by architect John J. Foley was recently restored and reopened by designer Ken Fulk as the Saint Joseph’s Arts Society, a club where members and the public can celebrate the arts. The apsidal altar is now a stage outfited for performances by musicians and dancers; upstairs, art galleries overlooking the central nave showcase designs by the likes of Studio Job and Studio Drift; and on the main floo, purveyors of art books, fashion items and flwers from Mr. Fulk’s Flower Factory hold court.

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BY ZAHID SARDAR FOCUS

BACK TO THE LAND

The Sea Ranch evolved during the 1960s as a second home opportunity for creative people who wanted to be close to nature. One of the firt model homes, Condominium One, designed in 1965 by MLTW, defined the rustic yet modern style of buildings that have sprung up half a century later along the 10-mile-long northern Sonoma/Pacific oast site. The nine condominiums within that barn-inspired wood-clad building had small interiors that were in some instances livened up by supergraphics created by Barbara Stauffacher, who also designed The Sea Ranch enclave’s distinctive ram’shorns–meet–sea-waves logo.

THE SEA RANCH: ARCHITECTURE, ENVIRONMENT, AND IDEALISM , an exhibi tion at SFMOMA through April 28, celebrates a planned residential community begun about a half-century ago when the idealism of the postwar era was at its height.

Thee had never been anything like it. Located about two-and-a-half hours north of San Francisco along Sonoma’s rocky coast, Sea Ranch was the brainchild of architect and planner Al Boeke, who, on behalf of Oceanic Properties, a subsidiary of a Hawaiian real estate developer, sought to preserve the area’s natural beauty.

With the help of landscape architect Lawrence Halprin — famous for many ecolog ically sensitive adaptive reuse projects, including San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square — Boeke spearheaded a master plan of trails and path ways that would in time link several hundred homes intended to weather naturally and blend into a borderless landscape of tidelands, cliffs and woods. Boeke had worked with Richard Neutra and was attuned to the synergy of land scape and architecture. Alongside Halprin, who

had lived for a time on a kibbutz and had an affinitfor living communally and lightly on the land, he established such core concepts for Sea Ranch as well.

Roughly 10 modern wood-frame houses and public buildings — intended to guide future residents — were built first by Bay Area architect Joe Esherick and the firmMLTW, which included architects Charles Moore, Donlyn Lyndon, William Turnbull and Richard Whitaker. Their simple wood-frame and cedar or redwood-clad shed roof designs, modestly scaled and in sync with the often windy, foggy, misty terrain, articulated the Sea Ranch vision and spawned a regional midcentury style of building in the West.

Inspired by farm buildings, the mostly sin gle-story homes rise and fall with the land, scat tered, seemingly in an unplanned way, around meadows and amid shared nature trails and roadways. Conceptually as far from suburbia as one can imagine, Sea Ranch even deploys sheep versus noisy lawn mowers to keep wild grasses (a summer fire hazard) low.

At SFMOMA, an exhibition about Sea Ranch shows how an architectural ideal became the way forward.

Despite its considerable architectural and cultural impact that endures today, “there never has been an exhibition about Sea Ranch,” says architecture and design curator Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, who with co-curator Joseph Becker ferreted out rarely seen archival drawings by Halprin and Esherick and photo graphs by Morley Baer for the exhibition. Also included are works by graphic designer Barbara Stauffache, who designed the Sea Ranch logo and created supergraphics for home interiors.

“The role of branding was significant,” Fletcher says. “Theyhad astute ways of com municating with the world.”

Through archival documentary videos and drawings, the exhibi tion brings to life Esherick’s Hedgerow Houses, whose roofs emu late the windswept angle of nearby hedgerows and cypress trees. A full-scale sectional model of Moore’s Condominium One allows visitors to literally step inside one of the structures and understand its atmospheric appeal.

“People can hang out on the daybeds, and the model demon strates the efficiency of the spaces designed with sleeping lofts and small footprints,” Fletcher says.

Thedevelopers had the foresight to recognize that retreating from the world to a suburban bubble was not sustainable, and their break with that concept is the theme at the heart of the exhibition. They created architecture that settles into an unspoiled environment for a true indoor-outdoor experience while also linking modernism with communal social progress.

“I know that Boeke was interested in postwar ‘new town’ devel opments in Europe and their relationship to land for agriculture, and he saw a similar financialpotential in terms of aligning with land stewardship here,” Fletcher says.

That kind of thinking is popular again, and we may see more of it in contemporary developments. As Fletcher observes: “Despite Sea Ranch’s strict design guidelines, which appear static, the rules do allow for contemporary solutions.” A relatively recent newcomer called the Ramirez House is one example.

For the exhibition, however, curators focused on the earliest Sea Ranch proposals and the still-relevant idealism behind those con cepts. The 100-plus drawings and ephemera describe the “impetus and the development, the synergies between the players and how it all came to be,” Becker says.

“It was all transformative,” he adds, but in hindsight not sur prising at all. “During the 1940s there was much discussion about what was modern even in Northern California, which was more receptive to natural materials and indoor-outdoor living,” Becker says. “The Sea Ranch collective was a natural progression of what happened piecemeal before.” n

Developed by Al Boeke, who worked for Richard Neutra in Los Angeles and later for Oceanic Properties, the eco-conscious Sea Ranch involved many others. Clockwise from top left: The MLTW team including Richard Whitaker, Donlyn Lyndon, Charles Moore and William Turnbull; interior of Turnbull’s Rush House; architect Joe Esherick in 1960; master-planner landscape architect Lawrence Halprin and Daria Halprin at a workshop; ocean views from Rush House; students at an environmental workshop build a driftwood city; Sea Ranch sketch by Halprin; 1968 “Ecoscore” by Halprin.

BY LAURA HILGERS

ART & SOUL

Everyone brings something to the table when San Francisco tastemaker Celia Tejada is hosting.

LENNY GONZALEZ

Celia Tejada at work in her San Francisco home.

VOICES

EVERY THURSDAY NIGHT , San Francisco tastemaker Celia Tejada gathers a group of family and friends at her house in the Western Addition for “tertulia.” Theevening — as sug gested by the Spanish word for it — is like a literary salon. Guests discuss art, poetry, pol itics and love, fueling the conversation with a gourmet potluck and Tejada’s own Lake County red wine.

On the first Thursday of each month, everyone brings a poem to read. Sometimes the poetry nights have a theme, such as a cur rent political drama or the Summer of Love. But there’s usually a constant. “It’s become a running joke among her friends,” says Katie Tamony, the former editor of Sunset magazine and a tertulia attendee, “that, of course, Celia is going to read Neruda.”

Pablo Neruda, the 20th-century Chilean poet, was a fiery writer and activist whose work is renowned for its passion and soul. And it seems fitting that Tejada is drawn to him, because those two words could describe her too.

“She’s really all about the soul,” says Diane Moore, Tejada’s longtime friend and former business partner. “Tha’s what she designs from, the beauty of her soul. It’s who she is. And when she creates, she’s just expressing who she is.”

Tejada expressed this in her role as chief cre ative officeof Restoration Hardware, a position she held until last November. She now expresses it at the inn she owns, Molino Tejada, in Polientes, Spain, and the 82-acre Lake County ranch she co-owns with her brother. It’s even

present at the front door of her 1890 Victorian home, where she has hung a chalkboard. On it she let a friend recently scribble a Neruda quote: “And just like that, every morning of my life I bring from a dream another dream.”

At RH, this came across as she collaborated with the company’s creative teams to bring new concepts to life. She conducted historical research, chose fabrics and helped to defin RH’s distinctive look. “What resonates with me is authenticity,” Tejada says. “I’m inspired by old world Europe and particularly my (native)

She’s not simply designing a beautiful space. She’s imagining the wonderful things that will happen in that space.

country, Spain. I look for authenticity in values, people, architecture and design.”

To understand Tejada, who recently turned 60, it helps to know where she came from, which informs everything regarding who she is and what she creates today.

Tejada grew up on a farm in the rural village of Ruerrero, in the Cantabria province of Spain. Her parents raised cattle and grew potatoes. She was one of six children and the only girl, a distinction that taught her to be fearless. “My brothers would throw me on a horse and get it running before I knew how to ride,” she says. “When you have fie brothers, you have to be feisty or they eat you alive.”

