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FORGING BONDSMODERNIZING A PALO ALTO HOME I PAGE 4FROM LAWN TO EDIBLE WONDER I PAGE 8

IN OLD MOUNTAIN VIEWPAGE 12

MagazineFall 2009

AN ALMANAC, MOUNTAIN VIEW VOICE AND PALO ALTO WEEKLY PUBLICATION

2 FALL 2009 | home+garden design

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Merger and acquisitionA facelift, addition and energy-saving features modernize a Palo Alto home I Page 4

A labor of loveFamily turned front lawn into edible wonder I Page 8

Forging relationshipsNeighbors revamped their ‘40s homes to improve flow — and connections with each other I Page 12

Staging a garden for a party (or home sale)From quick fixes to longer-term improvements I Page 20

On the cover: The former Old Mountain View tract house now features a fine view of a towering redwood from the many-windowed yoga room. Photo by Dasja Dolan.

home+ garden

MAGAZINEFall 2009


H O M E + G A R D E N D E S I G N

A FACELIFT, ADDITION AND ENERGY-SAVING FEATURES MODERNIZE A PALO ALTO HOME

Merger and acquisition



by Susan Golovin / photos by Paul Dyer

Barbara Elspas and Jason Rusoff moved into their circa 1961 Eichler-like

home in 1989 when they got mar-ried. Then life took over and the remodel that they’d been contem-

plating for a long time didn’t take place until recently. “We wanted a bigger kitchen,” Rusoff says. “We also wanted to button things up because it was really drafty and cold.” The new kitchen encompasses

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A no-longer flat roof, left, soars into a V-shape, allowing a bank of windows in the kitchen, right. The only change to the original pine ceilings, top, was dark-ening the beams. The sleek, new kitchen features black soapstone counters, maple cabinets and stainless-steel appliances and sink.



the space that was a covered breeze-way. The once-flat roof is now a companion side of the “V” in the adjoining dining room. The top of the slope in the kitchen ceiling allowed for the addition of a bank of southwest-facing windows. “We didn’t touch the original pine ceilings,” he says. However, they did darken the beams. Black soapstone counters, maple cabinets and all new, stainless-steel appliances set the décor. A large island is a favorite place to eat. Rusoff says that they “sat on a lot of stools,” before selecting the zebra wood models made by Slater Marinoff that are “just the right height.” The island is topped with envi-ronmentally friendly Plyboo (lami-nated bamboo plywood), an idea inspired by a cutting board the couple had always enjoyed. Under-counter, maple cabinets and shelves provide storage — as does a nearby closet pantry with pull-out shelves. The kitchen, dining room and living room are all open to one another and are united by a red oak floor. “We really didn’t want to replace the old floor, but we had to because we couldn’t match the old one,” Rusoff says. Part of the “button-ing up” included putting in all new Pozzi windows — another reason, along with all new Douglas-fir

doors, why the house looks unified. Shallow display shelves work their way to the ceiling in the dining room. A deep red color on the wall behind them dramatizes the space and complements the cherry-wood drawers in the buffet. A triangu-lar window that follows the roof line enhances the light brought in by the more traditional windows below it. Pride of place in the living room goes to the newly re-surfaced burnt-orange fireplace surround where two of the six new remote-controlled skylights (one in the entry and one in each bathroom) are located. A bathroom, shared by their two sons, was gutted, and then updated with green slate floor tiles and honed-slate counters with a recy-cled-glass tile backsplash. To pro-vide room for a generous shower, a bathtub was eliminated, and the flat roof was pushed up. The master bedroom now opens to the wraparound ipe wood deck, as does the kitchen. The master bath was enlarged by incorporat-ing space that was once a covered patio. A wall covered with river rocks greets you as you walk in. “It comes in sheets, and the hard thing is the grouting,” Rusoff says. A free-standing, narrow, oval tub sits in front of this wall. The skylit shower incorporates both honed (below) and shiny (above) re-cycled tiles.

The roof insulation and new solar panels have made a nice dent in their electric bills. “The hot tub (on the deck) was a mistake because it’s so expensive to heat,” Rusoff says. However, the deck with its long bench and slate (over poured concrete) water feature is a well-utilized area. The landscaping is low upkeep: Japanese maples, olive trees, rock rose, ornamental cherry, bamboo, magnolias — and plants that flower at different times of the year. “Figuring out what the outside of the house should look like was a challenge,” Rusoff says. This is because there were three surfaces — the original, which consists of nubby, brown stucco and wood sid-ing, and the addition. Ultimately, they decided against making the addition look the same. The new area is faced with a smooth, grey stucco. Rusoff’s only regret: “I wish we had done this a lot sooner.”

