nown for its beauty and its tech-fueled
economy, San Francisco tops the nation
in property-value growth. But those high
values don't always translate to well-main-
tained dwellings. As with homes in any
older major city, the opposite is often true.
Case in point was a 1,500-sq.-ft. hillside row house,
one of six standing side by side, unchanged since being
built in 1960. Te owners (an empty-nester couple) hired
architect Phil Rossington to remodel the exterior and to
update several interior spaces.
Te resulting transformation is bold and complete.
Where once an aged and unadorned "builder box" faced
silently forward, a rich façade now embraces 270 degrees
of its corner location, with views of the San Francisco Bay
and the Oakland Hills beyond.
"My goal was to take advantage of the view," says
Rossington, who operates his practice out of nearby
Sausalito. "We have these six identical boxes, and this is
a corner building with an empty lot next to it. And that
corner is where we put the abutted glazing with views to
the bay and to the Oakland Hills. Tey just were not taking
advantage of that view the way that the house was situated.
We gave it a $64,000 view, or a $1 million view in this case."
A BAY SOLUTION
Much of the exterior of the building was in need of atten-
tion. A seldom-used deck ran the width of the second-foor
exterior. Te stairs on the side of the house were uneven.
A wooden awning over the door was in disrepair. An
old garage door was a colorless monolith. Rossington's
solution was to begin by changing overall massing of
the structure.
Creating an
End-Cap
A 55-year-old "builder box" gets
a bold functional face-lift
By Patrick L. O'Toole
K
Before
26 February 2015 QR QualifiedRemodeler.com | ForResidentialPros.com
PROJECTS: Master Design Solutions