Maybeck Reimagined

Bernard Maybeck designed this 1916 California Craftsman residence for a family drawn to art, music, and the natural world. Over a century later, our longtime clients took up residence with the same ambition.

In the years since its construction, the home’s original paneling had been whitewashed. With the original drawings and many key architectural features lost to time, faithful reconstruction proved impossible. Instead, we drew upon surviving examples of Maybeck’s work to fill the gaps and imagine what he might have created for our clients had they commissioned him in 1916 — an exercise in creative non-fiction. We collaborated with architect Marc Appleton of Appleton Partners, Terremoto landscape design, Sean O’Connor Lighting, art consultant Allison Harding, and our contractor, Giffin & Crane to bring the project to life. Evan Shively of Arborica supplied old-growth redwood for the interior cladding and millwork, salvaged from trees burned in recent wildfires.

Our research led us to UC Berkeley’s Maybeck archive, where we studied the architect’s correspondence with the original owners. Their desires for the home, and for the life they imagined at the foot of the Santa Ynez Mountains, echoed many conversations with our own clients. The alignment between the two families, separated by a century, was striking. It informed our approach to the furnishings, pairing early 20th-century craft pieces with the work of like-minded contemporary makers. In the dining nook, Josef Frank chairs gather around a custom Espenet table by Tripp Carpenter of Bolinas. Historic wallpapers from Mauny of France and Woka light fixtures from Austria’s Wiener Werkstaette are the backdrop for bespoke works by Nakashima Workshops, Sofia Londono, Andrew Luck, and Aaron Silverstein.

Our client had been travelling through Europe while we were designing. And so, we sourced elements that would reflect this component of their story. We incorporated furnishings from George Smith, Pierre Yovanovitch, and Leleu; UK’s Rushmatters provided woven rush panels for the dining room ceiling; and Belgium’s Van Cronenberg created custom turned walnut doorknobs for throughout the home. The original owners feel most present in the central living room, conceived as a music hall with a chapel-like pipe organ niche. We retained its role as a space for family and music, now centered around our client’s guitar collection and a grand piano. In a nod to the family’s love for reading, the organ niche became a library. Denim inset into the paneled frieze and coffered ceilings offers a casual counterpoint to the original egg-and-dart moldings. The new fireplace draws on forms from Maybeck’s catalog and is crowned by an arched canvas by Los Angeles artist Aaron Morse — a vivid rendering of the surrounding mountains.