2014 BOY Winner: Pièce de Résistance
When Joseph Esherick completed this house, circa 1950, nothing impeded its views from Pacific Heights. That’s sadly not the case today, given the surrounding mega-mansions. But the current owners nevertheless loved and valued their home, almost untouched since it was completed. Any changes would have to honor its history, Joshua Aidlin and David Darling agreed.
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They left the front facade intact, gutting the interior and building out the rear to increase square footage to 4,250. There’s now a skylit central atrium with a bridge that spans the upper level and, stretching up 25 feet, an epic screen. It’s made of planks of reclaimed knotty pine that have been treated only with a light wash, not concealing natural irregularities. The screen’s outward face is carved into a relief abstracting a tree, the forms “exaggerating the play of light across them,” Darling explains. Behind the upper part of the screen is the office, therefore benefiting from some privacy.
Esherick, a proponent of design that respects and reflects its site requirements, would be proud. Incidentally, Darling knew the late architect.
Project Team: Melinda Turner; Tim Gemmill; Khyber Courchesne.
