Project: Lagoon View / Location: Tiburon, Calif. / Architect: Swatt + Partners / Location: Emeryville, Calif. / Interior Design: Leverone Design / Landscape Design: Thuilot Associates / Photography: Matthew Millman
Swatt + Partners says it has enriched the Town of Tiburon’s architectural history with a reverential, modern layer—Lagoon View, a major remodel and addition to an existing 4,753-square-foot home.
The home was commissioned by clients with grown children who had long planned to relocate from the midwest to the Bay Area. With family and an existing pied-a-terre in San Francisco, they dreamed of one day building a beautiful home overlooking the renowned bay. In order to realize their dream, they worked closely with Swatt + Partners on site selection.
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The resulting property is reached by narrow roads that snake from Tiburon’s main street to the top of a ridge, offering unparalleled views of the town below, San Francisco’s skyline to the south and Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay and Pacific Ocean to the west.
Having undergone multiple renovations over the years, the existing house was visually and functionally disjointed. Swatt + Partners’ primary goal was to create a design that would pull all of the elements into a single composition, with plan organizations that were consistent and understandable at each floor. To maximize the views, the new design features a gracious open plan layout, floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall glass, as well as a new roof and deck extensions on the south and west sides of the building.
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The home’s new architectural expression notably includes solid stone and vertical supporting elements on the north (entry) side and all-glass walls on the south (view) side that are framed by cantilevered horizontal floor and roof extensions. The design’s solid vertical support elements recall the iconic works of Louis Kahn and Ray Kappe, while the horizontal roof and terrace projections on the south side echo similar moves by Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra.
The interior spaces by Leverone Design are handsomely appointed with custom furnishings by the studio, as well as made-to-order pieces from Coup d’etat, Juin Ho and Holly Hunt. On the deck, selections from Zachary A. Design, RH and Niche take a back seat to the views.
Throughout the interiors, the team’s minimalist approach sets the right tone for the client’s art collection, which includes works by Ansel Adams, Salvador Dali, Alberto Giacommetti, Lin Fengmian, Wu Guanzhong, Henry Moore and Pablo Picasso, among others.
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The landscape design by Stefan Thuilot dialogues engagingly with the architecture through well-placed outdoor areas, and moves with the hillside topography, as it slopes from the street on the north side to the property line on the south side.
The material palette of integrally colored cement plaster, clear anodized aluminum windows and doors, stained tongue-and-groove cedar siding, and Windsor Limestone was expertly built by Stroub Construction.
Like the winding roads that lead to Lagoon View, the spatial progressions created by Swatt + Partners create the mystery of moving from solid, opaque and tight spaces at the entry to wide open, transparent, and expansive spaces that offer some of the best views in the San Francisco Bay Area.