She was very close to her family — and remains so, spending every August in her family’s Ruerrero farmhouse, which she now owns. Thi sense of family continues to profoundly infl ence her design. “I would describe her design philosophy as capturing what’s most important in life: family, friends, food,” Tamony says. “It’s about the meaning of life’s moments. Thatreally infuses her work. She’s not simply designing a beautiful space. She’s imagining the wonderful things that will happen in that space.”

Her childhood also inspired her in more practical ways. As a young girl Tejada helped her brothers build stone walls and repair roofs, and she dreamed of becoming an architect. But she never went to high school and her family was poor, so she studied to become a delin eante, or draftsperson, instead. When a design school opened in nearby Bilbao, she pleaded with her mother and brothers (her father had already died) to help her attend. Theyscraped

Vibrant murals, like this one by Okuda San Miguel, can be found at Molino Tejada, the luxurious inn and cultural center Tejada created in her Spanish hometown. Also pictured is chef Jesus Sanchez.

A HOUSE IN ROSS SHOWCASES JAPANINSPIRED MODERNISM.

BY ZAHID SARDAR PHOTOGRAPHS BY MATTHEW MILLMAN

Zinc-clad boxes are contrasted with a glowing clear glass stairwell that links three floors in this house designed y Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects. The courtyard has stylized landscaping by Surfacedesign Inc. that complements a view of Mount Tam.

FRAME OF MIND

PERHAPS THE GREATEST HURDLE of building on a hilltop where the towns of Ross and Kentfield share a territorial border was that a woodsy midcentury summer home by noted architect William Wurster already stood there.

Its historic value was hotly debated, but because of clumsy additions and other changes made to it over the years, both cities eventually allowed a new house by the Los Angeles and San Francisco firm Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects to take its place.

Completed about a year ago, the 7,500-square-foot home, designed collaboratively by principal architects Steven Ehrlich and Takashi Yanai, has nearly the same-size footprint as its predecessor. Nestled amid an acre and a half of redwoods and sun-loving live oak forests that thrive in that ecotone, the new house also takes full advantage of a wide panorama, crowned by the county’s emblematic peak, Mount Tamalpais.

Composed of four rectilinear volumes laid in a roughly reverse Z-shaped plan and stacked on three flors, the house has discrete public and private open-plan areas that flw eas ily from one into the other to accommodate the owner, an audiovisual systems specialist who often works from home.

From the polished concrete foyer, wood steps lead down into the sunken living room. Floorboards are lined up with decking outside. An infinity pool and viws of the bay are in the background.

When this room’s glass doors are pushed open, the dining counter feels just like a picnic table.

Facing the wood front door is a wall of light that illuminates the foyer, where a polished concrete floor flows toward the open-plan kitchen/dining area. A striking Madagascar ebony wood dining counter, flaned by high chairs, abuts a kitchen island topped with basalt. The sink backsplash is made of glass.

Inside the wood-lined master closet. Opposite, top to bottom: The cantilevered master bedroom has views on three sides; a view of the living area from outside; the master bathroom looks onto a rooftop gravel deck.

Thebuilding’s rigorous right-angled geometry allows him “a variety of indoor-outdoor experiences,” says Yanai, who admired such layouts when he was an architecture magazine editor in his native Japan.

Because of its floor plan, nearly all the rooms have access to stone-covered courtyards and wood decks interspersed with Zen-like gardens planted by the San Francisco landscape architecture firm Surfacedesign.

To establish other subliminal links to nature, the building exterior features German-made terra-cotta panels that match the color of redwood bark and all-weather Rheinzink roof fasciae. And large slim-line aluminum-and-glass doors and windows by Vitrocsa literally reflectthe surrounding woods.

A dramatic glass-walled stairwell, visible from the entry court, links the building’s top floor to the ground floor and a state-of-the-art screening room in the basement. Figures walking up or down the stairs animate the sculptural tower, which illustrates a Japanese concept called ma. Loosely trans lated, “ma is a desirable empty space, a gap or an interval between forms, sounds or emotions,” Yanai says.

On the ground floo, even though the nine-foot-high solid wood and blackened steel front door seems impenetrable, rooms inside seem to have only invisible boundaries, sug gested largely by the materials that cover floors or walls.

For instance, the kitchen/dining area’s polished concrete floors abut black American walnut wood floors in the adja cent sunken living room, and its boards in turn line up perfectly with a teak deck just outside sliding glass doors.

Theowner’s casual lifestyle obviated a formal dining room, so the custom kitchen by New York–based Minimal has an easy-to-clean back-painted glass backsplash, dark wenge wood cabinets, and a wood dining counter that springs off the Corian kitchen island. Its bar stools are comfortable enough for dinner parties — at the chef’s table, as it were as well as for the owner to sometimes do his work there, facing the south lawn and mountain views.

“When this room’s glass doors are pushed open, the dining counter feels just like a picnic table,” the owner says.

The owner can also toast the summer fog that quietly floats past Mount Tamalpais and edges the valley below.

On the top floo, above the living area, the cantilevered master suite has wall-size windows on three sides, facing views. Opposing doors on the east and west walls open onto teak terraces. In sync with Northern California’s preference for natural building materials, a large walk-in closet and dressing area at the north end of the room are wood lined, and the master bathroom looks onto a gravel-covered roof deck.

A separate one-story pavilion on the northeast side of the main building contains a home officegym and sauna. Its fla roof cantilevers westward to meet the main house at a right angle, forming a breezeway between the conjoined buildings. The L-shaped wing also shelters a dark basalt-and-concrete tile courtyard with unhampered views of the San Francisco Bay and the East Bay hills. Thecourtyard abuts the living room deck as well as a highly reflective black tile swimming pool perched on the east slope. A square infiity-edge plunge

A square infinity-edge plunge pool in the middle of the courtyard mirrors the sky.

Opposite, a stone courtyard is studded with a raised infinity spa and edged with an infinity pool tht reflects the sky as well as Mount Tam. A fie pit next to the water is both evocative and effective on a foggy day. This page: A view of the breezeway that separates the main house from the owner’s office on the left.

The rear courtyard is surrounded by glass walls and filled with pools tht all reflect the surounding redwoods and oak-covered hills. Opposite: A view of the owner’s blackened garage. The back door opens to the courtyard.

pool in the middle of the courtyard also mirrors the sky. In this stylized Japan-inspired setting that “borrows” elements of the landscape, a long rectangular gas fie pit next to the larger pool adds a ceremonial finishing touch.

Part retreat and part home officethe house is also a show case for the owner’s growing collection of modern furnish ings, art photography and cars. Thethree-car garage, painted black inside, is like a theater that can be viewed through a large “proscenium” window cut into the wall of a corridor that separates the garage from guest rooms.

“Even my Mini Cooper looks like a million dollars in that garage,” the owner says with a chuckle.

Despite such deliberately jazzy features, the house does settle into its wooded site comfortably, thanks to its material and color palettes. Several corridors within the structure offe long telescopic views through windows placed strategically at the ends, and from his vantage point high above the center of Ross, the owner can also toast the summer fog that quietly floats past Mount Tamalpais and edges the valley below.

“This landscape is very powerful and calming at the same time,” Yanai says. “We have just tried to honor it and frame the view.” n

PARALLEL UNIVERSE

A MODERN ST. HELENA HILLSIDE HOUSE DEFIES WINE COUNTRY AND DIGITAL STEREOTYPES AND YET FITS IN.

BY ZAHID SARDAR PHOTOGRAPHS BY CESAR RUBIO

MIKE NEIL, A MICROSOFT EXECUTIVE living in Seattle, contacted San Francisco architect Jim Zack in part to prove how easy cloud computing — Neil’s specialty — and the digital sphere make it for people to work together at a distance.

Hundreds of miles away, Zack was enlisted to visit a 15-acre St. Helena hillside lot Neil was interested in and vet it for a potential pied-à-terre for Neil and his wife, a Bay Area native who, like her husband, frequently works in Silicon Valley. The undeveloped property, although quite scrubby, had tempting enticements to build on its highest ridge and the architect soon devised some ideas to capitalize on its valley views.

