Room of the Day: A Luxurious Master Bath in Pasadena
Southern California real estate agents create a relaxing oasis in their historic Spanish Revival home
A couple who specialize in selling California homes decided to upgrade their own by adding a luxurious master bathroom. The challenge: making the addition look as though it had been there since 1925.
Before the addition, the master bedroom shared a bathroom with an adjacent bedroom. It also lacked sufficient closet space. To resolve these problems, Moffitt created an addition with a steam shower, free-standing tub, double vanities and walk-in closet. The owners now enter the bathroom from their bedroom; from there, they can continue out to the backyard.
This image shows how the addition, at the far right of the photograph, blends in with the original home. Moffitt had to site the addition below grade to come in below the upstairs balcony of the original home.
“The biggest challenge was really physically making it work with the existing house,” Moffitt says. “And making it look like it could have been done back in the 1920s.”
The home’s library rotunda is at the left in the photo. The homeowners wanted the addition’s front window to mimic the lines of the arched doorway at the front of the rotunda.
This image shows how the addition, at the far right of the photograph, blends in with the original home. Moffitt had to site the addition below grade to come in below the upstairs balcony of the original home.
“The biggest challenge was really physically making it work with the existing house,” Moffitt says. “And making it look like it could have been done back in the 1920s.”
The home’s library rotunda is at the left in the photo. The homeowners wanted the addition’s front window to mimic the lines of the arched doorway at the front of the rotunda.
Moffitt accomplished this by adding a row of custom tiles above the addition’s front window. The window, which appears transparent in this image, looks out from the steam shower. (More on how the homeowners addressed privacy concerns later.)
The home, built in 1925 by a Viennese dentist named Adolf Boehm, has all sorts of decorative quirks.
“The interior is a crazy mixture of highly decorative European elements,” Goldberg says. “The bathrooms are unlike anything I have ever seen before. They have a definite 1920s vibe with hex tile floors and the usual color banding at the bottom of the floor and on the cap moldings. Your guess is as good as mine as to how to describe them.”
This pink and blue detail from the music room ceiling depicts “the muse of music and dance up in the clouds playing her tambourine on bubbles,” Goldberg says. It’s a good example of the original homeowner’s love of intricate detailing.
Boehm hired Merle Ramsey, a former truck driver in California’s citrus groves, as both his architect and builder. Ramsey had obtained his architectural degree via mail order. He had learned to plaster from his father, a tradesman, and did the plaster work at Knott’s Berry Farm’s Bird Cage Theatre. Ramsey worked on this house with his father. Boehm wanted it to look old the day it was finished, according to the homeowners.
“The interior is a crazy mixture of highly decorative European elements,” Goldberg says. “The bathrooms are unlike anything I have ever seen before. They have a definite 1920s vibe with hex tile floors and the usual color banding at the bottom of the floor and on the cap moldings. Your guess is as good as mine as to how to describe them.”
This pink and blue detail from the music room ceiling depicts “the muse of music and dance up in the clouds playing her tambourine on bubbles,” Goldberg says. It’s a good example of the original homeowner’s love of intricate detailing.
Boehm hired Merle Ramsey, a former truck driver in California’s citrus groves, as both his architect and builder. Ramsey had obtained his architectural degree via mail order. He had learned to plaster from his father, a tradesman, and did the plaster work at Knott’s Berry Farm’s Bird Cage Theatre. Ramsey worked on this house with his father. Boehm wanted it to look old the day it was finished, according to the homeowners.
This image shows one of the home’s existing bathrooms, its original fixtures and finishes intact. Goldberg and Martocchio used this room as their inspiration. “That’s one of the most important parts of this addition: Inside and outside we had to keep everything mimicking what is original and still here,” Goldberg says.
The tiles are from Delft, in the Netherlands. The original bathroom tiles contained glazes with lead and cadmium, products no longer on the market for safety reasons. So the owners looked for similar modern versions. “We tried to find handmade tiles that had variations in glaze that would allow us to have that kind of look, but with sort of a more muted, not so psychedelic pattern,” Martocchio says.
The tiles are from Delft, in the Netherlands. The original bathroom tiles contained glazes with lead and cadmium, products no longer on the market for safety reasons. So the owners looked for similar modern versions. “We tried to find handmade tiles that had variations in glaze that would allow us to have that kind of look, but with sort of a more muted, not so psychedelic pattern,” Martocchio says.
