About

origins

There are many different beginnings to each story.  It's hard to say exactly where and when my interest in architecture began.  I remember hearing my dad designed the house I lived in until I was 8.  It was built in the late 1970's, and followed the latest architectural trend, set by Charles Moore at Sea Ranch - wood siding, split shed roof, no eves, clerestory windows.  The interior was full of angles, stairs, and south facing windows.  Of course, I did not know any of these names or categories then.  To me, it was just home. And perhaps because it was unconscious, the impact was deeper.  To adapt a Winston Churchill quote, my father shaped the building, and afterwards, it shaped me.

I also have memories of drawing model train layouts in sketch books.  I never actually built the designs, but greatly enjoyed drawing the mountains, rivers, and figuring out how the tracks would progress in three dimensions through the landscape -- tunnel here, bridge there, what grade was needed to loop the track back on itself and form a bridge that crosses just above the previous bridge.  I also have a vivid memory of imagining what it would feel like to be in bed in a sleeper car, listening to the took-took, took-took of the wheels going over the gaps in the rails, feeling the rocking of the car, in the dead of night.  I imagined what it would feel like to be in what is supposed to be the safest place, yet just outside the wall of the car would be endless mountains in the middle of winter, the rough walls of a tunnel flying by, the edge of a sheer drop, and canyons on narrow bridges.

I remember moving into a new house in elementary school, with an exposed beam holding up a vaulted ceiling in the living room and floor to ceiling windows.  I remember the wooden board my dad set up at an angle on the table, with masking tape holding the four corners of the paper down.  I remember playing with the t-square, the three sided ruler, and the triangle, looking on as he designed the remodel for the new house.  I remember the cylindrical red rough metal pencil sharpener he had, with a rounded top that contained a cylindrical opening.  He would insert his pencil vertically into the cylinder, and use the pencil to rotate the entire top of the sharpener.  Some unseen but heavy internal edge ground away the lead.  

I must have admired this, or at the very least thought a job that involved drawing was a job I wanted, because I recall taking a career test in middle school that was supposed to use your interests to predict the best job for you.  The results came back: architecture.

My next memory is of a trip to Taliesin in high school with my family.  Pastoral, lush, beyond all else, green.  The gently rolling hills of south west Wisconsin surprised me.  I must have expected the flat prairie of southern Minnesota to extend endlessly in all directions.  The house was unlike anything I had ever seen -- nestled just below the peak of a hill, encircling the highest point instead of perched on it, surrounded by oak trees to the point that it wasn't visible from a distance from three sides.  The u-shaped plan, set on local limestone, featured cantilevered horizontal eves, and many horizontal lines layered on top of other roof lines and outcroppings.  The roving floor plan caught my attention, as did the cantilevered bird walk extending into the trees outside the living room.  The low ceilings, shag rugs, and musty smell from years of leaking roofs did not appeal to me, but I was beginning to sense beyond the surfaces, to start to feel the affect of the sequence of spaces.  I liked the abundance of natural stone, and the sense of discovery that accompanied walking into each room -- it was never just another box.

I set aside architecture in late high school though, and focused on what seemed more difficult, and therefore more substantial, more important -- science.  I got a job at Intel in Portland, Oregon after college, and enjoyed my time among the ferns and waterfalls of the pacific northwest.  I returned to Minnesota for law school, and ended up staying after the great recession pinned me down.  I was not able to work in public policy, the original goal of attending law school, and ended up following the path of least resistance into patent litigation.  I got a job at a big firm in Minneapolis.

The job allowed me to buy a home, and I found a beautiful house in North Oaks.  Built in 1983, it was designed by an architect based in Stillwater, Michael McGuire.  It was this house, more than any other thing, that was responsible for re-awakening my interest in architecture.  

It had random width redwood siding, a split level entry, a redwood slat-lined ceiling with exposed wood beams, and a wall of windows over looking a small lake to the west.  A built-in couch was nestled along the east wall, and a long set of built-in cabinets ran the length of the west wall.  A cast iron stove provided heat in the winter.

The master bedroom was particularly nice.  A built-in along the wall continued uninterrupted from the kitchen through to the bedroom.  Windows wrapped the corner of the house, and overlooked a small deck.  The glass in a transom window above the door went almost seamlessly into the redwood slatted ceiling.