“It was not a normal design process,” Zack, of the firm Zack/de Vito Architecture + Construction, says. But Neil was an experienced client who had done extensive renovations in Seattle and knew how to read the digital drawings he received and then counter them with ideas of his own.

A wine country house by Zack/de Vito Architecture + Construction — conceived in the digital clouds, so to speak — is embedded in solid rock that is left exposed in the home’s concrete back court. The naturalistic plantings are by landscape designer Randy Thueme. A lap pool abutting the house makes it seem like a houseboat.

Considering the huge cost of building in the Bay Area, the scale wasn’t what the architect had anticipated. Neil wanted a lot more house than his indicated budget or county codes would allow. However, he was not going for overblown Tuscan villa or cliché French château, nor the handcrafted wood-heavy homes favored in the Northwest. And so Zack’s value-engineered, modern, compact rectilinear forms, with crisp edges, white walls and exposed steel framing, prevailed.

“It was also what we like to design,” Zack says.

Theinfrastructure, especially the challenging driveway up the steep property, took some time to figue out. While other details were being fine-tuned, Neil and his wife managed to visit the site frequently.

Envisioning future decks and vista points, “we’d get there with a small cooler, camping chairs, a bottle of wine and some cheese,” Neil says.

The two-story, 3,750-square-foot hilltop home that evolved has a concrete basement and garage, dug into the hill, that can be entered through a car court below.

Most of the exterior is clad with Cor-Ten steel panels that will weather over time and continue to blend into the hillside. A void cut into the west face forms a second-floor loggia that is lined with cedar. Large roof overhangs, ideal for shade over decks, are limited in number because evidently, as recent wine country fies proved, “fire travels uphill and overhangs become fire traps,” Zack explains.

Top: A large entry court for fie trucks to turn around leads to a garage inset into the hillside. Stairs on the left side go up to the front door. Left: The front door opens to a hallway leading to the back door; it is flaned by a powder room on the left side, and by living spaces, a study and master suite, all on the right. Opposite: The mas ter suite opens directly to a lap pool that doubles as a fie hydrant.

I CAN JUMP OUT OF BED AND INTO THE POOL .

A sculptural blackened steel staircase, linking the basement wine cellar, the main living area and spare rooms upstairs, has floting wood treads. Concrete floor tiles abut eucalyptus wood planking in the hallway. Opposite page: Donald Judd–esque steel shelving in the study upstairs echoes the home’s exposed steel structure. Doors open to the west-facing cedar-clad loggia.

All the rooms have a direct connection to the outdoors. The foyer corridor forms a visual axis from the entrance to a rear yard, where sculptural rock formations in naturalistic land scaping by Randy Thuemeare visible through the glass back door. On the main floo, the south-facing master suite is the epitome of indoor-outdoor living, with glass doors that open to a solar-heated lap pool that doubles as a fire-fighting reservoir.

“Thee is a requirement to have a water tank for fie-figh ing, but a swimming pool with a hydrant from the pool also works,” Neil says. “I grew up on Lake Washington in Seattle and so I liked the idea of having a pool next to the house. I can jump out of bed and into the pool.”

Elegantly accommodating the fie code requirement, the 40-foot-long pool, laid on a north-south axis, shares a wall with the building foundation. When a sea of valley fog swirls around as it does most mornings, the pool makes the house appear to be a boat floating on water.

Thelofty, 14-foot-high open-plan living spaces on the north end have sweeping views of the valley and surrounding oak trees but they are also subliminally tied to the landscape with radiant-heated floors made of reclaimed eucalyptus wood engineered by Evan Shively. Wraparound ipe-wood decks and terraces add about 2,000 square feet of outdoor living space.

Neil, an avid cook who appreciates the area’s farmers’ markets and wineries, asked for a versatile kitchen/dining area that also has large retractable doors opening onto a deck with a barbecue and pizza oven for alfresco meals. Matching concrete tiles on the kitchen flor, as well as the deck, link inside and outside seamlessly.

A concrete island alongside a pizza oven and barbecue on the north deck, facing St. Helena and valley views, has counter seating. The roof overhang is inset with heaters. On the far side, outdoor lounge furniture placed on an ipe deck around a fie pit extends the living space.

Neil, an avid cook, asked for indoor/ outdoor dining areas for family gatherings, so Zack designed several options: counter dining at the chef’s table; formal dining at a custom table with a wood top sourced from Evan Shively; outdoor dining under a deep cantilevered overhang. Concrete floor tiles inside and out link the spaces. Opposite: Zack also designed custom features for the powder room and master bath.

The building’s exposed steel structure is a design element that gets echoed throughout. A showy blackened steel and wood staircase on the south wall of the living room leads upstairs to two guest rooms and an informal open-plan area. Thee, custom steel furnishings selected by architect Lise de Vito, a principal in the firm(and Zack’s wife), include Donald Judd–esque steel shelving and desks where the owners can both work from home.

Oddly, given what the owners do for a living, except for Nest cameras that monitor the exterior for fie danger, the home has few technological gadgets hardwired to connect them remotely to the building when they are away.

Zack is not surprised. “Mike and his wife plan to retire in this house and use it for a long time,” he notes. “Like others in the tech world, they know that technology is the firstthing that gets outdated.” n

Déjà

The Glen Ellen house that the San Francisco firm Aidlin Darling Design created for its clients in 2016 is now sadly gone but the plan is to rebuild it as it appeared in these images taken before the fie.

BY ZAHID SARDAR PHOTOGRAPHS BY MATTHEW MILLMAN

A HOUSE DESTROYED IN THE MAYACAMAS FOOTHILLS WILL RISE AGAIN.

“WE SHED A LOT OF TEARS along with our clients,” architect Joshua Aidlin of the San Francisco firmAidlin Darling Design says.

Less than a year after it was completed in 2016, the 3,100-square-foot weekend home the firmdesigned for David Rice and his partner, Barry Mehew, was consumed by wildfies. Set on a hillside near Glen Ellen, the home had taken “four years to design and build,” project architect Cherie Lau recalls with a sigh.

But Rice, who heads the San Francisco tech startup behind Life360 an app that connects family members during a crisis — reassured everyone involved that, unlike others less fortunate, they could and would rebuild. And, gratifyingly for the designers, he and Mehew wanted pre cisely the same house again.

Rice grew up in San Jose but has lived in Europe, Asia and other parts of the United States; he met Mehew, a financialconsultant from London, on vacation 18 years ago in Cape Town. Living in England, as well as their experiences around the globe, helped hone their taste for the kind of spare, international-style environment that Aidlin and Lau created for them.

During the last 18 years the couple has tried to incorporate a similar modern sensibility into their four-story Victorian home in San Francisco with some success, but “we were always limited by its physical footprint,” Rice says. “In the country, without such constraints we had exactly what we wanted.”

A winding dirt road cuts across their 26-acre property up to the ridge where their single-story getaway home once commanded panoramic views of Sonoma Valley to the west.

Thestructure consists of two small standing-seam zinc-clad volumes, set slightly apart on the hill in a north-south axis and linked by a long glazed box of a floatingbridge held aloft on slender steel pilotis (piers). Modular, practical, with no two-story glass spaces, the relatively low-budget design had the playful quality of “a garden pavilion that embraced the outdoors,” Aidlin says.

The glazed bridge contained south-facing living and dining areas with modern furnishings, a library in the middle, and the north-facing master suite; retractable glass doors at each end opened to spacious decks shaded by flat, cantilevered, heat-reflecting albedo roofs. The tubular bridge had openings at each end providing cross-ventilation; its cedar wood-clad ceilings and distressed oak floorscontrasted pleasingly with the sleeker interiors of the zinc-clad sections north and south. Thenorth structure, with concrete floors and white-painted walls, had two guest rooms, and the south one had a galley kitchen with retractable Fleetwood aluminum doors opening onto a deck and a swimming pool.

