This contemporary home sits in the protective bowl of a hillside at Petaluma’s southern border on the old Rancho Olompali. (Molly Haas)

2 prize-winning examples of Sonoma County’s best home architecture

MEG MCCONAHEY

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

November 11, 2022

They sit on opposite ends of Sonoma County — one literally straddling the border with Marin County and the other a few miles south of the Mendocino County line on the far north coast. But both are singularly Sonoma in vernacular and represent some of the best in new residential architecture north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

One is called Owl House and is set snugly in a hillside bowl, with views of west Marin and Sonoma counties. The other sits on a meadow in the historic southern part of Sea Ranch. Both are contemporary, highly sensitive to their placement within the natural setting, and both were singled out for top honors at the recent Redwood Empire chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

The awards, held every two years, recognize outstanding design work either submitted by one of the chapter’s 158 members or by an outside architect with a project within the chapter’s sphere, an area once popularly called “The Redwood Empire.” It includes Sonoma, Mendocino, Lake, Humboldt, Del Norte, Siskiyou, Modoc and Trinity counties.

Fifteen projects — residential, commercial and public use, built and unbuilt — received awards at ceremonies last month. Some winners replaced structures lost in the wildfires of 2017, marking a changing Wine Country landscape in the wake of so much devastation.

Only the Owl House by MAD Architecture of Petaluma, the Sea Ranch Meadow II by Turnbull Griffin Haesloop of Berkeley and a small spa and retreat in a vineyard setting in Napa Valley by Signum Architecture of St. Helena received the highest Honor Awards.

But judges recognized a number of other projects with Merit awards, the second-highest honor. They included Cardinal Newman High School’s new science classroom building designed by Quattrocchi Kwok Architects of Santa Rosa, a six-story eco-friendly parking garage in Palo Alto designed by RossDrulisCusenbery Architecture of Sonoma and a Nuns Canyon Fire home rebuild in the Sonoma Valley by Mork Ulnes Architects of San Francisco.

Merit awards also went to Weddle Gilmore Architects of Scottsdale, Arizona, for their renovation of the old Flamingo Resort in Santa Rosa; V and BAR Architects + Interiors of San Francisco for the new Fountaingrove Golf Club; and Asquared Studios of Santa Rosa for a rammed-earth home in Sonoma with a pagoda-style roof.

The judging team was made up of architects from the Washington, D.C., chapter of the American Institute of Architects, said Carissa Greene, executive director of the Santa Rosa-based Redwood Empire group.

Although they are based on the opposite coast, the D.C. architects are all familiar with Sonoma County, particularly for having studied the visionary Sea Ranch in architecture school.

“Sonoma County is on the map now,” Greene said. “We are a destination. Of course, we’re known for our food and beverages, but also architecture.”

Sonoma County’s dramatic and diverse landscape and still-abundant open space can be an architect’s dream palette.

Growing from the grasslands

Mary Dooley, co-principal with her husband, Chris Lynch, with MAD Architecture in Petaluma, created a contemporary compact retirement home for two Palo Alto graphic artists on the county border west of Petaluma.

The home was designed to respect the land and its history as part of the old Olompali Land Grant, which stretched between Novato and Petaluma. The land grant was once held by Camilo Ynitia, a 19th century leader of the Coast Miwoks and the last Hoipu, or headman, of the Miwok community living at Olompali. He was the only Native American on the northern end of Alta California to receive a land grant during the period of Mexican rule.

An old fence line, left over from the rancho days, remains on the property. Out of respect for the property’s history, Dooley chose to maintain it and designed the house to follow the fence rather than cross it, which meant creating an angle at one end.

The house is set into a bowllike depression in the land, which naturally insulates it from the noise of the road below and from the winds that routinely push through the Petaluma Gap. The house is set among native grasses near a grove of blue oak and sculptural serpentine outcroppings.

Dooley said the site spoke to her, saying, “We all grow out of the grasslands here.” She routinely consults the land when siting and orienting a structure.

To maximize the views down to the valley and up to the hillside, she tilted the roof on two ends, creating a shape that makes it appear is if the house is going to take wing, like the hawks and turkey vultures that hunt the land. Solar panels are installed on one half of the roof to catch the maximum amount of sunlight.

“The house is all-electric and actually produces 142% more energy than it uses,” Dooley said.

She also designed it with high resilience against fire, with a Cor-Ten metal cladding.

“It’s just harmonious with the landscape, changing as the grass is turning from the blond of winter to spring green to the deep green. And because of its dark bronze rusted finish, it recedes in the landscape. It’s not up on the hill. It’s not jumping out into things as if to say, ‘Look at me.’ Instead, it’s just saying, ‘I’m just quietly resting here in the bowl with everybody else.”

The residence was christened Owl House because the front of the house at the entrance resembles an owl’s face, with roof overhangs that look like a great horned owl’s ears, she said.

The house has one main living wing. But in a twist on the typical configuration of a dining area sandwiched between the kitchen and the living room, Dooley put the kitchen at the heart of the house. It eliminates redundant space where there might otherwise be bar seating at a counter adjoining.

The owners, retired graphic artists, wanted to give the dining room the choicest spot in terms of light and views because whenever they have guests for dinner, Dooley said, they love to linger at the table.

In a Sea Ranch meadow

Lead designer Eric Haesloop had designed a 1,000-square-foot weekend home for a family in the original southwestern end of Sea Ranch. But the family grew, as families often do, and 15 years later they needed more space.

So the Berkeley architect was challenged to create a larger new home that melded neatly with the existing seaside home but didn’t upstage it. That would not be good in the environmentally sensitive Sea Ranch development, where the ocean and landscape are always the focus.

So he shaped the new 2,000-square-foot cedar-clad house to the existing house and the gentle slope of the land, which follows a classic Sea Ranch hedgerow and opens into a meadow and to views of the ocean.

He linked the two homes, which sit on adjoining properties, with a pass-thru and garden path.

Haesloop is a partner in Turnbull Griffin Haesloop, a legacy firm of Charles Turnbull, one of the original architects of the Sea Ranch development. Turnbull was part of the team that designed Condominium One, the first iconic unit built back in 1965 and now on the National Register of Historic Places. Mary Griffin, an MIT graduate in architecture and Turnbull’s widow, is the principal in the firm and contributed to the project.

The firm remains committed to the original vision of the Sea Ranch as a quiet seaside hideaway where the architecture is meant to blend with the land through natural materials, muted colors and understated details.

But with the high cost of wood these days and other environmental considerations including fire risk, Haesloop incorporated wood, in this case cedar, sparingly and in places where it would have the greatest visual impact. While the home’s floor is dark limestone, the highly insulated clapboard ceiling is made of a rich western red cedar. This is a compromise with the traditional open-beam look of the classic Sea Ranch style, which was not very energy-efficient. This new house, Haesloop said, produces more energy than it uses.

The roof slopes down over the main living area over retractable sliding doors. A corner window seat, another traditional Sea Ranch feature, captures the view of the grassy meadow and ocean waves in the distance. But diagonally on the opposite side of the space is a tall set of corner windows that frame a stand of fir trees. Both pay homage to the original Sea Ranch development, with its coastal meadows on one side and its forested hills on the other.

Haesloop incorporated skylights throughout the house aimed at capturing the light throughout the day.

One of the features called out by American Institute of Architects judges was the way the architects captured natural light in an environment that is constantly changing, from bright and sparkling to dark and moody within a matter of hours.

“With the windows and skylights and white walls, there is a wonderful play of light,” Haesloop said.

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at 707-521-5204 or meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com.

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