Resources:Architect: Gustave Carlson, Berkeley, 510-524-5181, [email protected]: Alex McComas, McComas Construction, Palo Alto, [email protected] Landscape design, contractor: Keith Armstrong, 802 Lakemuir Drive, Sunnyvale, 408-734-2344

Goal of project:Enlarge kitchen, modernize for

aesthetics as well as energy conservation

Unexpected problems/hidden costs:

Decided to enlarge bathroom after plans were approved;

project slightly delayed

Year house built: 1961

Size of home, lot: Approximately 2,300 sq ft

(added 300 sq ft)

Time to complete: 3-6 months planning; 6 months

construction

The master bathroom features a wall covered with river rock, with a free-standing oval tub, a skylit shower and recycled tiles.

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Few 6-year-olds plan playdates digging in their front yard.

But twins Gabriel and Isaac Heintze are literally enjoy-ing the fruits of their labor, just a few months after their parents, Amy Gerstein and Richard Heintze, turned their front lawn into an edible paradise — while sav-ing water. “We are a family who is aware of a variety of ways we impact the Earth,” Gerstein says. When they noticed how much the boys loved garden-ing with their pre-school teacher, Debbie Togliatti, they roped her into changing their landscape. As her son Isaac buzzes through the garden, dead-heading flowers, Gerstein, a former science teacher, says she wants her sons “to be stewards for the Earth. It’s not something you can teach without doing it.” Togliatti, who runs a land-scape consulting business mainly in summer, explained how they could turn their guilt-instilling, water-guz-zling front lawn into an edi-ble landscape. They started by thinking about replacing the lawn with large planter boxes, but soon decided to turn the sod over, rototill and create raised beds, what the boys call “islands.” In December, they hired someone to till the turf, cov-ered the mounds with news-paper and spread garden soil on top. Then came “mulch with Mom.” Bare-root trees were planted facing the street in January. Then they waited for nature to take its course. “It looked terrible for months,” Gerstein says. But by April, artichokes were already ripening; they

A labor of

by Carol Blitzer / photos by Veronica Weber

continued on page 10

Ripening tomatoes (clockwise, from top left), an artichoke blossom, perennial flowers and a pumpkin now thrive in this Menlo Park front garden.

Family turned front lawn into edible wonder


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continued through August, when the thistle’s last large purple blooms opened. Before planting the majority of vegetables in April and May, they converted their sprinklers to drip irrigation. Soon each mound was planted with something special: eggplant, zucchini and pumpkins on one mound, herbs (basil, rosemary, dill, Italian parsley, sage, tarragon, fen-nel, mint) on another.

In the brick planter they clus-tered strawberries and blueberries, which require a more acid soil. Another row draws the eye from red potatoes and red peppers down to the yellow jalapenos and Yukon golds. Without the vast expanse of lawn, the family sees no need for their mow-and-blow gardener. Instead they manage their huge vegetable garden themselves, with a little help from Togliatti and other friends. All is done without pesticides. Even the fruit trees, which usually take at least a year to

establish, are beginning to bear fruit. So far, response from their neighbors in The Willows, Menlo Park, has been mixed, but Gerstein says con-sciousness is rising slowly. Today when she drives around town, her boys point out “lawn, lawn, lawn,” tsk-tsking about the water waste. At the end of the summer harvest, most of the peren-nials — mainly salvias and penstemons — will be cut back, and the vegetable remnants pulled out. They’ll be added to the compost bin in the back, and eventually recycled into soil amendments in the front. In fall and winter, they plan to put in broccoli, Swiss chard, lettuce, edamame, spinach, kale and cauliflower. While they’ll miss the color of the summer blossoms, veggies and fruits, they’ll still have a variety of textures

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Two workers were hired to turn over the lawn turf, before the new garden was planted.

Debb

ie T

oglia

tti

’I don’t

know how

many

6-year-olds

fight over

artichokes.’— Amy Gerstein,

Menlo Park homeowner and mother of twins


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Goal of project:Replace front lawn with edible landscape, reduce water usage

Surprises: Found plenty of worms in the

rich soil


Size of garden, lot: 30 ft x 30 ft front yard

(8,800-sq-ft lot)

Time to complete: About four months between

rototilling and first crop

Budget:About $2,000

and a huge span of greens, Gerstein and Togliatti say. And the Swiss chard comes in yellow and orange, and even the peas will flower. “It’s not as dramatic as a summer gar-den,” Gerstein says. They’re already thinking about

what they can plant next spring: The kids are advocating for apricots and corn. “I don’t know how many 6-year-olds fight over artichokes,” Gerstein says, laughing. And so far she hasn’t cooked any of the green beans —

they’re eaten before they hit the house.