Two zinc-clad sections of the house were sunk into the earth. The rest, a glass and wood “bridge” that contained living and dining spaces as well as the master suite, was attached in the rear, held aloft above the sloping hillside on delicate steel columns or pilotis. The concrete entry courtyard gave way to a boardwalk sheltered by a cantilevered canopy. The living spaces had west-facing glass walls with views. Their wood-clad ceilings added warmth, and their modernist furnishings were enhanced with custom details such as the steel mantel for the fieplace.

LIVING IN ENGLAND, AS WELL AS THEIR EXPERIENCES AROUND THE GLOBE, HELPED HONE THEIR TASTE FOR THE KIND OF SPARE, INTERNATIONAL-STYLE ENVIRONMENT THAT AIDLIN AND LAU CREATED FOR THE WORLDLY COUPLE.

The floting roof above the “bridge” section of the house was cantilevered outward over decks on the north and south sides to provide shade for outdoor dining and seating. In one of the zinc-clad boxes, Aidlin Darling designed a kitchen that also opened to the swimming pool, which survived the fie. The pool is visible in the mirrored backsplash, opposite.

“As soon as you arrived in the concrete courtyard on the east side and entered through the front door, you were on a rusticated wood floo,” Aidlin adds. “You saw, felt and perhaps even smelled the difference.”

Pine trees planted by Boy Scouts to reforest the west hill slope after a similar fie during the ’60s made the building seem like a treehouse, but the trees only added to the intensity of the blaze that took nearly everything in its path, leaving behind a moonscape of white ash.

“We were in the city when the security system sent us an alert at 1 a.m. that our country house was dying. The last signal said that the propane tank was empty,” Rice recalls.

Only the pool, deck and built-ins at the south end of the building sur vived, along with the hedges and car court. “It is surreal,” Lau says. “One part of the site where the swath of fie did not cut through is still lush.” Th intact sections will be reintegrated when the property takes shape again.

Thestructure will cost exponentially more to build this time around, in part due to more stringent building and fire codes, but even those are unlikely to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again. “Nothing, not even a concrete house, could have survived in such a situation, because windows are always the weakest line of defense,” Aidlin explains.

Thelow-maintenance zinc cladding, which created the visual illusion of fie resistance, also could not withstand the force of the fie, which grabbed extra fuel — patches of dry wild grass — as it advanced up the hill.

“Only buildings on heavily watered lots survived,” Aidlin says. “Soaked vegetation prevented the fie from reaching some houses. But lawns are not ecologically smart, and a wide clearing as a fie barrier is not attractive either.”

For now, the danger is past, because Rice and Mehew’s woods are gone and it will be decades before less fire-prone native manzanitas, oaks and madrones they have replanted will mature.

Still, the site is beautiful.

“The silver lining is that without the trees the view is even more spec tacular,” Lau says.

Theonly hurdle to overcome right now is cost, and to reduce that would mean compromising on the custom details, built-in cabinetry and materials that gave the spectacular, glowing structure its identity. “Yes, it could be rebuilt with stucco and plasterboard,” Aidlin says. “But that just wouldn’t feel the same.” n

Opposite: Steel framing outlines the extent of the master bedroom, which is literally and visually extended beyond its boundaries because of the materials that were used. For instance, cedar wood ceilings flwed in unbroken lines from inside to outside as did wood floors. he master bath had a deep tub to sit in and take in the views. The glass-walled shower also looked across the valley below. This page: The floting bedroom felt like a treehouse. By contrast, the guest rooms in the second zinc-clad section of the home were more enclosed.

A house with a cantilevered roof that forms a breezeway canopy is architect Cass Calder Smith’s version of a bleached wood beach “shack” for a surfing amily. Little windows in the facade bring light and air to six bunk beds.

A

BY REED WRIGHT PHOTOGRAPHS BY PAUL DYER

CAITLIN PARDO DE ZELA AND HER HUSBAND, DANIEL LOCKWOOD, moved from the East Coast to the Bay Area for tech jobs nearly 20 years ago. Living in San Francisco made sense because of their commutes.

But Pardo de Zela, an avid surfer who became a full-time mom in 2001 when their second child arrived, needed more than an urban setting. Stinson Beach became a magnet, and they started renting cottages there every summer.

In 2013, with three children in tow, they finallybought an empty lot in Seadrift, the local private beach community with a man-made lagoon. Pardo de Zela was ecstatic.

“I always knew that when I was in a position to build a home, I would ask this woman architect whose work I had coveted in a magazine,” she says.

Imagine her surprise when she called Cass Calder Smith, principal of the San Francisco firmCCS Architecture, and discovered that he is in fact a man. And yet after they met, she found Smith’s inclusive design approach exactly right.

“He did not ask us how many bedrooms we wanted and that sort of thing,” she says. “It was more about how we saw ourselves. He asked us how we wanted to feel in the place.”

Smith learned that the entire family is sporty: the oldest son likes skate boarding (along with fineart and design), and the others love to surf, paddle and canoe. Theparents are also fans of cooking and tequila. “It was important to have a place where we could all invite friends and be creative,” Pardo de Zela says.

Lockwood even wanted the metal shop for his Burning Man art projects moved from the city to Stinson so his wife and their friends could see and enjoy them.

“I love working for people like that,” Smith says. “Artsy, ideas people. They feel very Californian.”

The central deck/courtyard, opposite, is open to the sky. The front door, above, opens directly to open-plan living spaces, and rear doors, below, lead to the lagoon in back.

The concrete floors hve radiant heat; oiled surfaces of reclaimed wood are water resistant. Bright furnishings and objects liven up the white-walled interior. A nook with a ceiling-hung fieplace thrusts out over the lagoon.

Having designed at least 50 homes and myriad restaurants (including San Francisco’s 25 Lusk) since 1986, and with another client’s Seadrift lagoon house to guide him, Smith quickly got started.

“Thedesign process was so much fun I didn’t want it to end,” Pardo de Zela recalls. But it did, and by 2016 they had their new getaway.

Thesimple 2,100-square-foot box-like wood-frame house shares ele ments of neighboring midcentury homes by the likes of Joe Esherick and William Wurster. Like those houses, it already seems weathered because of its gray-stained cedar siding. But that’s where the resemblance ends.

“I added zingers and played with the cantilevered roof,” Smith says.

The single-story house, set back 18 feet from the street on its 7,500-square-foot lot, is considerably elevated, in keeping with Marin County coastal regulations for rising sea levels. It is laid out in an C shape, with the canopied south-facing opening forming a breezeway from the street into a central decked courtyard that has views of Mount Tamalpais.

Thecourtyard is flankedby a garage and media room on the west side and a row of bedrooms on the other; at the far end, the front door leads into a dramatic L-shaped open-plan living area that juts out over the lagoon.

Inside, the skylit space has an outdoor feeling. And large retractable north- and east-facing doors literally open the room to a back deck with stairs that lead directly down to a boat dock, dockside spa and fire pit.

The living areas are capacious, but the bedrooms are small and “the shared spaces are very shared,” Smith says. For instance, the media room doubles as additional guest space, and the southwest corner children’s room, which he calls the “kid warehouse,” has three two-tiered bunk beds and a sleeping loft so eight people can squeeze in if need be.

“I like to design for kids,” Smith says. Each child’s bed has a window, visible on the facade, and an individually operated light fixtue. And both bathrooms in the house have a door to the outside so when kids come in wet from the lagoon they don’t have to cut (and track water) across the living room.

To cater to the parents, he included an outdoor shower (requested by Pardo de Zela) just outside the master suite for other direct access to the lagoon. And he oriented the kitchen to meet their needs: “Normally, I do the cooking and Dan does dishes, so the sink faces the mountains, and the stove, on a large kitchen island, faces the dining room,” Pardo de Zela says. When there is a crowd, several cooks can easily work together.

Pardo de Zela, never passive throughout the design and building phase, was even more engaged in deciding interior finishes.“I am a ‘less-is-more’ person and my husband is a ‘more-is-more’ guy,” she says. “He always wants color, color, color, but I wanted green materials and natural colors since we were at the beach.”

She got her way. Plasterboard walls are painted white, and the large expanses of glass blur boundaries between inside and out; the master shower walls are tiled with board-formed concrete; clay roof tiles support photovoltaic solar panels that supply all the electricity; concrete floors that contain radiant heating are polished to reveal the aggregate.

