
Pitcher's Prow
With a panoramic view west across the entire San Francisco Bay, from San Jose to the Golden Gate bridge, this exterior architecture project emerges prow-like from the Oakland, CA hills. A plunge pool and upper and lower seating and entertainment terraces/decks cascade downward from the existing house. A steel pergola pinwheels its cantilevering triangular arms outward to shade the built-in grilling and upper seating area. Seeking to re-establish a California meadow along the re-claimed slopes of what was once the Leona Stone Quarry (supplying crushed 140 million year old rhyolite rock for use in macadam and concrete for Bay Area projects such as I-580, Oakland Airport and Coliseum, berths of the Port of Oakland, and BART), the plantings are a matrix of purple needlegrass (California’s state grass), California poppy, Silver Bush Lupine, and California sagebrush.

“There will never be great architects or great architecture without great patrons.” – Edwin Lutyens





Completion Date:
February 2019
Project Team:
Mary Barensfeld