Houzz Tours
AIASF Marin Home Tour: The Portnoy/Danzig Residence
Houzz is glad to partner with the American Institute of Architects San Francisco and cover their upcoming Marin Living Home Tours. Over the next few weeks we will introduce you to the houses that will be featured on the tour and interview the architects. That way, those of you who are not lucky enough to make it on the tour can experience it virtually. Also, in each one of these interviews, one lucky reader will win a ticket for the May 15 tour. See more details at the end of this interview.
The second house in our Marin Home Tour Interview Series is The Portnoy/Danzig Residence and was designed by Sharon Portnoy Design. It is the personal home and office of Sharon Portnoy. Sharon has balanced living and working, color and neutrals, circles and squares, private and public, displaying beloved items and lack of clutter, indoors and outdoors, and a slew of other tricky yins and yangs that are tough to master. In the images and her words below, she offers valuable advice and inspiration. It was a joy to virtually tour this house and gather some of Sharon's insights.
1) Please give our readers who cannot make it to the tour a quick description of the neighborhood/context of the site.
The house is in Mill Valley, California, which is a semi-rural suburb about 15 minutes north of San Francisco. The character of the neighborhood is a little hard to describe. The roads are narrow, no sidewalks, with lots of foliage, not very manicured. As far as architectural styles go, it's very eclectic, but most houses are not fully visible to the street, given the the density of the landscape and the topography.
2) The images show us that this house gets great light. How did you manage to let in the light and maintain some privacy?
The side of the house that faces the street actually has few openings. The openings that are in that facade are small and high up, so that light and air come in, but people can't see in. The facades that face the lawn and the view are wide open and heavily glazed to establish a real connection to the outside and to the view. Luckily, even though our neighbors are close by, the grade and the existing landscaping protect our privacy and theirs.
3) You obviously have a great eye for color and are not afraid to use bright colors, and I love the way that you used color on the exterior. Which artists and/or designers are inspiring you right now?
Color. Yes. Love it. The thing about color is this: it's free. It costs the same to paint a wall red as it does to paint it white, so why not have fun with it? The color on the exterior of my house is actually used to differentiate the circulation spaces: hallways and stairs.
My one piece of advice for people who want to be a little bolder with color is to use it on painted surfaces only at first. That way, if you're miserable, you can just repaint it. If I want color in a bathroom for instance, I will use white tile or another neutral color tile, and paint the walls. Or in my kitchen, you'll notice that the tile backsplash is white, and the cabinets are natural wood. I just painted the interiors of the cabinets red, which has a great impact, but is very low risk.
Another thing about color: people often accuse modern architecture of being austere, but many of the important modernists used color in their work. I am thinking of Le Corbusier, the Eameses, and also of Frank Lloyd Wright. We have a FLW building here in Marin, the Marin County Civic Center, and I love the floors. They're concrete, painted his signature, earthy red, kind of like the color of the Golden Gate bridge.
As for whom I find inspiring, that's a tough one, because there are so many great architects and designers out there. I love the work of two Canadian firms, Brian MacKay-Lyons and Shim-Sutcliffe. There are also some Bay Area firms whose work I really admire: Turnbull Griffin Haesloop, Cass Calder Smith, just to name a couple that come immediately to mind.
4) Your home is curated perfectly - every object from large pieces of furniture to small origami cranes seems stands on its own and works with the others. Do you have any advice to help our readers keep their homes well edited?
As far as curating and editing my space, I feel that I should say something like: "Don't let anything into your home that you don't absolutely love," but quite honestly, I don't have that kind of discipline. So my solution is tons of storage. Keep out and on display things you love to use and to look at, and put everything else away. As far as objects working together, my feeling is that things don't have to go together in any conventional way, but that they are unified simply by the fact of your loving them.
5) Topography was clearly a challenge on this site. How did you address the issue of the slope when you were site planning? Were you able to use it to your advantage?
Topography was a challenge, as it is almost everywhere in Marin. The way I addressed it was to divide the house vertically into three levels. One enters on the lower level, which literally and figuratively "supports" the upper levels by housing all of the support functions: garage, laundry, storage, office, etc. From the lower level one goes up to the main floor, which is one flight up on the front of the house, but at grade on the back. This creates the kind of seamless indoor/outdoor experience we had fantasized about when we moved to California, but which is actually quite difficult to attain on a sloped lot. And perched on top are the bedrooms, which comprise a partial third story.