From the beginning, the steam shower was planned as a central feature of the new bathroom. “After visiting Morocco and using hammams, my obsession was that I really wanted a fully functioning steam room where you could sprawl out, lie on the floor or bench, and have that sort of Turkish bath feeling,” Martocchio says. He was able to purchase a commercial-grade ThermaSol steam unit. But locating a steam shower at the front of the bathroom, facing the street, created privacy concerns.
Light fixtures: EKenoz
Light fixtures: EKenoz
To solve that problem, the owners purchased special double-paned glass with a charged film panel between the panes. When it’s turned on, the panel is nearly transparent, as seen here.
But when it’s off, the window is opaque, providing total privacy.
Wall and bench: white Carrara marble
Wall and bench: white Carrara marble
Martocchio and Goldberg asked Moffitt to shape the ceiling above the vanities like the curved ceiling in their living room. The plaster molding around the window also mimics the curves of window casings in the home. Similarly, the cabinetry style parallels cabinetry on the home’s second floor.
Moffitt designed the structural elements of the building but left the finishes up to the owners. “Normally I do get involved,” she says. But these particular owners “really knew what they wanted.”
Cabinets: custom; faucets: Horus; countertops: semiprecious blue quartz; raised countertop below the window: zinc; toilet: Toto
Moffitt designed the structural elements of the building but left the finishes up to the owners. “Normally I do get involved,” she says. But these particular owners “really knew what they wanted.”
Cabinets: custom; faucets: Horus; countertops: semiprecious blue quartz; raised countertop below the window: zinc; toilet: Toto
Goldberg purchased the vintage tile in the center of the niche above the bathtub; it’s from Delft and commemorates the 500th anniversary of the Dutch town. The tile layout mimics the original. “The hex tile floor, the black banding at the bottom, the wall tile, the purple top cap — all of it is exactly the same layout as the original,” Goldberg says.
Purple tile: Pratt & Larson; patterned wall tile and hexagon floor tile: Revival line, Mission Tile West; beige wall tile and blue tile: Tessera Glass; tub: Americh
Purple tile: Pratt & Larson; patterned wall tile and hexagon floor tile: Revival line, Mission Tile West; beige wall tile and blue tile: Tessera Glass; tub: Americh
Because the addition is sited below grade, the homeowners step down into it from their bedroom, then up and out again into the backyard.
Even the shelving echoes elements seen in the original home.
Planning the addition took at least a year, and construction took another 15 months. Like many renovations, what started as a simple master bath addition turned into several other projects. The owners discovered they needed to upgrade their electrical system and sewer and water mains, both of which required permitting from the city. Those steps meant ripping up the yard, so Martocchio and Goldberg decided to re-landscape half the property. Once the addition had been painted, they decided the rest of the house needed a paint job too.
Planning the addition took at least a year, and construction took another 15 months. Like many renovations, what started as a simple master bath addition turned into several other projects. The owners discovered they needed to upgrade their electrical system and sewer and water mains, both of which required permitting from the city. Those steps meant ripping up the yard, so Martocchio and Goldberg decided to re-landscape half the property. Once the addition had been painted, they decided the rest of the house needed a paint job too.
Green gates hide the pool equipment.
Martocchio and Goldberg purchased all the fixtures and finishes themselves. “We selected everything before we started, in order to get as accurate a bid as we could,” Goldberg says.
And now they have “a master bathroom big enough for two people to have a modern life in,” Martocchio says.
More
See more of this addition
More Mediterranean-style baths
Martocchio and Goldberg purchased all the fixtures and finishes themselves. “We selected everything before we started, in order to get as accurate a bid as we could,” Goldberg says.
And now they have “a master bathroom big enough for two people to have a modern life in,” Martocchio says.
More
See more of this addition
More Mediterranean-style baths
Who lives here: Peter Martocchio and David Goldberg
Location: Pasadena, California
Size: 363 square feet (34 square meters)
Architect: Gina Moffitt of Kiyohara Moffitt
Peter Martocchio and husband David Goldberg, both real estate agents for Sotheby’s, wanted to create a luxurious master bathroom in their Spanish Revival home in Pasadena. “We live in a 1925 National Register house that has very specific aesthetics in the existing bathrooms. But they’re very small,” Martocchio says. “Our goal was to make a new bathroom that felt like an old bathroom—but had all the amenities of a modern bathroom.”
To achieve their goals, Martocchio and Goldberg enlisted the help of architect Gina Moffitt, to whom they have referred many of their clients.
Wall paint: Graycloth 4211P by Nippon