The San Francisco Chronicle’s online edition, SFgate.com, has a nice story (and pictures, but I wish there were more see notes at bottom) of Bruce Aidells – of Aidells’ chicken sausage fame – beautiful new A&C home. Read the entire article at SFGate.com. (photo by Jeannie O’Connor)
It started innocently enough – Bruce Aidells bought some English
Arts and Crafts furniture from an Oakland antiques dealer and designed
his kitchen in Kensington around it. Then he began frequenting the
House of Orange, an Alameda antique shop that specializes in Arts and
Crafts. He might have stopped there, but a fateful invitation in 1996
to visit Berkeley’s Thorsen House with an architecturally inclined
friend introduced him to the architecture of Charles and Henry Greene,
and he was instantly captivated. He befriended Ted Bosley, the curator
of the Gamble House, a Greene and Greene house museum in Pasadena, as
well as Jack Stumpf, the chief docent at the house, who, as it turned
out, was also a sausage aficionado. Soon Aidells was getting the
private tour of the Gamble house (whether bribes of bratwurst were
involved is unknown). He began to want a Greene and Greene of his own,
but realized that to build one properly would require a good deal of
money, which he did not have at the time. He settled for immersing
himself in Greene and Greene, buying books, visiting other houses and
museums, and biding his time.
The opportunity came in 2002, when Aidells sold his interest in the
eponymous sausage company he started in 1983. He figures the cost of
the house came out to 322 miles of sausages. Finally having enough
money in his pocket, he began looking for an architect who knew how to
design a Greene and Greene-style house. He eventually settled on Greg
Klein of John Malick and Associates, even though the company had never
before designed a Greene and Greene house. But it was local, and
Aidells felt they would be hands-on. Klein had long been a fan of the
Greenes, and says, "Their work is unique, and most people think no one
does that anymore."
Editor’s note: thanks to reader Ann for noting that the architect’s website has many more images of the house; Danielle, with John Malick & Associates, the folks who designed the house, also supplies us with this URL for photos by Healdsburg photographer Jeannie O’Connor.
