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BY REED WRIGHT MAKEOVER
LIGHT & YOGA
A midcentury Forest Knolls tract
home meets minimalist tranquility.
A SAN FRANCISCO anesthesiologist in her mid-40s wanted
her home to be both a sanctuary and a place to practice yoga
with friends. But her two-level 1950s Forest Knolls tract
home, teetering on stilts atop a down-sloping hillside, had
small lightless rooms that did not fill that need.
Enter architect Brett Terpeluk, who worked for Italian
architect Renzo Piano during the rebuilding of San Francisco’s
eco-conscious Academy of Sciences and later designed trendy
Farina and LihoLiho Yacht Club restaurants, also in the city.
“In 2011, structural engineer David Strandberg introduced
me to my client and we began to develop several strategies to
open views and achieve the desired feeling of being in a light
box,” Terpeluk recalls. “She wanted a sense of well-being in
a space that was minimal, light and airy, not unlike Farina.”
Eventually, in 2015, they got that by opening rear walls
facing sweeping northwest views of the city and the ocean.
In the new living room, a steel
moment frame allows larger
windows. The old fireplace, visible
in the inset below, now has a gas-burning insert, with a stylized mantel
and a storage bench underneath it.
The new open-plan kitchen/dining
has ample in-wall storage.
