Stephen Coles (whose eyes, unfortunately, are drawn much more to what I often remind him are the sterile, soulless lines of Mid Century Modern) emailed me yesterday with a heads-up on a particularly pretty bungalow in Oakland, California’s Rockridge district, photographed inside and out by Flickr user The Jaundiced Eye, a regular in the Hewn & Hammered photo pool on that site. The house is, of course, TJE’s own residence, and it really is an especially comfortable, attractive and well-designed space. It is, in the author’s own words,
A Japanese pagoda-influenced California Craftsman. Get a load of the
sleeping porch up top. This place is huge, but what makes it really
remarkable is how intact it is. No one screwed it up. Not even the
kitchen!
And how did he manage to snag such a showpiece home in one of the most architecturally desirable neighborhoods in the Bay Area? Therein lies a story:
This happened very quickly. I found it on the web while I was in
Florida visiting my parents and sent Len an email. He dealt with the
rest of it himself. When he picked me up from the airport he drove me
to the place and parked in front (about 11:30pm). encouragingly, we
drew the attention of several suspicious neighbors who actually came
out of their houses. I liked that people obviously keep an eye on the
neighborhood. The next day Len met the realtors and the owner and
brought our house resume that showed all of the work we did on our 1910
Edwardian in SF. The owners really like Len. About two days later they
offered it to us. They had rejected over 25 other offers because they
didn’t think the people understood what the house is, or how to care
for it. Fortunately the lease on our SF townhouse expires on April
14th, so we are ready to go. The new house is in Rockridge which is
part of Oakland. It is a largely Arts & Crafts neighborhood that is
right next to Berkeley, a block away from College Avenue which is a
hopping little street with restaurants,clubs and a European style
market. I think we will be very happy here. I already have dibs on the
top room with the sleeping porch for my office.
What a great house. Thanks for sharing the link to the photos. The nice part is that it looks like a regular person with good taste lives there rather than a interior designer! I’m questioning the wisteria choice though, that thing is going to be lunging to envelope the rest of the house judging from my last house w/wisteria. I forsee much pruning in their future.
So that’s a 2nd floor sleeping porch…I have one too in my recently purchased 1920’s bungalow, I guess, I was thinking it was simply a porch to view the park across the street because it doesn’t have screens or anything but maybe it was for ‘healthy’ outdoor sleeping. (And to create a pleasant indoor rain shower feel to the porch below as it leaks, darn it!)
I prune everything! I climb up the plum trees and trim them, and harvest lots of fruit to make preserves. The wisteria is NOTHING compared to the plum trees. You are right, the Wisteria does like to wander, but I keep an eye on it.
Also, you’re right…. I’m no interior designer. We’ve got authentic Stickley furniture, but we also have Len’s 20 year old leather sofa. I always say that once we get rid of the thing and get a proper enormous oak settle that our time machine will be complete. We don’t strive to live in a museum, just 1915… With a flat screen sony TV. Thanks for the nice write up!