Such water-resistant materials, while practical, can appear cold, so as a foil, Smith clad the ceilings with wood, and built-in cabinets are made of lively aged sinker cypress wood.

But when it came to anything not fied in place, it seems Lockwood, the inveterate Burner, made an end run.

While most of the art Pardo de Zela picked for the walls is black-andwhite photography, “almost every piece of furniture and every piece of glass pops with color,” she says with a chuckle. “That’s all him.” n

The house is small but designed so that the entire family has the freedom to go in and out of the water without trailing sand into the living spaces. Opposite page: The kids’ room has six bunk beds and more loft room for friends; from the living area a doorway leads to the master bedroom. This page: In the master bedroom, the headboard doubles as the mirror wall for the bathroom sink; a side door opens to the outdoor shower, which also has direct access to the lagoon.

BY SARAH MOLINE PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID WILSON

OUT of the BOX

“IT SOUNDS CRAZY BUT IT’S GONNA WORK.” This was architect David Wilson’s silent mantra when he first hatched the plan to build a temporary dwelling inside his house in the Berkeley Hills. The “crate,” as Wilson referred to it, would allow him and his wife, phy sician Stacia Cronin, to remain in their home during planned renovations instead of moving into a costly rental.

Wilson and Cronin are empty-nesters whose kids are grown. The decided to embark on their architectural adventure after purchasing an unassuming 1,000-square-foot prewar cottage in 2011. Its large level lot and expansive bay views were hard to come by, and they devised a two-step renovation that would let them completely transform the house without tearing it down and starting from scratch.

Thefirstphase involved the street-facing side of the house. Acting as his own general contractor, Wilson enclosed a carport to form a garage and entry courtyard, added a bedroom and updated the kitchen.

Thecouple lived with this initial update for a few years while they perfected their approach for an even more ambitious phase two. The finalied plans to reorganize the living spaces and add a second-story master suite above a spacious dining room addition.

That would mean months of construction, but “we just didn’t want to move,” Wilson says.

ARCHITECT DAVID WILSON BUILT A CRATE IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS HOME RENOVATION CONSTRUCTION SITE SO HE AND HIS WIFE WOULDN’T HAVE TO MOVE OUT.

Opposite: Architect David Wilson’s new master bedroom flots atop the enlarged living spaces below it. During construction, a boxed-in area with a window that incoporated the kitchen and dining areas became the family’s temporary home. The new staircase has figued wood cladding and the dining table has a live edge.

Wilson likes to play with materials: hand-troweled plaster for the fieplace, end-grain wood blocks for the floo, glass railings and plenty of colorful art that tempers the modernist edge. Paintings by family members include one over the fieplace by Cronin’s mother, Alice, a celebrated Bay Area painter; the green painting in the dining room is by their son Chase.

It occurred to him that the new building would have much higher ceilings, and so the existing kitchen and living room could be enclosed — like a box within a box — for the couple to live in while the rest of the enlarged house was constructed around them.

“I’ve never heard of anyone else doing this, but I knew it would work,” Wilson says.

Cronin, exhausted at the thought of having to move some place else, put her faith in his instincts and grudgingly agreed.

Wilson plotted every square inch carefully, adjusting the height and width of the proposed second-story addition to guarantee that no neighbor’s views would be impeded.

With permits in hand, and in less than two days, the archi tect and his son Chase built a compact “crate” to enclose the existing kitchen, dining and living room. Theymade sure the crate was completely sealed with tape to keep the dust out. A window, salvaged from the old laundry room and installed into one of the crate walls, allowed Wilson and Cronin to both glimpse a bit of their beloved view and monitor the crew’s daily progress from demolition to finished construction.

In that surreal setting, life went on inside the tiny crate while Wilson and Cronin surveyed the changes around them. For instance, even while four concrete piers were drilled and tied to a new foundation just a few feet away from the crate walls, Cronin sat at the dining table working on notes and charts for her patients. And as the new staircase rose gradually to a master suite perched above a new glass-enclosed dining room, friends and family came to admire the spectacle or for intimate dinner parties inside the crate.

“It was cozy and it worked,” Cronin says. “But there were days when I was on the phone working from home while a construction crew walking around on top of the crate had their radios blaring. Some mornings, I would wake to the noise of three excavators just outside our bedroom window.”

They surely suffered all those disruptions with some discomfort, but their proximity to the construction had its rewards, especially for Wilson, who puts a premium on mate rial finishesand textures in his work. Perhaps for the firsttime in his 30-year career he got to be on the front lines watching the details of his plans being executed in perfect sequence.

In that surreal setting, LIFE WENT ON INSIDE THE TINY CRATE while Wilson and Cronin surveyed the changes around them.

Richly figued California walnut wood cladding for the central staircase, blue-gray plaster and glass tile for the old fieplace and bleached end-grain firwood flooring— a Wilson favorite — were all combined for textural effects to liven up the rectilinear modernist geometry.

Last in line were the walls. For those to be finished prop erly, the crate had to go.

When Wilson and Chase took down the makeshift box they had assembled, “it was dramatic,” the architect recalls. “I knew basically what it was going to feel like, but when we went from full shed to no shed in about three hours, we could finally see the view of the bay all the way from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate to Angel Island with Mount Tam in the distance. It was a big reveal.”

Theirnew 2,400-square-foot space is big enough for the two of them, and it has spare rooms for when their children visit. And because Wilson and Cronin’s new dining room opens onto a deck, the place is actually big enough for parties with about 80 people. Theydefinitelydon’t miss the crate. Outside its confinement, even the dining table that can now seat 18 people feels almost as large as the enormous view. n

The new additions mesh well with what Wilson had finished in the fit round of remodeling, including a gravel-covered entry courtyard and exterior stucco finishes paired with red Parklex, a resin-and-wood from Spain that matches the sapeli wood windows. A trellised walkway leads to the guest bedroom where a painting by son Chase hangs. Upstairs, in the new master suite, the double vanity echoes the form and material palette of the perimeter wall. The sinks here are custom.

PARADISE

BY ZAHID SARDAR PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARION BRENNER

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT MICHAEL LUCAS WAS INSPIRED BY A WESTERN WILDERNESS IN SONOMA, WHERE HE CREATED A CALIFORNIA MISSION–STYLE WALLED GARDEN.

“I DON’T MISS THE CITY AT ALL,”

Marilyn Coon Stocke, a former schoolteacher who is now a bookkeeper in Sonoma, says. “I have a become a country girl.”

Her transformation began inadvertently nearly six years ago, when her architect, George Bevan, invited Healdsburg-based landscape architect Michael Lucas to help design her weekend garden.

Stocke had owned six neglected acres of Sonoma farmland for 15 years and was finallyready to build north of Sausalito, where she lived. Over the years, she had begun to love her patch of Sonoma, even though, with it being so close to tidal flats,the groundwater is boron-infused and, without a sheltered courtyard — let alone a house — her property was too windy to inhabit on most afternoons.

Luckily, when Lucas came on board, Bevan hadn’t yet designed her house, and the 19th-century Mission San Francisco Solano, which is minutes away, became a font of ideas for ways to live indoors as well as outdoors. Inspired by what they saw there, Lucas and Bevan, who have frequently worked together, toyed with a paradise garden theme and arrived at a master plan: an enclosed 2,500-square-foot walled garden sheltered in part by an equally large L-shaped house.

“Marilyn’s property was full of tumbleweeds and decrepit,” Lucas recalls. Overrun with weeds, poison oak and the remnants of on old pear orchard, it was “spooky, but it still had a sense of place and a certain mystique.”

Clearing fire-prone brush became a priority, but native oaks and euca lyptus trees growing on the site, a safe distance from where the house now stands, were saved.

Thegarden walls as well as the house, like the mission, are finishedwith low-cost white stucco. In the center of the courtyard Lucas fashioned an arresting 25-foot-long by four-foot-wide concrete reflecting pool, edged sparingly with more durable white Wisconsin limestone that echoes early western watering troughs for horses.

