Nature & nurture in North Beach nest
For a few months before their daughter, Frost, was born in December 2015, Scott Clark and Alexis Liu decided to live in a tree house.
More specifically, Liu’s version of a tree house — one defined not by branches or telephone wires, but rather by the tiny parameters of their corner bedroom in their 1,500-square-foot North Beach apartment. Using reclaimed walnut planks, Liu designed a small set of stairs that led to a loft platform, which was plainly furnished with a double mattress. A macrame hammock hung in the space below the bed. A modest menagerie of crystals, from amethyst to desert-rose selenite, added a touch of mysticism to the space.
“The apartment was so big and modern, I just wanted something cozy and comfortable,” says Liu, 35. “I don’t know — maybe I was nesting?”
Sensing the imminent sleep deprivation that newborns often cause, the other roommates — including Liu’s cousin and business partner, Christian Chan (the two co-own Beacon Coffee & Pantry, a cafe located in the same building) — eventually vacated the premises. That left the couple to claim the entire two-bedroom apartment as their own. Liu, who had worked as a textile designer at Ralph Lauren in New York until moving back to her native Bay Area in 2012, began to transform their “new” home.
In its previous incarnation, leather seating and glass tables made the space feel masculine and urban. But Clark and Liu foresaw a more relaxed approach, with decor and furniture inspired by their wilderness adventures, from beach hikes in Mendocino to gem hunting in Tucson, Ariz., now taken with toddler in tow.
Clark, formerly of Saison and now the chef-owner of the Half Moon Bay roadside eatery Dad’s Luncheonette, admits that growing up in Virginia, enjoying nature revolved around “trudging through the woods to shoot a BB gun.”
“Living in California has changed all that,” says Clark, 31, who moved to San Francisco in 2012. “I don’t merely exist in nature anymore. I commune with it.”
The crystals have multiplied in number and are displayed in small decorative vignettes alongside animal skulls and bird wishbones on the Ikea shelving that flanks the great room.
“I can’t believe they come from the earth,” says Liu of their jewellike color and geometry. Along the same lines, sea glass is packed in place- and date-stamped film canisters; Clark considers the souvenir system “a different spin on a family album.”
Clark’s surfboards lean against the walls, drawing attention to the high ceilings. Clerestory windows welcome the sun while preserving privacy, and a light well has been repurposed as a greenhouse — another way of bringing nature into the home.
Anchoring the great room is an 8-foot live-edge redwood table, made from a slab acquired from an Oakland arborist. It had been
“I don’t merely exist in nature anymore. I commune with it.” Scott Clark, talking about living in California
recently felled when the couple brought it home, figuring they’d get some use out of it while it cured. But before they could brush on a sealant, Frost had become accustomed to using its surface as a canvas for her Crayola masterpieces.
Suspended above the table, where the family enjoys meals that require a onecutting-board cleanup (usually veggie grain bowls or udon noodles), is a hoshigaki persimmon, hoisted two years ago to commemorate the day Frost was born. The luxurious Japanese preservation method — “all the rage in fine dining these days,” says Clark — involves massaging the fruit to redistribute the sugars.
Most mornings, however, the family goes across the hall to raid the pantry at Beacon for chia pudding or porridge with fruit. Liu tests the espresso each morning to make sure it’s up to par for the customers, a task that syncs up nicely with her real-life java obsession. In a ceramics studio located near Dad’s, she crafts mugs and slipcast versions of Chemex brewers, which are also on display in their apartment.
Clark, on the other hand, has dark opinions about coffee and instead ritualizes the slow steep of first-flush Dragon Well green tea or silver-needle white tea, a daily moment of Zen not always easily found among the crystals and crayons.