Fernau & Hartman Architects recently completed the redesign of this Northern California home. With breathtaking views of San Francisco Bay and a colorful past, the house was reimagined as a light and open environment suited to the owners' art collection as well as the surrounding landscape.
HOUSE IN THE EAST BAY HILLS
KENSINGTON, CA
When our clients, a couple approaching retirement, moved back to the Bay Area from Los Alamos, NM, they were drawn to this secluded site and mid-century modernist house that had briefly been the home of Robert Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty in the 1950’s and was originally designed for the painter and art theorist Erle Loran. Perched high above a dense three- acre oak woodland, the two-story house, with garage below and living spaces above, was dark and mostly chopped up into small rooms. The two exceptions were the living / dining room and an adjacent painting studio, awkwardly added by Loran, standing high above the ground on rectangular piers. The studio was oriented for north light and completely turned its back on wide panoramic views of San Francisco Bay to the south and west. One of the remaining elements is the brick fireplace, at one time the site of meetings that drew the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
The owners were fond of both the original house and the associations they had, through Los Alamos, with the previous occupants, but they wanted a house that was much lighter, more open, that would allow for their art collection and that connected better to both the immediate oak-filled site and the more distant landscape.
Panoramic views on the upper level are framed and carefully selected and external sunshades of cedar slats protect from the predominantly southern sun. The kitchen and living area each open to new ipe decks, where the oak canopy, at railing height, results in a nest-like enclosure in the treetops with views out to the Bay and San Francisco in the distance.