The entrance to Marilyn Coon Stocke’s garden designed by landscape architect Michael Lucas of the Healdsburg firm Lucas & Lucas is a tudy in contrasts: drought resistant and deliberately wild and untamed outside its white garden wall, and lush, green and irrigated inside.

This page: The house designed by Sonoma architect George Bevan sits atop a plinth that provides outdoor living spaces that are integrated with Lucas’ sheltered garden. A breezeway links the garden to the rest of the seven-acre property. An allée of trees leads to a fie pit alongside a garden wall that has a cutout window that can be shuttered when it gets too windy. Opposite page: The concrete “horse trough” reflecting pond edged with limestone helps to ground the gravel-covered irrigated garden filled with Australian agapanthus and star jasmine plants. Outside the paradise garden, Lucas added grasses that need little tending or watering. A “barn door” can be pulled across the wall-opening when afternoon winds get too gusty.

“We also had to create places to sit in the shade,” Lucas says. So Bevan organized rooms that open onto covered patios and decks for outdoor dining.

Two-foot-high raised rubble-and-concrete patios form an L. Thelarger section has seating that overlooks the water feature, and offthe kitchen door is a smaller area for daily dining. A few steps down, a section covered with gravel contains a barbecue and a large trellis under which Stocke can seat four to 12 guests, her ideal numbers. Nearby, a fie pit offerswarmth on cool evenings.

In back, a breezeway leads to winter ponds and a gravel mulch path, a large eucalyptus bench, stepping-stones and large granite boulders.

In sum, the courtyard that the Healdsburg firmLucas & Lucas created is its own universe, visible from virtually every room in the house and large enough to accommodate as many as 50 guests in its many enclaves. Its plantings from 2013 have grown large and lush, all carefully irrigated with 10,000 gallons of fresh water trucked in monthly during summer. Tha costs about $450 a month but is worth it. Star jasmine forms a fragrant ground cover while olive, ornamental pear and black Mission figtrees, agapanthus plants, red roses and what Lucas calls “straight-up everyday lush-looking plants” thrive.

Beyond the walls, kangaroo paw, Australian rosemary, acacias, dwarf olives, a variety of grasses, salvias and aloes, as well plants that attract hummingbirds, hold sway. Theyare all hardy, but some plants such as coastal rosemary simply did not survive the firstwinter or fell prey to gophers and moles. Luckily, agaves, which those burrowers particularly love, are self-perpetuating and grow back.

“All I wanted was a wind-breaker. I didn’t plan to have a courtyard but I am so glad that’s the way it turned out,” Stocke says. “The courtyard is a marvelous oasis and a pleasant surprise for anyone who walks past the drought-resistant plants into a garden with a water feature and green walls. It is fun to see their reactions.”

With the effot it takes to maintain such a garden, it is as if Stocke and her husband, Roland, who during weekends is quite hands-on with pruning and caring for the grounds, are both latter-day pioneers. She now lives there full-time and they will both retire there someday.

“When I come home from work I walk the property and check where gophers might have gotten in,” Stocke says. “Thee are other pests like rabbits to contend with. It is always a maintenance dance.” Having lived in Australia, she is particularly wary of jackrabbits. Deer, a nuisance in neighboring vineyards, luckily keep to the periphery, within the thicket of oaks, eucalyptus and the last of the pear trees.

“At some point we may wonder what we are doing, but not now,” Stocke muses. “It is a lot of work, but I am so happy here.” n

I DIDN’T PLAN TO HAVE A COURTYARD BUT I AM SO GLAD THAT’S THE WAY IT TURNED OUT.

BY PAUL DYER; STYLING BY MARCH

SEEING THE LIGHT

Diego Pacheco Design Practice’s “tunnel vision” makes architectural sense.

WHEN THEY BOUGHT IT three years ago, Barb Chambers and Joe Vernachio’s 1940s two-story Mill Valley home, on a large upsloping lot and with white stucco facade and red-clay-tiled roof, had stood unchanged for nearly 75 years.

To help with a remodel, Chambers, who had worked in the past as a building construction manager, enlisted designer Diego Pacheco, whom she had teamed with on a previous renovation project and whose archi tectural practice is based in San Francisco. Her goal was to modernize and enlarge the 2,300-square-foot home to better accommodate her family, including two children ages 14 and 12. But, she told Pacheco, there were some ground rules.

“Thee are others houses just like it built in a row, and Barb just did not want to disturb the prevailing aesthetic,” the designer says.

So the Mediterranean Spanish/California–style facade appears untouched, but inside and in back, where there was little need for restraint, they added vast improvements and 500 square feet of living space.

“Theinterior was cramped and dark and there was no connection to the outdoors,” Pacheco recalls. After the old lath-and-plaster walls were torn down or stripped to bare studs, “we quickly filled the house with light.”

How? The back section of the hipped roof was raised into a gable shape that extends out to cover the rear addition, and a long skylight in the middle

BY

Top to bottom: The new dining area, with a wall-hung credenza by Henrybuilt, looks out on an upsloping terraced garden with outdoor seating; from outside there is a clear view of the front rooms inside; the old rear yard before the extension.

Clockwise from top: The front room above the garage has a ceiling-mounted fieplace; the central kitchen island extends seamlessly to form a breakfast counter; the facade looks unchanged because the garage extension has a red tiled roof that matches the original roof.

In the new open-plan interior, a marble-topped island for the gal ley kitchen is fited with painted steel Henrybuilt storage drawers and doubles as a parapet wall for skylit stairs that dip down to the lower level. Bottom right: Small rooms in the old interior.

of the new vaulted space illuminates the reorganized interior. Thismain floor with fresh white painted Sheetrock walls is split into two long, frontto-back parallel public and private wings. Pocket doors along the central spine conveniently shut off the entire three-bedroom wing during parties.

In the new open-plan public wing with unfettered sight lines from front to back, the living room up front flws toward a central galley kitchen containing a 20-foot-long marble island that doubles as breakfast table and place for rolling out pastry. Theisland also cleverly functions as a railing for the skylit stairs that lead down to the enlarged two-car garage, a playroom and a guest room.

Thenew kitchen “was our biggest splurge,” Chambers says, as Vernachio, president of the Mountain Hardware clothing company, likes to cook at home and entertain. “I also cook, but my Italian husband is a badass chef,” she adds. “He goes to farmers’ markets, reduces sauces, makes his own pasta, sears, grills, bakes; he does it all.”

Tough, powder-coated steel kitchen cabinets by Henrybuilt were ordered at the company’s Mill Valley showroom, which Chambers discovered during her search for “fuss-free materials,” she says. “These modern metal cabinets are beautifully made and not sterile.” In fact, she became such a fan of the brand she went with Henrybuilt cabinets throughout the house.

“They were great collaborators,” Pacheco says of Henrybuilt. “They took my design, fleshedit out and manufactured it. Theircraftsmanship makes this kitchen a showpiece and a focal point. And it also cleans up really well.”

Theadjacent dining area, with soaring ceilings, pushes out into the rear extension, where retractable bifold doors by Corte Madera–based NanaWall easily open the space to the now much-used gray integrally colored concrete patio and artificiallawn outside. New concrete steps link the patio to raised alfresco dining terraces.

In a way, although the home has changed a lot, it has also become more itself. “Its old Mediterranean look implied indoor/outdoor living, but it did not have that,” Pacheco says. “We definitelybrought that aspect to the fore.” n

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BY

WHEN LIGHT BULBS GO OFF

Conceptual photographer Catherine Wagner doesn’t just chase the light.

CATHERINE WAGNER , the award-winning San Francisco conceptual artist whose 1978 pho tographic images of a still-forming Moscone Center will soon be incised into the granite walls of the new Yerba Buena/Moscone subway station near SFMOMA, says in her latest book, Catherine Wagner: Place, History and the Archive, that “photography presents the opportunity to view the world in the way Jorge Luis Borges and the magical realists write about it — as something more.”

In other words, a photographic image, Wagner suggests, is like a single moment that implies a past and also a future. It is an archaeological fragment floating in time, wait ing to be interpreted.

