The design of this Menlo Park home was inspired by the owner’s fascination with the Southern California Case Study contemporary homes of the 1950’s, which feature large expanses of glass, open floor plans and the concept of opening up interior spaces in order to bring in the outdoors. While a distinctly modern home, its interior was made warm and inviting through the choice of finish materials, including vertical grain Douglas fir windows, doors and ceilings. The exterior is characterized by a carefully designed composition of horizontal, low profile roof planes, trellis structures and finish materials in stucco, wood, steel and brick. One of the home’s most distinctive features is a full-height brick masonry wall in the living room composed of earthen-colored oversized brick in a stacked bond pattern.
San Mateo
Menlo Park, CA
The 13,000 SF lot had the unique feature of fronting streets at two opposite sides, resulting in having two front yards, and no private rear-yard area. The design of the home was conceived through embracing the two front yards and connecting them via a circulation axis with endpoints that create two front entries at opposite ends of the home. At the center point of this axis, there is a long, all-glass span of exterior wall with operable doors. This wall opens to a large side-facing courtyard that defines a private outdoor living space complete with a built-in BBQ.
The courtyard is enclosed on three sides with predominantly glass exterior walls, flooding the interior of the home with natural light. With the floor-area of the home distributed among three floors, the footprint of the home on the lot is minimized, increasing the connection to the outdoors. Even the basement is full of natural light, with two large sunken patios on each side of the habitable subterranean spaces. The exterior wall of the stair is filled with glass, bringing even more natural light into the interior spaces of the home.
Partners
- General ContractorHunner Associates General Contractors