Hearth for Home

The truly important part of home design is the collaborative effort behind it.

When the project is finished, the goal is to have created something that is useful and beautiful: the design needs to fit, like a glove, those who live there.

If you can create a space in which your clients can live well and happily...a space that holds, with care, the essence of their lives...then you've done your job.

To get a call from someone gifted with a great eye, an open spirit, and the desire to roll up their sleeves and work toward this vision with you...that is, clearly, the best of all possible worlds. This project is that.

When we started the work, I had just returned from France and had seen, in the Louvre, the original foundation of the Great Tower. The rough beauty of the 12th century stones was astonishing. There was a sort of quiet enchantment to the whole business...something that made you just want to be there, a solid peace.

To build a fireplace--the virtual heart of the project--and incorporate a bit of the feeling from this remarkable fortress seemed ideal.

The result sits firmly centered in the back of the yard now, holding down it's own little fort. It is solid and well-used, and has a bit of a sense of humor in it's stout and stalwart appearance. (When riffing--in California and elsewhere--on an ancient french chateau, a grain of Cleeseian Salt seems advisable.) The fireplace became the inspiration for much of the building and masonry that followed. Grand in it's own happy way, it brings a quiet bit of peace to the family on many a weekend, and work night.