Documenting the development of the neighborhood around the Moscone Center over a five-year period during the ’70s was “archaeology in reverse,” she says, because she was witnessing the layering of history beginning with a skeletal infrastructure.

As Shoair Mavlian, director of Photoworks UK, writes about Wagner’s four-decade career in the book, Wagner’s “cornerstone themes include the architecture of public space, the framework of leisure time, our private space, educational structures and the delivery and transmission of knowledge, history, archives and the museum, and the underlying presence of science and technology.”

Represented by the Anglim Gilbert Gallery in San Francisco and widely exhibited in the Bay Area and throughout the United States, Japan and Europe, Wagner also considers each exhibition design as a component of her art and meticulously sets the stage.

She paints walls and backdrops, adds props and controls lighting for atmospheric

Top: A still life composed of vintage light bulbs from Wagner’s 2006 photo series A Narrative History of the Light Bulb.

Above: From the 2005 series called Re-Classifying History, which documents accidental juxtapositions of crated sculptures at the de Young Museum.

Left: “Delilah Back.”

“readings” of the framed images hanging on the walls, which ultimately are protagonists in an unending play: time.

Perhaps the complex structural buildup for each show reflectsWagner’s ongoing preoccupa tions: architecture and culture. Home and Other Stories, shown in 1993 at LACMA, consisted of triptych images of the domestic environments of strangers. In her essay in the book, Mavlian suggests the triptychs also present a sanitized version of life, as tightly edited Facebook or social media posts do today.

Wagner’s catchy titles are also like the tips of icebergs filled with content.

One set of images of books written in Braille was titled trans/literate to indicate what the artist was thinking.

“Braille publishing was going away because of technology and blind people had to rely on audiobooks. Reading is the foundation of how we construct ideas — even abstract ideas,” Wagner says. “By documenting this I wanted to talk about the politics of how knowledge gets transferred.”

Another set of images depicting the history of medical splints presumably for wounded soldiers was poignantly called Reparations. The accidental jumble of crated artworks and furni ture when the de Young museum was moving from its old building to make room for its new one was photographed for a 2005 exhibition called Re-Classifying History.

At the Baltimore Museum of Industry, Wagner found a collection of vintage light bulbs and used them to create a series of Morandiesque still-lifes titled A Narrative History of the Light Bulb. In the series, one image dubbed

Lamps of 1900 was of bulbs from that period; another grouping called Utopia deliberately mixed bulbs from different periods; blue bulbs titled Ode to Yves honored the artist Yves Klein. “I made diffeent narratives from these installations,” Wagner explains. Thenarratives loosely tracked the invention and the history of the light bulb, but the bulbs also served as metaphors for parallel histories of that time.

Coming full circle, Archaeology in Reverse, Wagner’s most recent exhibition at Mills College in Oakland, where she has taught photography for three decades, was a collaborative site-specificinstallation with architects Nicholas de Monchaux and Kathryn Moll as well as cho reographer Molissa Fenley, her colleague and a professor of dance at Mills.

“It cut into new territory yet cycled back to my earliest engagement with architecture and construction at Moscone. At the Mills College Art Museum, photography interfaced with existing architecture,” Wagner says.

For the exhibition, she exposed the museum’s usually concealed glass-roofed skylight with the use of periscopes that reveal hidden elements within the rafters. Photographs of repaired or altered sections of the building and views from doors and loading docks that had been covered over for half a century form “apertures” to the

Top: Wagner’s 2013 series trans/literate includes images of Braille books including Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller that are being replaced by audiobooks.

Bottom: Another still life from A Narrative History of the Light Bulb

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VOICES

FROM PAGE 55

together the money to send her, and it changed her life. “I learned everything about art, and I just became fascinated,” she says. “I had found my world.”

Tejada got her firstjob in Basque country, which was fraught with political turmoil at the time, then left for a position in Marbella, Spain, designing high-end kitchens for expen sive mansions. She came to the U.S. in 1979 for personal reasons: she had fallen in love with an American. When she visited him they drove across the country, from Connecticut to San Francisco, and she fell in love all over again. “I felt like I had found my kingdom here,” she says. “I love the freedom, and the people from all over the world.” Even though she and her boyfriend broke up years later, Tejada remained in San Francisco. She married someone else, had two sons, and later divorced amicably.

But all the while she was definingthe Celia Tejada style, first as an interior designer and then as a fashion designer creating clothes under her own name (with Diane Moore). Her design house sold items to the likes of Barneys New York and I. Magnin. When the stock market tanked in the mid-’90s, though, her business struggled too. Thatwas when Gary Friedman, then the president of Williams Sonoma, approached her to start a design division for Pottery Barn.

At the time, Pottery Barn (owned by Williams Sonoma) mostly sold furniture from other manufacturers. As senior vice president of design and brand division, Tejada helped cre ate the look for which Pottery Barn is known today: stylish casual living. She then helped do the same at Pottery Barn Kids and Pottery Barn Teen. In 2001, Friedman left for Corte Madera’s RH. Tejada joined him there in 2013.

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The more Tejada became an American tastemaker, however, the more she longed for home. In 1999, she and her brother had bought property in Lake County and created a Spanish-style ranch there, Rancho Tejada, growing tempranillo and grenache grapes and making their own wine (which they sold, briefly). She also grew increasingly concerned about the “beautiful, forgotten valley” in Spain where she’d grown up. It was dying, and young people were leaving. So in 2016, she bought a mill house, built in 1670, and converted it to Molino Tejada, a luxurious inn.

Tejada designed the interiors there, includ ing the common notes that appear in all of her properties: a mixture of high- and low-end furniture, antiques, lots of daybeds, tons of

pillows and fabulous kitchens. And, of course, she included dining room tables with benches — not chairs — because, she says, “I don’t want to limit the number of guests.” The table in the dining room in her childhood farmhouse, a room now located in the property’s former stables, seats 42.

Molino Tejada quickly drew the attention of publications such as Conde Nast Traveler, Vogue and Architectural Digest, and guests arrived from around the world. Tejada now envisions the inn as an arts and cultural center. Already, Spanish artists such as Adrian Ssegura and Okuda San Miguel have been in residence and created vivid outdoor murals.

It’s hard to imagine Tejada would have it otherwise. Her San Francisco home, its walls painted in gray, black or white, is an ode to art. One room brims with poetry books. Another with design and photography books. Another holds a home theater. “I love to be around writers, photographers, filmmakers and chefs,” she says.

Tha’s evident on Thursdaynights. Theeclec tic, creative group she gathers is like family to her. She reads them Neruda, as they sit at the custom-made 15-foot table in her San Francisco dining room. Thetable is small by Tejada’s stan dards. It seats only 25. n

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BY REED WRIGHT IN BLOOM

HOME GROWN

Regional experts go for evergreens.

SAN FRANCISCO’S 1915 PANAMA- Pacific Inernational Exposition gave Italian sculptor Leo Lentelli, an assistant to an exposition officiawho was the father of sculptor Alexander Calder, the opportunity to create sculptural “water sprites” in its Court of Abundance. Lentelli also fashioned allegorical statues representing art, literature, philosophy, science and law for the city’s main library in 1918. Like his other works, those fie larger-thanlife cast stone library statues were not intended to last, but they’re still around, rescued at auction in 2004 by East Bay architects Lucia Howard and David Weinstein, whose company Piraneseum collects such decorative arts, some for sale. Now these Lentelli figues stand permanently on the edge of Howard and Weinstein’s circular evergreen garden in Lafayette, bordered by orange flwered Aloe arborescens succulents (not shown), large Brahea armata var. “clara” and small Chamaerops humilis var. “argentea” palms, Agave franzosinii agaves, and Miscanthus transmorrisonensis grasses.