Resources:Landscape consultant: Debbie Togliatti, Weed It and Reap, Mountain View, 650-743-9927

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Debb

ie T

oglia

tti

By May, the beds/islands were well-established and plants were beginning to fill in.

home+garden design | FALL 2009 1312 FALL 2009 | home+garden design


RE L AT I O NSH I PS

From the moment the two cou-ples moved onto their quiet Old Mountain View street in 1994,

Sarah Lundgren and Dave Wilson became fast friends with their next-

door neighbors Miko Yamaguchi and Dan O’Leary. So when Lundgren and Wilson were having trouble getting their

F O R G I N GNEIGHBORS REVAMPED THEIR ‘40S HOMES TO IMPROVE FLOW — AND CONNECTIONS WITH EACH OTHER


by Carol Blitzer / photos by Dasja Dolan

Entries and living spaces were radically changed from the post-War tract homes, with a nook added off the ‘barn-like’ neighbor’s living room, above, and a NanaWall opening outdoors to the ‘Japanese-style’ neighbors’ living room. Right, a rock-embedded path draws one from the front door, through the yoga room to the living room.

The bathrooms reflect the individual families’ taste, with one adding a deep Japanese soaking tub, honed slate and shoji screens, and the other choosing a more ‘40s look with tiles.



architect to translate their ideas into real remodel plans, Yamaguchi and O’Leary suggested talking to architect Tom Carrubba, who was working on their remodel. The two families interacted daily, with the women taking tea in the afternoon, and the families sharing meals several times a week. Kids had free run of both homes and were constantly going back and forth. Any remodeling plans would have to include easy access from one yard to another. Each couple was living in a post-World War II tract home that had been updated over the years. Even when the families began to outgrow their homes they had no interest in moving. Instead they settled on one architect who could adapt each home to suit the fam-ily’s needs.Yamaguchi and O’Leary said their original entry felt like walking in through a tunnel. A tiny porch made greeting guests awkward, and there was no place to store shoes by the front door, O’Leary says. Today one enters through a wide door — a “project that many people touched,” Yamaguchi says — and drops one’s shoes in a built-in shelf. Continue in through a many-windowed, furniture-less room with a buffed concrete floor and a river-rock embedded path — what Yamaguchi and O’Leary call the yoga or music room. A built-in, glass-fronted cabinet contains Yamaguchi’s collection of Japanese dolls, which she used to spend a day unpacking once a year to display on Girl’s Day in March.A key reason for choosing the house was a large redwood tree — which was only visible from out-side the house. The remodel pushed out the liv-ing room 4 feet, opening the room to the outside via a wide glass NanaWall. A Japanese-style wrap-around porch with an overhanging roof, called an engawa, further draws one outside. Now the redwood tree can be seen through the wall of glass

doors and through the large win-dows in the yoga room — as well as from the house next door. The couple chose not to re-do the kitchen again but did some re-configuring of the adjacent laundry room, including opening up a door to the exterior that had been sealed off by previous owners. They man-aged to re-use the existing counter-top plus add pantry storage. The old bathroom was redone, with a window removed and a skylight added. A large rectangular porcelain sink sits over a cabinet, with small glass tiles in the back-splash. Honed granite on the floor matches the trim around the old fireplace, as well as the master bathroom.

O’Leary’s only regret is hang-ing the door so it opens in — something he plans to ultimately change. Since the master bedroom faces the street, shoji screens are used to filter both sound and light and provide privacy. A door opens out to the garden — home of a future bamboo forest, Yamaguchi says. The master bathroom features a deep Japanese-style soaking tub, adjacent to a shower with a sliding shower head, backed by a wall of river rock. The honed slate surrounding the tub and the shoji screen covering the window appears to float through the glass


The couples aren’t quite sure whose property is under the plum tree that they planted. They added a swirling concrete walkway.



