North of S.F., stunning architecture dwells (photos)
Road Trip at Home: Dwell magazine was born in the Bay Area, and CNET visits four houses on its Marin Homes tour.
Bridge House
Views to die for--of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, the Pacific Ocean--and endless open green space, help put Marin high on many people's list of dream destinations. So it's no surprise that the founder of Dwell magazine, which focuses on clean, modern design, lives here.
Later this month, Dwell is co-hosting, along with Marin magazine, a tour of some of the most breathtaking houses in the area. As part of my Road Trip at Home series, I got to visit four of the best of those in advance.
This is the Bridge House, designed by architect Stanley Saitowitz "on a site without any flat surfaces and with a creek cutting straight through it," according to the tour brochure. "Saitowitz ignored what other designers had attempted--forcing an even plane with costly grading and excavating. Instead, he laid a rectangular structure across the river's small valley that, quite literally, bridges the gap."
Front of Bridge House
As the brochure says, "The roof is red gravel, and from above, the house looks like a railway train that stopped on a bridge for a while, hardly touching the site."
Here, we see the house from the driveway, in front, and a ways off the street.
Low view, Bridge House
Entryway to Bridge House
Patio of Bridge House
Main living space
Underneath the Bridge House
Raised fireplace
Kitchen
Bridge House hillside
Formal dining
Master bath
Master bedroom
Tiburon Residence
Bridge view
Living room
Looking at reflecting pool
Angel Island and San Francisco views
Back patio
Hillside
View from the lawn chair
Chandelier
Kitchen
Breakfast area
Master bedroom
Tub with a view
Houseboat
Sausalito, just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, is famous for, among other things, its houseboat communities. There, several docks of these floating homes can be found just blocks from million-dollar mansions.
This is the Gate 5 House, owned and designed by architect David Spurgeon. Built by hand over three years from 2002 to 2005, the houseboat features two wide-open floors, a gourmet kitchen, huge amounts of light, and two decks. It also has its own boat, allowing Spurgeon to set sail right from his living room.
Houseboat interior
Kitchen
Upper deck
Row of houseboats
Lower level
Boat
Bathroom
Lower porch
Bunk and closet
Bedroom
Looking out at the water
Pfau House
The Pfau House is designed and owned by architect Peter Pfau.
Located atop a hill in leafy San Anselmo, Calif., about 20 minutes northwest of San Francisco, the house is a modern take on a 1950s-era house that used to dominate this hill. Now, with contemporary updates done by Pfau and his wife when they remodeled the building in 2008, it features stone from the original building and new features like large windows and metal beams.