The rich textural tableau reflects it creators: Howard and Weinstein (the latter happens to be maverick architect Charles Moore’s nephew) headed the postmodernist-oriented Oakland design firmAce Architects in the 1980s. And garden designer Margaret Majua, founder of Bay Retail Enterprises, a multistore company that sells whimsical souvenirs, belongs to an informal group of passionate horticulturists called — wait for it — the Hortisexuals. piraneseum.com; Bay Retail Enterprises, 510.610.2290

NATURAL

FORGE

Did you see something you like in one of our feature stories? This handy resource guide will tell you who made the major pieces in our pages, what type of item it is and where to find it

FRAME OF MIND

ARCHITECT Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects, eyrc.com, principal architects Steven Ehrlich and Takashi Yanai; LANDSCAPE DESIGN SurfaceDesign, sdisf. com; LIGHTING DESIGNER PritchardPeck Lighting

LIVING ROOM Sofa set, Minotti, minotti. com/en; speaker tower, KEF blades, us.kef. com; KITCHEN Kitchen cabinets/dining counter, Minimal Kitchen, minimalusa.com; DINING ROOM Dining stools, Minotti; hanging lights, Stone Lighting, stonelighting. net; BATHROOM Faucets, Boffi, bocom; BEDROOM Chair, Knoll Eero Saarinen Womb Chair, knoll.com.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE

ARCHITECT and INTERIOR DESIGN Zack/de Vito Architecture + Construction, Jim Zack, Reggie Stump, Andy Drake; interior by Lise de Vito and Sarah Nicholas, zackdevito.com; LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Randy Thueme Design, randythuemedesign.com; CONTRACTOR Fairweather & Associates, fairweather-assoc.com RESOURCES

EXTERIOR Lap pool, Wine Country Pools, winecountrypools.net; LIVING/DINING/ KITCHEN Occasional chairs, DWR, dwr.com; credenzas, Zack/de Vito, zackdevito.com; side Table, Blu Dot, bludot.com; rug, Restoration Hardware, restorationhardware. com; sofa and ottoman, B&B Italia, bebitalia. com/en, bar stools, De La Espada, delaespada.com; dining chairs, De La Espada; dining table, Zack/de Vito; ceiling light fixtue, Roll & Hill, rollandhill.com; MESSANINE OFFICE/DEN Desk, Zack/de Vito; wall shelves, Zack/de Vito; rug, ascend-rugs.com; PATIO Bar stools, Sossego, sossegodesign.com; dining chairs and ottoman, DWR; dining table, Crate & Barrel, crateandbarrel.com; side table, Room & Board, roomandboard.com; Sofas, Henry Hall, henryhalldesigns.com; MASTER BATHROOM Bathtub, MTI, mtibaths.com

DÉJÀ VU

ARCHITECT and INTERIOR DESIGN by Aidlin Darling Design aidlindarlingdesign. com; principals Joshua Aidlin and David Darling, project architect Cherie Lau, project team Michael Pierry

LIVING ROOM Chair, Label Van den Berg, label.nl; MASTER BEDROOM Bed, De La Espada, delaespada.com, hanging bedside lamps, Naomi Paul, naomipaul.co.uk; MASTER BATHROOM Bathtub, Wetstyle, wetstyle.ca

RESOURCES

THE NEXT WAVE

THE NEXT WAVE

ARCHITECT and DESIGN Cass Calder Smith Architecture, ccs-architecture.com, design principal Cass Calder Smith, project architect Björn Steudte; interior design director Barbara Turpin-Vickroy

DECK Planter, West Elm, westelm.com; outdoor furniture, Restoration Hardware, restorationhardware.com; sliding doors, Fleetwood Window & Doors, fleetoodusa. com; KITCHEN Stools, Bludot, bludot.com/ sanfrancisco; Décor letters, RH Teen, rhteen. com; LIVING ROOM Fireplace, Fireorb, fieorb.net; dining table, elm wood from Alchemy in Design, alchemyindesign. wordpress.com, tabletop by Jeff Burell Art Design and Fabrication, jeffburell.com, base by owner Dan Lockwood; KIDS’ BEDROOM Bunk beds, custom design by CCS Architecture, ccs-architecture.com; Berber rug, Etsy, etsy.com; pillows, Etsy; HALL Prints by Kelsey Brookes, Quint Gallery, kelseybrookes.com, quintgallery. com; MASTER BATHROOM Sink fixtues, Hansgrohe, hansgrohe.com; tile and backsplash, Stone Source, stonesource.com; countertop, Bohemian Stoneworks, bohemianstoneworks.com; MASTER BEDROOM Custom-designed platform bed, CCS Architecture; ceiling fan, Big Ass Fans, bigassfans.com

OUT of the BOX

OUT OF THE BOX

ARCHITECT David Stark Wilson, WA Design, wadesign.com.

DINING ROOM Custom dining table, Berkeley Mills, berkeleymills.com; ceiling light, Foscarini, foscarini.com; dining chairs, Design Within Reach, dwr.com; LIVING ROOM MYChair lounge chair by Walter Knoll, Walter Knoll, walterknoll.de/en; Moroso end table, Dzine, dzineliving.com; painting by Alice Cronin; BATHROOM Sink, Concreteworks, concreteworks.com; faucets, KWC, kwc.com/english/home.html; GUEST BEDROOM Painting by Chase Wilson, chasewilson.net; bedside lamp, Artemide, artemide.com/en

PARADISE CALLING

LANDSCAPE DESIGN Lucas & Lucas Landscape Architecture, landscape architect Michael Lucas, lucas-lucas.com

Items pictured but not listed are from private collections, or no additional details are available.

MARQUEE VALUE

An extravagant popcorn palace became a nexus between politics and social change.

BLUE-AND-WHITE-CLAD USHERETTES

“schooled in the ways of feminine tact” no longer greet filmgoersat the Castro Theate, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported they did in 1922. But few movie theaters retain the feel of their opening days as well as this Spanish-baroque beauty that helps define the neighborhood.

Both facade and interior are largely intact, it’s still single-screen, it still shows movies every day, and almost all the detailing remains origi nal, including tile work and a ceiling resembling “some richly ornamental and costly fabric,” in the Chronicle’s words.

Yet this place has proved itself able to change with the times. The1922 rendition was, after all, called the “New Castro.” An earlier, smaller Castro down the block, where Cliff’s Variety is now, was closed to give its big sister the stage.

The theater is an early work by architect Timothy Pflueger, who soon found fame with area landmarks like Oakland’s art deco Paramount Theatre and San Francisco’s

moderne PacificCoast Stock Exchange and Mayan-revival 450 Sutter Street.

Theater restorer David Boysel described it to the Chronicle well: “You have a ceiling that looks like an Asian tent, walls that look like they came from an English country house, murals showing a garden folly with a fountain in the middle, an art deco chandelier and organ grilles that look like they came from some palace in Europe.”

TheCastro opened with 2,000 seats, but it was not designed as a spectacular picture palace. It was a neighborhood theater, grand but not overly so, a place where folks could come several times a week, meet friends and not have to dress up. That may seem tame compared to Pflueger’s awe-inspiring Paramount, but few neighborhood theaters can top the Castro for character. Th architect oversaw each detail, from the mural created sgraffito style (scratching through layers of colored plaster) to the 25-foot-tall arched window dominating the facade. After a fie in 1937, Pflueger returned and added the art deco chandelier, and a new marquee was installed.

Thetheater has had two superb organs in its life time, a Conn organ that was replaced by a Mighty Wurlitzer in 1982. The pre-show music, integral to the movie-going experience, is now as beloved as the theater itself.

Cinemas hit hard times in the 1960s. San Francisco’s largest and most magnificent,the Fox, went down in 1963. A former usher recalled the Castro in 1969 as a “run-down neighborhood theater” with “tawdry charm.”

In 1976 new operator Mel Novikoffmade the Castro a destination, restoring it as an art and repertory house, which it has essentially remained ever since. Through a succession of operators, including the Nasser family, who built the theater, it catered to the neigh borhood’s gay community, as well as fans of serious cinema, silents and filmnoir, with fes tivals, sing-alongs and appearances by drag star Peaches Christ.

When the biopic Milk, about city supervisor and activist Harvey Milk, was filmedin the area, the Castro Theate benefited.Thefilmmaker repainted the facade and restored the neon to give scenes shot out front a 1970s feel — and perhaps to thank the theater for amplifying the neighborhood's political and social message. n

Today's guests can enjoy singing along to Yellow Submarine and an opening organ performance. Black-and-white images from top: two interior images from the 1940s; exterior from 1927.

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