The owners of this home, a couple that splits their time between their California and Arizona properties, wanted a fun and easygoing retreat from the heat of the Southwestern desert, right here in Rockridge.  Drawing from the warmth and grandeur of the region, architect Lisa Trujillo helped them design a new upstairs pied-á-terre whose intimate scale and Southwestern flair fit their sensibility.

The original single story, three bedroom home was in great shape, but was too large for their needs.  The owners wanted to pare down in size, but build up to capture views, light and spaciousness.  The solution was to add a second story, secondary dwelling unit on a more practical and intimate scale. The focal point is a large vaulted living room with soaring ceilings, its drama heightened by custom-milled and stained wooden beams.  A study, kitchen, powder room, and bedroom with en suite bath and laundry complete the scope. The backyard features a hardscape with water features, storage room with attached carport, and a covered entry porch. The clients procured much of the specialty hardware, doors, light fixtures, and even small trees in Arizona during construction and trucked them back to Oakland for installation.

Working together with contractor Quan Tran, the homeowners fashioned a living quarters well suited to their eclectic taste. Rough-hewn wooden furniture, wrought iron light fixtures and the warm reds of textiles imbue this Oakland retreat with a rustic, sumptuous air.

This Claremont Neighborhood home has gone through quite a few transformations over the last century, and if we counted the bones correctly our transformation was at least the fifth!  The recent winner of a Preservation Award from Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA), this home was originally designed by Harry C Knight in 1909.

What began as a two bedroom Turn of the Century Craftsman bungalow became a two story cottage when a couple of rooms were dormered into the tipped roof attic and accessed by a small stairway in the back.  Some time later the upper floor was enlarged to include the large street-facing gable and a new formal staircase.  Fun fact: the original back staircase was walled in, to be ‘found’ just this last year!  During a subsequent remodel, the formal stairway was widened to a grander scale and the house was re-cast in a thirties semi-art deco style.  A later kitchen renovation was up to date for the fifties, but was still quite formal and out of touch with the rest of the house.  Suffice it to say, the house was a hodgepodge of disjointed remodels, in need of a fresh take.

 

The remodel, restoration and addition kept all of the old and wonderful aspects of the home–such as its original diamond double hung windows–while dispensing with many timeworn formalities–such as the matrix of closed rooms and narrow hallways that comprised its floor plan.  Light-filled and open, the updated home provides the family with an integrated floor plan, allowing for fluid relationships between different spaces. Ultimately, the home feels more ‘original’ and traditional than it has in almost a century, and most authentic to its inhabitants

Back in July, Cindy and Arleta paid a three-day working visit to a very special job site: a new home under construction on the Kohala coast of Hawaii.  Their photographs capture a glimpse of the painstaking process involved in building a residence from the sand up.

Pictured above: contractors excavate the foundation, and put in plumbing and drainage

The palm-lined Pauoa Beach coastline is visible from the construction site.  Not a bad spot to sit and enjoy one’s lunch break!

Queen Construction / Jarvis Architects / David Tamura Landscape Architect job sign in place at the base of a palm tree, set against a Hawaiian sunset backdrop