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wall. Double-paned windows and insulation were added throughout the house, O’Leary says, noting that the old aluminum windows would rattle when cars went by. Now that they’ve moved back in with their 10-year-old daughter,

Aidan, “We just want to be home all the time,” Yamaguchi says, add-ing that “kids on the block play here all the time.” While Yamaguchi and O’Leary were expanding their home next door, Lundgren and Wilson were contemplating how to take advan-tage of their angled lot to double

the size of their house. “We wanted it to feel cottage-y, proportional to the original house,” Lundgren says, adding, “We wanted to live in every inch of the house. ... We like funky, differ-ent, angled, not all symmetrical.” The first thing they did is tear down the old garage at the front and move it to the back of the lot. Then Carrubba designed a master bedroom and bathroom upstairs, along with an office with a long table/desk facing the street. Fresh from orienting the neigh-bor’s house to better appreciate that huge redwood tree, he lined up the main stairwell and the “mass-ing of the house” with the tree as well. “That turned out nicely,” he says. “I like the old,” Lundgren says. “I wanted it to seem like it’s been there since the ‘40s.” That left a bedroom for each of their three children — age 12, 10 and 4 — as well as a guest room


The redwood tree near the property line can be viewed from the stairwell, as well as through the neighbor’s yoga-room windows.



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downstairs. Much of the down-stairs remains untouched, although they gained a new entry with a more-welcoming front porch, an alcove off the living room, a small family room and a reconfigured laundry room off the kitchen. The biggest bonus is the bicycle garage. “We’re bike commuters,” Lundgren says, noting that her husband bikes to Google and she

bikes all over town, even to the market. A number of “universal design” elements have been incorporated in the remodel, including a concrete ramp and path around the house, which make it easer for their spe-cial-needs son (who is blind) to get around while touching the wall. A key driver in the design was creating space for the children. “We wanted access to the garden that’s not through the house,” she says.

Lundgren and Yamaguchi jointly designed the cement that swirls around the plum tree that they planted in front years ago. It’s not clear whose property the tree sits on. And the aging grape-stake fence separating the two properties will soon be replaced with a similar fence — but this one will have a gate that recedes behind the garage. A brick patio will extend from one property to the other, offering more conjoint space for entertain-


The next-door neighbors started out with similar 1947 tract houses and single-car garages.

Tom

Car

rubb

a Tom Carrubba



Goal of project (barn style):

Add a bedroom, “nicer-looking front,” better use of family space

Unexpected problems: Cost $10,000 to replace a sewer

pipe that ran from the house to the street


Size of home, lot: Was 1,544 sq ft; now 2,700 sq ft on 8,392-sq-ft lot; 5 BR, 3 BA

Time to complete: 7 months

Budget:$260,000

ing and visiting. Although the remodel was not driven by the desire to build green, the couple did re-use the original redwood siding and chose no-VOC (volatile organic compound) paint throughout. A compost area replaces the stan-dard garbage disposal. Lundgren ended up very happy with Carrubba’s design. “He turned the house and got inter-esting angles, alcoves, not what is expected,” she says. Carrubba has already begun work on another home on the block. “This is really a unique enclave,” he says, adding “There’s something binding people together there. “Architecturally the projects were different, but their lifestyles are similar. They’re down-to-earth people, pretty casual. They both wanted to improve their homes because they loved the neighborhood,” he adds.

Goal of project (Japanese-style):

Add master bedroom/bath, office and bedroom, change entry

Unexpected problems:Had to cut into foundation to

accommodate front closet; needed to upgrade kitchen electrical work


Size of home, lot: Was 1,310 sq ft; now 1,904 sq ft

on 6,014-sq-ft lot

Time to complete: 9 months

Budget:$500,000

Resources:Architect: Tom Carrubba, square three design studios, 900 High St., Ste. 3, Palo Alto, 650-326-3860Building contractor for Yamaguchi/O’Leary: Ian Dickey, i.d. construction inc., Half Moon Bay, 650-712-9524

Landscape designer for Yamaguchi/O’Leary: Chadine Flood Gong, Chadine Interior & Japanese Garden Design, Los Gatos, 408-354-0606Front door handles: Fred Brady, Design & Fabrication, San Jose, 415-613-9309

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C O N S U L T I N G D E S I G N

E Q U I P M E N T

I N S T A L L A T I O N S



How do you stage your home’s land-

scape so that it looks its best for a party or home sale? Below are a number of ideas for sprucing up your garden. Some of these options are quick fixes — adding pots of colorful f lowers where people will be spend-ing time — and other options border on the obsessive — digging out the weeds in your driveway. Doing any or all of these will likely add value to your home and help it to sell faster. While I can’t promise spiffing up your garden for a big party won’t stop your out-of-state relatives from brag-ging about cheap home prices back in Indiana, it will make them envy your small piece of the Bay Area’s year-around natural beauty.

