Wildwood

VISTAS, TILE, and TARO BUNS

This three-story 1920’s Spanish Revival home was outstanding from the start: style dialed in with just enough eclecticism to signify California, details clean and simple, rooms spacious and beautifully shaped, and at its core a robust redwood frame. Still, odd renovations and remodels throughout its history chipped away at the ideal. Vestiges of a different time did little more than subtract space from the whole. Floor by floor, the house was rethought and rebuilt.

The client expressed usual needs- a better kitchen for example, a worthy primary bath- as well as some more sophisticated architectural desires, like opening up the stair to read as a multi-level, unified, sunny space, rather than closed-off and segmented. The stair would no longer be a barrier to the basement, but rather an invitation to a newly bright and welcoming lower level.

Vistas throughout the house were opened to better connect interior spaces to one another and to connect the interior to the exterior . . . through the redwoods and over the hillside . . . to downtown Oakland . . . to the Bay and its bridges . . . to the San Francisco skyline.

A rich palette of materials flowed into the design process from myriad sources. Material and color were studied studied in daylight and shadow; rich patterns and textures emerged as a primary feature of the home.