Warren Scott - Union Tribune

BY SOPHY CHAFFEE

MAY 9, 2020 6 AM PT

ENCINITAS — 

Architect Warren Scott’s plan for the remodel of this Leucadia home did more than add contemporary, geometric style to the formerly basic 1981 design and reorient rooms to the expansive ocean views.

He also, figuratively speaking, turned a breadbox into a modern castle.

“It was like a breadbox,” said the homeowner, who wishes to remain anonymous, of the original three-story home in this neighborhood in northern Encinitas. The remodeling team kept structural components so the top floor could be preserved. (The house was built before the city was incorporated, and it exceeded current height restrictions, so keepingthe skeleton of the house grandfathered in that top floor, which has the bestviews.)

“When you came up the front, there were no windows, just walls,” she added. “We pretty much kept the outline of the house, but Warren added all kinds of angles, which we’re really happy with.”

Landscape architect Debora Carl said shedesigned angled paths, patios and planters “to make the spaces belowgraphically interesting when viewed from above.”

(Eduardo Contreras / The San DiegoUnion-Tribune)

Scott described the remodeled4,950-square-foot home as a modern castle, in large part because he included asecret, internal spiral staircase that can be accessed from all three floors byhidden doors. “For me,” said Scott, “it kind of goes back to when you were a kidand there was a hidden room and a hidden space like a castle might have had.”

The home’s other spiral staircase is hardly asecret. It connects the decks along the top and second floors to the backyard,which landscape architect Debora Carl said she designed to include angledpaths, patios and planters, “to make the spaces below graphically interestingwhen viewed from above.”

The deck Scott added above the new officespace off the detached garage adds to the modern castle feel. It extends fromthe deck off the second-floor great room by a bridge with a low, wavy sidewall. “We extended it out to where it almost floats to the view,” he said.

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The homeowners, both engineers, bought the home in 1997 and embarked on the remodel in 2013 when their two kids were high school age. They assembled their team in 2014. House construction began in September 2014 and ended in December 2015. Carl’s outdoor work wrapped up in2016.

The couple chose Alliance Green Builders as their contractor, hoping to make the home as close to net-zero energy usage as possible with solar panels, upgraded insolation and air sealing, mini-split heating and cooling, and energy-efficient lighting. The home earned a Gold certification through the Build It Green Green Point rating system.

To bring in the simplicity of the midcentury-modern design that they liked and grew up with, the couple hired interior designer Anita Dawson of Dawson Design Group. She brought in warm woods and natural stones for an inviting feel.

Carl selected colors for the exterior stone, stucco and Trespa cladding (high pressure laminate panels made by layering sheets of wood or paper fibers with resin). The wood-colored panels (similar to the woods inside) accentuate Scott’s angled bump-outs and rooflines. Her team also designed a Mondrian-inspired metal panel along the front stairs, as well as a long, rectangular fountain leading to the front door.

The homeowner appreciates the way the team worked together to create a home that’s visually interesting but feels warm and organic.

“There’s kind of a feel of peace for us, having all the angles and shapes and structures, but not a lot of stuff,” she said.

For Green Alliance Builders, preserving the home’s structural components was as much of a challenge as building the intricacies of Scott’s angles.

Kitchen cabinets were treated as furniture pieces in the remodel, to evoke more of a feeling of an entertainment space, said interior designer Anita Dawson.

(Eduardo Contreras / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

“Essentially, this home was ripped down to the studs,” said vice president Rich Williams. The team was able to retain most of the framing but had to jack up the cracked foundation and install caissons into the hillside for support. The crack was on the eastern side of the house that was built where a gully had been. It caused the house to settle 4 to 5 inches on one side, which required tricky leveling for the engineered white oak flooring in the main rooms.

Scott eliminated the old split-level entry, so now the great room on the second floor is level, expansive and open to the views. He moved the kitchen from the street side to the view side of the house(where there once had been a brick fireplace).

He added only a net 150 square feet, mainly near the entry and the husband’s new office.

“We also took away some square footage because we wanted to create some inlets and recesses that create sort of a view orientation,” said Scott.

The angled fireplace accents the living area of the Leucadia remodel. Blue-greens, including the teal accent rug, recur throughout the home.

(Eduardo Contreras / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

“Warren Scott designed the steel structural beams to be exposed inside the great room, which was really inspired,” said Dawson. “He also played with interesting shapes and positions of windows. ...Having smaller square windows along what would normally be a back wall of cabinets in the kitchen allowed us to have a bit more fun.”

Dawson found soapstone for the counters and backsplash. The island bar top is dark walnut, while the cabinets are a mix of clear and stained alder, painted and teak veneer.

“We treated the kitchen cabinets as if they were furniture pieces so that room felt less like a kitchen and more like an entertaining space,” Dawson said.

The angled fireplace (made from the same Apache Cloud ledgestone veneer used on the exterior cladding, firepit and backyard bench) anchors the living area. It also features a gray, round sectional; a painting of a line of trees by Louisa King Fraser; and a teal accent rug and pillows.

Blue-greens show up throughout the home, like in the wallcovering of the powder room, which gives the hanging Bocci lights that look like folded glass an under-the-sea feel.

“I think a house with that kind of amazing ocean view always does well with natural colors. And the blues and greens balance all of the warm tones in the house,” said Dawson.

The bottom floor features cork flooring and houses a guest suite, sauna, media room, powder room, exercise room and laundry room. The second floor includes the kids’ bedrooms (the daughter’s room features a modern, angled window seat for reading), a shared bathroom and the wife’s office/library.

Another stairway that elicits “wows” from guests is the floating staircase to the top floor with treads made from clear-finish Parallam beams.

Scott reconfigured the once oversized master suite to create a sitting room that opens to the deck. He moved the master bath to the street side to open up the view from the bedroom and sitting room.

The sitting room includes midcentury-modern furniture and a painting from the wife’s childhood homes in Connecticut and Minnesota, as well as some of the husband’s collection of Bill Graham’s 1960sconcert posters.

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In the home’s powder room, blue-green wall covering gives the hanging Bocci lights, which look like folded glass, an under-the-sea feel.

(Eduardo Contreras / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

In designing the backyard, Carl balanced view preservation with privacy. “We wanted to maintain views of Encinitas and the ocean but also create some cozy outdoor spaces for the family or the couple to enjoy without feeling too exposed,” she said. “There is a large public park below the property, and although it’s downhill from the project, we wanted the garden feeling private.”

The cozy spots include sitting areas, a whirlpool spa and, tucked off the side of the house, an outdoor shower with industrial fixtures.

“Plant choices, in addition to being low maintenance and drought tolerant, were directly related to complementing the exterior materials on the house,” Carl said. “The shady front garden features blue foliaged hardy ferns, blue-green Dianella ‘Casa Blue’ and ‘Baby Bliss’ and ‘Silver Queen’ Sanseveria, all of which bring out the blues and silvers of the stone cladding the front of the house.”

“In the rear garden, we used lots of grasses that bloom with buff and warm-brown-colored flowers, evoking beach grasses and complimenting the colors of the Trespa cladding and smooth stucco exterior.”

The homeowner appreciates the California colors used in the house and landscaping. “When I moved to California, I always loved the real subtle colors of the hillside, the slightly different greens. And I think we have that here, also with the little bits of browns and rust and oranges mixed in.”

No matter the time of year or whether she’s inside the home or out, she said, “there’s not a day I don’t appreciate it.”

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