Family Home in Sea Cliff

On a privileged site, seemingly falling into the San Francisco Bay, a family home stretches northwardly toward views of the Marin Headlands and Pacific Ocean. The architects designed the exterior, interior, and landscape in the interest of a single vision. Moving toward the simple goal of uniting the interior of the house with its natural surroundings, Butler Armsden approached this extensive remodel with the desire to bring the exterior into every space of the house. On approach, a sunny, south-facing garden leads into the main living floor of the house and through a stretch of windows out onto the Golden Gate Bridge. The clients, a young family of five with a lively dog named Olive, worked closely with the architects on this remodel, resulting in a holistic design that bridges exterior, interior, and landscape. Modifying the house’s original layout by combining five separate spaces into a continuous kitchen and family area, the architects created generous living areas for the family. In the more intimately-scaled reworked attic, the penthouse office towers above the ocean like the bridge of a ship. The interiors are rendered in varied hues; the children’s wing, with bright cushions and a multi-colored pom-pom carpet, oozes color and humor, while the bedroom suite’s monochromatic palette provides a soothing respite. The most dramatic views meet in this single room: north to the ocean, to the Gate, to the Marin Headlands. Connecting it all is the line of the horizon, of water meeting sky, visible just beyond every room in the house.