Music lives on in a Montclair contemporary
Ryan Edwards recorded music in a cramped closet at his Buena Vista Heights apartment in San Francisco imagining the day a professional sound studio would be part of his home. For the last five years, the entrepreneur and co-founder of Panama Guitars lived this dream with his wife and young children at a hillside home in the Montclair neighborhood of Oakland.
The studio already existed when the Edwards family first saw the home, and tacked it on an exclamation point to an already impressive residence.
“We wouldn’t have purchased if it were a recording studio that happened to have a house. It is a house that happened to have a recording studio,” Edwards said of 24 Saroni Court. “The home is smartly laid out, and there’s a good mix of indoor and outdoor space. It checked all the boxes we were looking for.”
Modern wiring, spacious public rooms, a contemporary kitchen and a vintage wine closet are among the inclusions of the four-level home on a wooded cul-de-sac. The lowest floor houses the music studio, a multi-room showpiece with plenty of built-in storage and soundproofing. The studio level offers its own entrance and a half bathroom, providing the setup to convert the space to suit the next owner’s needs.
“It could be an apartment if you wanted to add appliances. At the very least, it could
easily be modified into guest quarters or an in-law unit,” Edwards said. “Of course, my hope is that it will attract a buyer who wants a studio, but the space is so modular it’s easily changed.”
Edwards turned to Oakland sound engineer Jonah Strauss of Oakland’s Shipwreck Studio to lay out the studio and suggested the next owner consider doing the same.
A utility room in the studio serves as the hub of the home’s electronic infrastructure. Phone, cable, video, ethernet and USB capabilities all trace back to the control room.
Edwards and his wife bought the home on Saroni Court in 2010 from a musician who had developed the studio. Digging beneath the existing structure excavated soil used to build a level yard.
“Level yards are something you just don’t find that often in Montclair,” Edwards said.
The main level hosts an open kitchen beside a lightfilled family room connected to a slate patio. Another slate balcony sits beyond the dining room’s dual doors.
“There’s definitely a lot of al fresco stuff going on there,” Edwards said. “The indoor and outdoor living is quite dramatic when the doors are opened, and you can see through the main level.”
Highlighting the home’s three bedrooms is the master suite, which affords its own balcony and a spa bathroom.
Visit www.24Saroni Court.com to see more.