While perusing The Wall Street Journal one day, Stewart Owen spotted an intriguing house for sale. Perched in the Berkeley Hills, the home that caught his eye was a 1920s Mediterranean structure designed by renowned architect Willis Polk and built for local conservationist and real estate developer Duncan McDuffie. “The house had so much history,” says Stewart’s wife, Rachelle. The residence was well-known within the neighborhood, having been the site of numerous soirees and political fundraisers, but it had since fallen into disrepair. Seeing its potential, the Connecticut-based couple—who have roots in California—decided to step up to the challenge and purchase the house.
Kicking off the project, the architects took a thoughtful approach. “Our leaning was to preserve, protect and enhance,” says Kerstin Fischer, who, along with Andrew Fischer, studied old photographs and drawings of the house to get an idea of its original state. “We didn’t want to overwhelm the landmark building.” For the grand double-height entry, the architects added new finishes and a new front door but otherwise kept it just as it was. The central space leads into the dining room on one side and, on the other, the spacious living room, where the architects swapped the tile floor for one of white oak and restored and painted the ornate plaster and beamed ceiling. “This room is the most dramatic and defining element of the house,” says Kerstin Fischer. “We refreshed and lightened the materials to make it more welcoming.”
With the architecture complete, designers Mirchand and Rice were tasked with appointing the spaces in a manner that would honor the architecture and create a serene environment. “We combined modern pieces with more traditional designs to create a unified and welcoming look,” says Mirchand. In the main living room, the duo devised an ordered way of breaking up the capacious space. “The room is very long and wide,” Mirchand says. “So we created three different areas. Each vignette looks different, but they’re all related.” The designers—who also have a showroom in the San Francisco Design Center and a separate workroom— anchored the space with two custom sofas, which they positioned near the replace at the room’s center. “We built the two sofas in our workroom with high backs to have an enclosed and intimate feeling,” says Rice. A scroll-leg desk by Formations occupies one corner of the room, while a sophisticated game table fills another.
For the dining room, the designers had custom metal cabinets made, and they selected furnishings to complement the updated library as well. For the latter, the duo designed a sofa with “the same curve as the replace,” Mirchand says of the piece, which provides a counterpoint to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. They then placed a hefty Rose Tarlow Melrose House table on one wall and paired it with industrial stools. Arched windows flood the room with light, which the designers augmented with curated fixtures, including Baker floor lamps. The architects installed walnut-clad bi-parting doors to section off an area of the room for a study, and the designers hung modern glass pendants to illuminate the space.
The collective work of the team resulted in the house, which was granted historic landmark status by the city of Berkeley, being returned to its original beauty. “People know and love that house,” Rice says. “It had fallen into a major state of disrepair, and the Owens were the perfect people to bring it back to life.”
—Kimberly Olson