This Claremont Neighborhood home has gone through quite a few transformations over the last century, and if we counted the bones correctly our transformation was at least the fifth! The recent winner of a Preservation Award from Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA), this home was originally designed by Harry C Knight in 1909.
What began as a two bedroom Turn of the Century Craftsman bungalow became a two story cottage when a couple of rooms were dormered into the tipped roof attic and accessed by a small stairway in the back. Some time later the upper floor was enlarged to include the large street-facing gable and a new formal staircase. Fun fact: the original back staircase was walled in, to be ‘found’ just this last year! During a subsequent remodel, the formal stairway was widened to a grander scale and the house was re-cast in a thirties semi-art deco style. A later kitchen renovation was up to date for the fifties, but was still quite formal and out of touch with the rest of the house. Suffice it to say, the house was a hodgepodge of disjointed remodels, in need of a fresh take.
The remodel, restoration and addition kept all of the old and wonderful aspects of the home–such as its original diamond double hung windows–while dispensing with many timeworn formalities–such as the matrix of closed rooms and narrow hallways that comprised its floor plan. Light-filled and open, the updated home provides the family with an integrated floor plan, allowing for fluid relationships between different spaces. Ultimately, the home feels more ‘original’ and traditional than it has in almost a century, and most authentic to its inhabitants