Forging relationships
Neighbors revamped their '40s homes to improve flow -- and connections with each other

by Carol Blitzer / photos by Dasja Dolan

From the moment the two couples moved onto their quiet Old Mountain View street in 1994, Sarah Lundgren and Dave Wilson became fast friends with their next-door neighbors Miko Yamaguchi and Dan O'Leary.

So when Lundgren and Wilson were having trouble getting their architect to translate their ideas into real remodel plans, Yamaguchi and O'Leary suggested talking to architect Tom Carrubba, who was working on their remodel.

The two families interacted daily, with the women taking tea in the afternoon, and the families sharing meals several times a week. Kids had free run of both homes and were constantly going back and forth. Any remodeling plans would have to include easy access from one yard to another.

Each couple was living in a post-World War II tract home that had been updated over the years. Even when the families began to outgrow their homes they had no interest in moving. Instead they settled on one architect who could adapt each home to suit the family's needs.

Yamaguchi and O'Leary said their original entry felt like walking in through a tunnel. A tiny porch made greeting guests awkward, and there was no place to store shoes by the front door, O'Leary says.

Today one enters through a wide door -- a "project that many people touched," Yamaguchi says -- and drops one's shoes in a built-in shelf. Continue in through a many-windowed, furniture-less room with a buffed concrete floor and a river-rock embedded path -- what Yamaguchi and O'Leary call the yoga or music room.

A built-in, glass-fronted cabinet contains Yamaguchi's collection of Japanese dolls, which she used to spend a day unpacking once a year to display on Girl's Day in March.

A key reason for choosing the house was a large redwood tree -- which was only visible from outside the house.

The remodel pushed out the living room 4 feet, opening the room to the outside via a wide glass NanaWall. A Japanese-style wrap-around porch with an overhanging roof, called an engawa, further draws one outside.

Now the redwood tree can be seen through the wall of glass doors and through the large windows in the yoga room -- as well as from the house next door.

The couple chose not to re-do the kitchen again but did some re-configuring of the adjacent laundry room, including opening up a door to the exterior that had been sealed off by previous owners. They managed to re-use the existing countertop plus add pantry storage.

The old bathroom was redone, with a window removed and a skylight added. A large rectangular porcelain sink sits over a cabinet, with small glass tiles in the backsplash. Honed granite on the floor matches the trim around the old fireplace, as well as the master bathroom.

O'Leary's only regret is hanging the door so it opens in -- something he plans to ultimately change.

Since the master bedroom faces the street, shoji screens are used to filter both sound and light and provide privacy. A door opens out to the garden -- home of a future bamboo forest, Yamaguchi says.

The master bathroom features a deep Japanese-style soaking tub, adjacent to a shower with a sliding shower head, backed by a wall of river rock. The honed slate surrounding the tub and the shoji screen covering the window appears to float through the glass wall.

Double-paned windows and insulation were added throughout the house, O'Leary says, noting that the old aluminum windows would rattle when cars went by.

Now that they've moved back in with their 10-year-old daughter, Aidan, "We just want to be home all the time," Yamaguchi says, adding that "kids on the block play here all the time."

While Yamaguchi and O'Leary were expanding their home next door, Lundgren and Wilson were contemplating how to take advantage of their angled lot to double the size of their house.

"We wanted it to feel cottage-y, proportional to the original house," Lundgren says, adding, "We wanted to live in every inch of the house. ... We like funky, different, angled, not all symmetrical."

The first thing they did is tear down the old garage at the front and move it to the back of the lot. Then Carrubba designed a master bedroom and bathroom upstairs, along with an office with a long table/desk facing the street.

Fresh from orienting the neighbor's house to better appreciate that huge redwood tree, he lined up the main stairwell and the "massing of the house" with the tree as well. "That turned out nicely," he says.

"I like the old," Lundgren says. "I wanted it to seem like it's been there since the '40s."

That left a bedroom for each of their three children -- age 12, 10 and 4 -- as well as a guest room downstairs. Much of the downstairs remains untouched, although they gained a new entry with a more-welcoming front porch, an alcove off the living room, a small family room and a reconfigured laundry room off the kitchen.

The biggest bonus is the bicycle garage.

"We're bike commuters," Lundgren says, noting that her husband bikes to Google and she bikes all over town, even to the market.

A number of "universal design" elements have been incorporated in the remodel, including a concrete ramp and path around the house, which make it easer for their special-needs son (who is blind) to get around while touching the wall.

A key driver in the design was creating space for the children. "We wanted access to the garden that's not through the house," she says.

Lundgren and Yamaguchi jointly designed the cement that swirls around the plum tree that they planted in front years ago. It's not clear whose property the tree sits on.

And the aging grape-stake fence separating the two properties will soon be replaced with a similar fence -- but this one will have a gate that recedes behind the garage. A brick patio will extend from one property to the other, offering more conjoint space for entertaining and visiting.

Although the remodel was not driven by the desire to build green, the couple did re-use the original redwood siding and chose no-VOC (volatile organic compound) paint throughout. A compost area replaces the standard garbage disposal.

Lundgren ended up very happy with Carrubba's design. "He turned the house and got interesting angles, alcoves, not what is expected," she says.

Carrubba has already begun work on another home on the block. "This is really a unique enclave," he says, adding "There's something binding people together there.

"Architecturally the projects were different, but their lifestyles are similar. They're down-to-earth people, pretty casual. They both wanted to improve their homes because they loved the neighborhood," he adds.

Resources:
Architect:Tom Carrubba, square three design studios, 900 High St., Ste. 3, Palo Alto, 650-326-3860

Building contractor for Yamaguchi/O'Leary: Ian Dickey, i.d. construction inc., Half Moon Bay, 650-712-9524

Landscape designer for Yamaguchi/O'Leary: Chadine Flood Gong, Chadine Interior & Japanese Garden Design, Los Gatos, 408-354-0606

Front door handles: Fred Brady, Design & Fabrication, San Jose, 415-613-9309

Goal of project (Japanese-style): Add master bedroom/bath, office and bedroom, change entry

Unexpected problems: Had to cut into foundation to accommodate front closet; needed to upgrade some kitchen electrical work.

Year house built: 1947

Size of home, lot: Was 1,310 sq ft; now 1,904 sq ft on 6,014-sq-ft lot

Time to complete: 9 months

Budget: $500,000

Goal of project (barn style): Add a bedroom, "nicer-looking front," better use of family space

Unexpected problems: Cost $10,000 to replace a sewer pipe that ran from the house to the street.

Year house built: 1947

Size of home, lot: Was 1,544 sq ft; now 2,700 sq ft on 8,392-sq-ft lot; 5 BR, 3 BA

Time to complete: 7 months

Budget: $260,000