Modern Pacific Heights Townhouse

Tucked into two rows of townhouses on a cul-de-sac in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood, a 1939 house becomes art gallery and home at once. Butler Armsden took advantage of the building’s existing orientation and relationship to its surroundings — an intimate neighborhood scale on the street, expansive views at the rear — to create a series of sweeping views. With regard for the existing building, the architects emphasized the dimensions of the interior; tall, slender doors highlight the twelve-foot ceilings and allow the line of view to travel along the main spaces and out through large, stainless steel operable windows. The choice of materials — bold and almost impossibly cool — heightens the exalting spatial experience. In the bathroom, a thickly striated marble floor seems to fold up into an oval tub of the same material, while in the cellar, stainless steel once again appears — this time alongside Lucite — to hold the clients’ wine collection. The overall effect is one of easy opulence married to material sophistication.