Noe Valley
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There’s a beautiful quality to traditional Noe Valley Architecture. This Edwardian renovation project is located in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. It was fire that originally damaged this turn-of-the-century Edwardian. Then, poor remodeling work done in the 1960s and 70s followed. At that time, all of the original architectural detail from the home was removed. All that remained was the traditional bay window and portions of the entry stair. False, low ceilings were also added to hide mechanical ducts. Sadly, all of elegant qualities of the home were gone or concealed.
Many times in San Francisco, owner’s would choose to reinvent a building like this as a modern looking house. We, however, chose a different approach – one that reflected our clients’ tastes and our strong desire to make the building a part of the neighborhood again. We love the feel of traditional San Francisco residential neighborhoods. Much of that feel comes from the facades of the homes that line the streets.
The building’s new exterior details are our design and represent an interpretation of traditional buildings of that era. Though they are not original, this was not a restoration project. We worked with an excellent builder to create the facades on site through a process of sketches, drawings and mock-ups.
On this project, we had the good fortune to front not only the street, but also an alley. The original building never took advantage of this. The wall fronting the alley was solid from top to bottom. We, however, viewed this as a great design opportunity to add windows and a balcony and bring in natural light to middle rooms. These new elements also give the exterior a stately quality.
The interior space planning is modern and fits today’s lifestyles. We designed a U-shape in the center of the building which filters light form the roof down to the first floor. Additionally, we added an entire new third floor to serve as entertainment space with neighborhood views. The addition is set back from the street and works with the scale of the adjacent buildings.
We also managed to add a garage to the building. Because the building is on an up-sloping lot, we were able to excavate a new garage space out of the hillside. We designed the garage to blend into the base of the building and not distract from the floors above.
Noe Valley Architecture: Partners
Contractor: Cal Bay Builders
Artwork and Interiors: Ken Sloan Fine Art