This California Home's Refresh Preserves Its Traditional Spirit

"Although I don’t specifically remember it, I must have walked by the house many times over the years,” says the owner of this neoclassical abode, noting the proximity of his grandparents’ and great aunt’s homes. His family, native San Franciscans dating back to the Gold Rush days, has been orbiting this dwelling for generations. The owner grew up on the Peninsula but felt the gravitational pull of the city and moved there as an adult. When he and his brother decided to make this brick building home (the latter lives in the structure’s lower unit), they agreed that, while they would embark on a modern renovation, they would preserve its traditional spirit.

The architect behind the original house, Arthur Brown Jr., also has a storied Bay Area history. The Oakland native created city halls for San Francisco and Berkeley before drawing plans for this residence in 1925. He went on to design city landmarks including the War Memorial Opera House and Coit Tower. Over the years, many alterations were staged behind the home’s gabled portico and row of tall arched windows, but the front has remained the same for a century. Everyone involved in this latest reimagining agreed that it should stay that way. “The building had nice proportions, but the inside needed updating and unification,” says architect Dave Sturm. “We kept the front façade and entry as it had been constructed but gutted the interior and rebuilt it in a way that was sympathetic to what came before. Now, walking through the house is to go from traditional to modern.”

Tour The Home With Jay Jeffers

Sturm, in concert with designers Jay Jeffers and Jenn Sharp as well as general contractor Clayton Timbrell, mirrored the elegant arch of the street-facing windows in the front rooms of the dwelling, including the living room, dining room and kitchen. These arches appear in the curved corners of the coffered ceilings, the radial edges of the marble fireplace surround, and the gently rounded profiles of passageways, built-in shelves and cabinets. But classicism quietly recedes at the back of the home to make way for an overtly modern aesthetic that includes large, metal-framed doors composing the nearly all-glass rear exterior.

San Francisco streets are lined with older residences built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that share a common condition: larger front windows that let in light but dark center and rear rooms with small windows designed for privacy. That model is upended here with new glass doors wrapping one side of the kitchen, allowing for natural light and urban views to enter the heart of the house (the side of the neighboring dwelling is screened with sheers installed by the designers). At the top of the stairs, an oversize glass portal leads to the roof deck and acts as a skylight that casts sunshine into the core of the space. Between the original windows and the modern expanses of glazing, the household is lit beautifully throughout.

Jeffers and Sharp knit past and present together with a young, masculine aesthetic that mirrors their client’s persona. “Once the architectural bones are right, it becomes a layering process,” Jeffers notes. “We added in tactile materials with elements of surprise to create a soulful nature that reflects how he wants to live and entertain.”

That spirit is demonstrated with both large and small moves. Grand gestures include a roomy, teal sectional in the living room that’s so plush, taking a seat feels like an embrace. And in the adjacent dining room, a long, oval statement table seats 10 guests under a geometric ceiling paper and a modernist chandelier. But in this house, the delight is in the menswear details. Lampshades are trimmed in leather and brass studs, dining chairs wear a crisp houndstooth upholstery, and the primary bedroom is done in soft neutral tones straight off the Brunello Cucinelli men’s runway.

It’s easy to consider the new home emblematic of the next generation of the owner’s family taking root in the City by the Bay. “We all gather at Christmas every year, and, for the first time, my brother and I hosted,” he relates. “My grandmother told us it was the start of a new tradition; it made moving into this house very special.”