6) Please give our readers who reside in live/work spaces some advice on how to make it work. Are you able to accomplish a lot of work from home? How can design help us work better from home?
As far as live/work spaces are concerned, I think it's really personal. What works for me might not work for someone else. For me, it was important to have the office away from the hub of the house and to have a door that locks. I need a very clear division between my work space and my family space. Otherwise I feel scattered and stretched in too many directions. I'm a terrible multi-tasker. It also helps that I love my office. I have high windows which allow light in, but don't allow anyone to see in or me to see out. I also have pin-up space on three walls, which is critical for an architect, and lots of countertop for my piles and piles of things.
7) When designing residences, what kind of features do you feel make a house a home?
I have a kind of corny answer to the question of what make a house a home. When we first moved into this house I really missed my old house. My homesickness was exacerbated by the fact that everyone kept asking, "Do you love it? Are you thrilled?" The fact was, I felt uncomfortable and out of place, and it was not until we had been living here for a few months and were ready to start having friends over that it really started to feel like home. So I guess my answer is that what makes a house a home is the people who fill it and the experiences they have there: the meals they share, the games of basketball in the driveway, the late-night talks ..... the stuff of life.
8) Don't worry about corniness, that was a corny question! Moving on, please tell those attending the tour some of your favorite details and/or features that they should take notice of while on the tour.
I have a few favorite features: first and foremost is my reading nook in the living room. It's the corner of a large built-in sofa with built-in bookshelves and a window framing a view of Mt. Tam. The great thing about this is that I use my Living Room everyday. It's as comfortable for one person as it is for ten. I also really like the drawers in the base of the sofa.Another feature is the operating skylights throughout the house. We have great natural ventilation and air circulation which helps keep the house comfortable. Finally, there's a piece of cast concrete with bottle-glass insets that functions as the main stair landing, and allows light to penetrate from the upper level down to the entry.
Sharon, thank you so much for your time, and for sharing your work with us!
The AIASF is giving away a ticket to the Marin home tour to one of the lucky readers that will share their thoughts about this house and interview.
For your chance to win the ticket to the Marin Living Home Tours, comment on this interview by Sunday, May 2, at 5pm EST.
The second house in our Marin Home Tour Interview Series is The Portnoy/Danzig Residence and was designed by Sharon Portnoy Design. It is the personal home and office of Sharon Portnoy. Sharon has balanced living and working, color and neutrals, circles and squares, private and public, displaying beloved items and lack of clutter, indoors and outdoors, and a slew of other tricky yins and yangs that are tough to master. In the images and her words below, she offers valuable advice and inspiration. It was a joy to virtually tour this house and gather some of Sharon's insights.
1) Please give our readers who cannot make it to the tour a quick description of the neighborhood/context of the site.
The house is in Mill Valley, California, which is a semi-rural suburb about 15 minutes north of San Francisco. The character of the neighborhood is a little hard to describe. The roads are narrow, no sidewalks, with lots of foliage, not very manicured. As far as architectural styles go, it's very eclectic, but most houses are not fully visible to the street, given the the density of the landscape and the topography.
2) The images show us that this house gets great light. How did you manage to let in the light and maintain some privacy?
The side of the house that faces the street actually has few openings. The openings that are in that facade are small and high up, so that light and air come in, but people can't see in. The facades that face the lawn and the view are wide open and heavily glazed to establish a real connection to the outside and to the view. Luckily, even though our neighbors are close by, the grade and the existing landscaping protect our privacy and theirs.
3) You obviously have a great eye for color and are not afraid to use bright colors, and I love the way that you used color on the exterior. Which artists and/or designers are inspiring you right now?
Color. Yes. Love it. The thing about color is this: it's free. It costs the same to paint a wall red as it does to paint it white, so why not have fun with it? The color on the exterior of my house is actually used to differentiate the circulation spaces: hallways and stairs.
