San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Stinson retreat a breath of fresh air
Beach house nurtures with ample nature
“It’s like being in a wildlife sanctuary,” says architect Lewis Butler of Butler Armsden Architects in San Francisco. “There are seals on the sand every day.”
He’s talking about Bolinas Lagoon at Stinson Beach, where he renovated a 1970s beach house for clients who maintain a primary residence in San Francisco.
Reimagined to reflect the distinctive personalities of the homeowners, the new design of the cedar shingleclad home has become a blend of cultural and architectural references. Butler accomplished this through spatial reorganization and the introduction of casual elements like a car grille in a bedroom and a Fresh Crabs sign above the dining nook. The house is designed to reflect the particulars of Stinson Beach, a strip of land that invites almost mystical reverence from anyone who’s spent time there.
“We were very careful about what to make new and what to leave old,” Butler says. While the breezy character of Stinson comes through in the openness of the spaces and the casual cedar siding, more formal moves — the rich woodpaneled ceilings and tall wood columns in the great room — add depth and character to the renovation. Playfulness abounds in the series of circular towel hooks in the bathroom, arranged like an abstract artwork, or in the rec room, where additional beds unfold from the walls, which are paneled in costeffective plywood. Pops of color appear throughout the home, such as in the remarkable butterfly collection that graces one of the bathroom walls. Diverse influences, such as Butler’s enthusiasm for mixing laid-back West Coast influences with a keen approach to materials, come together to create a layered experience full of history, surprise and fresh air.
The architect maintained the home’s original footprint, and removed a wall that had blocked the central courtyard, a decision that opened the home to its natural surroundings and expanded the dialogue between inside and outside. The courtyard now divides the home into two wings: family quarters and guest accommodations. For a town that has almost no hotel rooms, sleeping over in this spectacular Stinson setting becomes a new type of luxury, not just for the homeowners, but also for their steady parade of houseguests.
The interiors include elements inspired by the location — earthy stucco walls and concrete floors shaded “as if the sand hardened,” Butler says. The plywood in the aforementioned rec room echoes the texture of natural woodgrain, and Denver metal sculptor Yoshitomo Saito’s stunning three-dimensional bronze installation over the fireplace is, up close, reminiscent of leaves, but from afar takes on the blurry qualities of a bird murmuration. While it’s rare to have fine art in a beach house, such an expression of nature seems to make perfect sense here, on blue lagoon, among the seals and sea breezes.
“We were very careful about what to make new and what to leave old.”
Architect Lewis Butler, pictured