“I will trade you four partitions for four beams.” OK, that’s not precisely what Margaret Griffin of Griffin Enright Architects said to the owners of the home — but it was a wonderful tradeoff nonetheless.
The 2,000-square-foot home was laid out just like many other postwar homes. “It was a string of highly compartmentalized rooms using a staircase in the center,” says Griffin. She relocated the stairs and remade the entire lower level into open-style living by eliminating four partitions which bisected the house and replacing them with a single pillar along with four beams.
“Each of those changes based around one of our major challenges, which was to figure out how to make a bigger apparent volume and maximize the views across the house so that the sight line was open in the front part of the home to the back,” says Griffin. As you’ll see below, these aren’t issues anymore.
Griffin Enright Architects
Griffin notes that the household had amazing furniture. “One of the owners is out of Denmark and brought over lots of the bits,” she says. “They had a very specific idea of a lifestyle and wanted the house to work together with their furniture.” The living room’s main pop of color comes in the Zanotta sofa, which sits next to Orange Slice Chairs by Pierre Paulin. The floors throughout the house are ebony-stained rift-cut white oak.
A single pillar (seen in the rear, centre) stands at which four partitions past met and divided the main level into four different rooms.
Griffin Enright Architects
The renovation included a complete makeover of this exterior. “The house was constructed postwar, but it was not midcentury,” says Griffin. “This is a ‘ranch burger’ of types. We wanted to camouflage the existing roof and create the front part of the house more dynamic.” Her team transformed bay windows to large window boxes which step back from one another and cantilever over a courtyard that’s just in the doorway fronting the road.
Griffin Enright Architects
The courtyard was formerly divided into three separate areas. “We made it one large space — basically you enter into front living area — and also had the living area [which was formerly at the back of the house] and dining room open to the courtyard,” says Griffin. The old brick walls were redone with stucco.
The Louis Ghost Armchairs and Bubble Club Sofa are equally by Philippe Starck for Kartell. The firepit is out of Blomus.
Griffin Enright Architects
Back indoors, it’s clear how nicely the indoor and outdoor areas flow together. “The family loves to amuse a lot, so we used the connection with the courtyard for a way to open up the entire house,” Griffin says. The dining table, observable at left beyond the kitchen is from Design Within Reach and is surrounded by Verner Panton seats.
Griffin Enright Architects
The library (along with also a guest room on the second floor) is part of a 300-square-foot accession to the floor plan. Its back wall abuts a fairly steep cliff, and “we needed the library to step into the hill a little,” says Griffin. “It’s a part of the main house but different within the main place — essentially a room within a room.” To further distinguish the two spaces, the living area has dark wood flooring and a white ceiling, while the library has the specific opposite: a white floor and a dark-stained microlined oak ceiling.
Griffin Enright Architects
The kitchen cabinets are rift-cut white oak which was bleached to present high contrast with the white Corian counters and dark hardwood flooring. The island retains the sink (recessed fixtures provide task lighting), while the Miele range has a pop-up Dacor hood to maintain the total look clean. A Sub-Zero fridge completes the kitchen triangle. The doors visible in the rear direct out to another courtyard.
Griffin Enright Architects
Another motive for relocating the property’s staircase was to make better access to the backyard. As you flip to the right in the landing, another set of stairs leads up to the second floor. “The owners actually wanted superclean detailing,” notes Griffin of this easy, open stair treads.
Griffin Enright Architects
The minimum feel proceeds on the bedroom level, where a glass railing is recessed into the floor and stations to the wall. The new guest room addition is to the right. A powder-coated steel ladder “almost feels like a piece of artwork, but it actually allows the owners to climb through a skylight and use the rooftop within an impromptu roof garden,” says Griffin.
Griffin Enright Architects
The urge to keep things minimum can also be on display in the master bedroom. A single Verner Panton chair is observable in the mirror reflection. The pitched wall is part of the house’s unique roofline. “It turned into an abstract component, particularly with the scale of this window boxes” says Griffin. The line of laminated glass is high enough to hide the roof of a neighboring house but permits for sweeping views to the south, west and east — on a transparent day you can even find the Pacific Ocean.
Griffin Enright Architects
The master bathroom has another water closet but is otherwise open to the bedroom. “Maintaining everything open makes both areas feel bigger,” says Griffin. “Our company has been taking this strategy more and more as a way of expanding the space between a bedroom and a toilet.” The mirror was placed on the wall opposite the window box, so that “you’re looking at nature and feel like you’re floating in the hills,” she clarifies.
The vinyl floor is limestone, along with the floating dressing table is covered in rift-cut white oak veneer. In a perfect combination of low and high, the publish portraying Audrey Hepburn at Breakfast at Tiffany’s was bought at Ikea. “Graphically it truly works,” says Griffin. “It’s the way that it’s placed beside the pedestal.”
Griffin Enright Architects
“The Duravit bathtub is right above you as you go into the house,” says Griffin. “You can kind of see its shadow, and it’s almost voyeuristic.” The height of this laminated glass was place for just the right quantity of privacy.
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