The kitchen had a built-in seat, and maple cabinets with nice minimalist wood handles that ran the full length of each door/drawer.

The floating shelf that wrapped around the wall between the kitchen and master bedroom, flush with the sheet rock, was a nice detail.  The house was full of such finely detailed wood working, including custom made lights on the ceiling of the office (shot from directly below, with the built-in shelves on the left):

The original plans came with the house, and I looked up the architect's name.  He was in his 80's, and did not appear to have a website.  There was little evidence online that he still had an active practice, but I was able to find a phone number.  I left a message, but did not hear back.

Just over a week later, I got a call on my cell phone at work, and it was Michael McGuire.  I told him that I had hesitated to call, because I didn't think an artist would want to alter their own art, but recalled from a tour of Taliesin that Wright was constantly remodeling his own home, so perhaps you would be interesting in helping us remodel as well?  He joked that the only difference between him and Wright was that when Wright remodeled his own houses, they got better.  He came over to our house, and we discussed our ideas for a new kitchen, new fireplace, more windows.  He peered at pictures I had taken while traveling, and recommended a book, the Americans, by Robert Frank.  I had seen some of Frank's black and white shots in the South before, but the book was a revelation, eventually inspiring me to ditch my Nikon DSLR and get the same Leica as Frank (same body and lenses, but digital sensor instead of film).  McGuire came up with some sketches, but before we could get much further, my law firm opened in office in Palo Alto, California, and asked me to move out.

We told McGuire we reluctantly had to part with the house he designed, and he said he would miss having an owner who appreciated the house as much as we did.  He invited us to see his house in Wisconsin, overlooking the St. Croix river, and we drove down a couple months later to visit.  He also sent an email introducing us to two clients in Inverness, California, and suggested I take pictures of the house he designed for them.

My wife and I drove west in our station wagon in September of 2013.  After sleeping on a friend's floor for a couple nights we lucked out and were able to rent an Eichler in Castro Valley.  I had never heard of the developer Joseph Eichler before moving to California, but after seeing the rental house on Craigslist, I knew it was designed by an architect.  A quick search revealed Eichler was a developer who partnered with excellent architects, including A. Quincy Jones and Raphael Soriano, to come up with several set plans for a neighborhood development.  Most of Eichler's developments were in the Bay Area, but he had three in Los Angeles as well.  The Castro Valley development on Greenridge had plans that all featured central atriums, and variations of a flat roof (our rental), low slowed roof, and a flat roof combined with a central A-frame roof.

The central atrium was a perfectly sized to allow each house to fill the narrow lots width-wise, going right up to the 4 foot set-back, yet still allow for maximal privacy and maximal light.  

The rear of the house was entirely glass and faced east.  In the early mornings, once the sun rose just high enough to clear the peak of the ridge behind our house, it flooded into our dining area.  The central atrium let light come through the rear of the house, through the atrium, and into a small office on the far side of the atrium.

The downsides of the Eichler were cheaper construction materials from the 1950's -- very poor insulation, and inefficient floor heating via a boiler in the garage.  But it was a brilliant first introduction to California life, and architecture, and often made me wonder why no modern day Eichler exists.

After discovering Eichler and renting for a couple months, we started looking for a house to buy.  I was astounded by the sheer amount of architecturally designed mid-century modern homes, especially in the Berkeley Hills.  We spent many Sundays driving up and down the narrow winding roads above Berkeley and Oakland, looking at open houses, discovering new local architect's names.  I discovered Henry Hill, Jack Hillmer, Harwell Hamilton Harris, Warren Callister, and Beverly Thorne.  We put in an offer on Henry Hill house in the Berkeley Hills, but did not come close to winning, as we did not realize how desired his houses are in the Bay Area.

I toured Wright's Hanna House on the Stanford campus twice, and saw Wright's Feldman House on Panoramic Hill in Berkeley.  I later toured Harwell Hamilton Harris' Havens House, and Callister's Mills College Chapel.  

The sheer density of architecture in the Bay Area inspired me, and each discovery led me to further discoveries, and a deeper interest.  Characters in American novels often venture west to reinvent themselves -- all I know is that this chapter of my story is being shaped by my surroundings, and I am now attentive to how they are shaping me and my story.