My one piece of advice for people who want to be a little bolder with color is to use it on painted surfaces only at first. That way, if you're miserable, you can just repaint it. If I want color in a bathroom for instance, I will use white tile or another neutral color tile, and paint the walls. Or in my kitchen, you'll notice that the tile backsplash is white, and the cabinets are natural wood. I just painted the interiors of the cabinets red, which has a great impact, but is very low risk.
Another thing about color: people often accuse modern architecture of being austere, but many of the important modernists used color in their work. I am thinking of Le Corbusier, the Eameses, and also of Frank Lloyd Wright. We have a FLW building here in Marin, the Marin County Civic Center, and I love the floors. They're concrete, painted his signature, earthy red, kind of like the color of the Golden Gate bridge.
As for whom I find inspiring, that's a tough one, because there are so many great architects and designers out there. I love the work of two Canadian firms, Brian MacKay-Lyons and Shim-Sutcliffe. There are also some Bay Area firms whose work I really admire: Turnbull Griffin Haesloop, Cass Calder Smith, just to name a couple that come immediately to mind.
4) Your home is curated perfectly - every object from large pieces of furniture to small origami cranes seems stands on its own and works with the others. Do you have any advice to help our readers keep their homes well edited?
As far as curating and editing my space, I feel that I should say something like: "Don't let anything into your home that you don't absolutely love," but quite honestly, I don't have that kind of discipline. So my solution is tons of storage. Keep out and on display things you love to use and to look at, and put everything else away. As far as objects working together, my feeling is that things don't have to go together in any conventional way, but that they are unified simply by the fact of your loving them.
5) Topography was clearly a challenge on this site. How did you address the issue of the slope when you were site planning? Were you able to use it to your advantage?
Topography was a challenge, as it is almost everywhere in Marin. The way I addressed it was to divide the house vertically into three levels. One enters on the lower level, which literally and figuratively "supports" the upper levels by housing all of the support functions: garage, laundry, storage, office, etc. From the lower level one goes up to the main floor, which is one flight up on the front of the house, but at grade on the back. This creates the kind of seamless indoor/outdoor experience we had fantasized about when we moved to California, but which is actually quite difficult to attain on a sloped lot. And perched on top are the bedrooms, which comprise a partial third story.
6) Please give our readers who reside in live/work spaces some advice on how to make it work. Are you able to accomplish a lot of work from home? How can design help us work better from home?
As far as live/work spaces are concerned, I think it's really personal. What works for me might not work for someone else. For me, it was important to have the office away from the hub of the house and to have a door that locks. I need a very clear division between my work space and my family space. Otherwise I feel scattered and stretched in too many directions. I'm a terrible multi-tasker. It also helps that I love my office. I have high windows which allow light in, but don't allow anyone to see in or me to see out. I also have pin-up space on three walls, which is critical for an architect, and lots of countertop for my piles and piles of things.
7) When designing residences, what kind of features do you feel make a house a home?
I have a kind of corny answer to the question of what make a house a home. When we first moved into this house I really missed my old house. My homesickness was exacerbated by the fact that everyone kept asking, "Do you love it? Are you thrilled?" The fact was, I felt uncomfortable and out of place, and it was not until we had been living here for a few months and were ready to start having friends over that it really started to feel like home. So I guess my answer is that what makes a house a home is the people who fill it and the experiences they have there: the meals they share, the games of basketball in the driveway, the late-night talks ..... the stuff of life.
8) Don't worry about corniness, that was a corny question! Moving on, please tell those attending the tour some of your favorite details and/or features that they should take notice of while on the tour.
I have a few favorite features: first and foremost is my reading nook in the living room. It's the corner of a large built-in sofa with built-in bookshelves and a window framing a view of Mt. Tam. The great thing about this is that I use my Living Room everyday. It's as comfortable for one person as it is for ten. I also really like the drawers in the base of the sofa.Another feature is the operating skylights throughout the house. We have great natural ventilation and air circulation which helps keep the house comfortable. Finally, there's a piece of cast concrete with bottle-glass insets that functions as the main stair landing, and allows light to penetrate from the upper level down to the entry.
Sharon, thank you so much for your time, and for sharing your work with us!
The AIASF is giving away a ticket to the Marin home tour to one of the lucky readers that will share their thoughts about this house and interview.
For your chance to win the ticket to the Marin Living Home Tours, comment on this interview by Sunday, May 2, at 5pm EST.