Before the eventSix weeks before: This is when a lot of the hard work of whipping a landscape into shape takes place. Remember plants are living, growing things. When you make major changes, they need a couple of weeks to look their best again. The first thing to do is walk around your garden and take a look

Staging a garden for a party (or home sale)From quick fixes to longer-term improvementsby Kathy Ormiston, APLD / photos by Veronica Weber

Colorful annuals (clockwise, from top) were planted beside perenni-als in front of this Los Altos home; bright flowers were placed beside the entranceway; and potted plants with flowers were situated near where guests would be sit-ting. All the garden polishing antic-ipated a weekend of parties before celebrating the owners’ daughter’s wedding.



at what is doing well and what is not. This is the time to remove plants that are dead or haven’t performed well and replace them with new plants. Remember the rule “right plant, right plant” is the secret to a low-maintenance landscape. Try to understand why a plant did not succeed in a particular spot: Was there too much shade or too little water? Select replacement plants that will do well in your gar-den’s existing conditions. For a f lush of new f lowers, prune repeat bloomers such as Santa Barbara daisy and cat-mint hard — that means removing all existing blooms. Rose bushes will also appreciate a heavy pruning and reshap-ing now. Follow up by spreading an organic rose fertilizer on all your f lowering plants. Be sure to water the soil well before and after applying

the fertilizer. For a beautiful lawn, you should first check your irrigation. Replace or repair any broken sprinkler heads. You can’t go wrong by apply-ing an organic fertilizer to the grass. It will green up your lawn gradually without causing a rapid f lush of growth that requires (yuck) bi-weekly trimming. You may also want to attack the weeds in your turf either by hand removing or applying a broadleaf herbicide. If you are selling a home, consider pruning any shrubs to a height below your windows. If you have small trees, such as Japanese maples, you may want to selec-tively take out up to a third of the branches. This will brighten the rooms inside your house. Just be careful to prune bushes and trees in a natural style and gener-ally avoid pruning plants into hard geometric shapes, like squares or balls.

Weeks 5, 4, 3, 2: To encourage new blooms, remove dead f lowers from your peren-nials and annuals and weed, weed, weed. Yes, these are tedious back-breaking chores, but they are the secret to luscious f lowerbeds. To give your planting beds a clean look, redo the edges with a sharp spade.

The weekend before: Add at least a 1-inch layer of bark mulch. Mulching will cover up

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A planter box can be filled with blooming flowers to dress up a garden for cel-ebration or home sale.



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a host of problems ranging from weeds to bare, cracked soil. Until the party is over, tell your mow and blow guys to keep their blow-ers out of your beds or all your mulch will be gone in a f lash. If you have drip irrigation, run a sprinkler on your plants for 20 minutes to wash the dust off the plants. I learned this trick from a Master Gardener with a lovely native plant garden. One of the most important things you can do to make your garden pop is to add large pots of colorful f lowers near high-traffic areas. If you want picture-perfect pots, take a look at Fine Gardening magazine’s special issue on containers for inspira-tion. You can’t go wrong with their filler, spiller and thriller for-mula. And if you are looking for great plants for containers, don’t skip the houseplants section of your nursery for striking foliage

plants and tropicals. Fill in any bare spots in the front of your beds with colorful annuals. Pansies and impatiens do well in shady spots. Zinnias and marigolds will be happy in the sun. Just check out what looks good at the nursery and try sticking to one or two colors that complement your existing plants. Annuals are little water hogs. Water them frequently, as often as every day in hot weather, to help them look their best.

The day of the event: Sweep your patio and sidewalk

and dust off your patio furniture. Find a comfortable chair and fix yourself a large cool bever-age. Sit down and take a moment to enjoy how great your garden looks. Congratulations, your hard work paid off. Enjoy your party and make a lot of money off your house!

Garden designer Kathy Ormiston is a member of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers (APLD) and an active Santa Clara County Master Gardener. Her website is www.ginkgogarden.net.

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STAFF: Publisher: William S. Johnson Editor: Jay ThorwaldsonHome & Garden Design Editor: Carol Blitzer Art Director: Diane HaasWriters: Carol Blitzer, Susan Golovin, Kathy OrmistonPhotographers: Dasja Dolan, Paul Dyer, Veronica WeberVice President Sales/Marketing: Walter Kupiec

Embarcadero Publishing Co. (Palo Alto Weekly, The Almanac, Mountain View Voice) 450 Cambridge

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Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited.


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800 Santa Cruz Avenue, Menlo Park, CA (650) 327-5040 Open Mon-Sat 10-6

FINE ORIENTAL RUGS

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TRACY HASSInterior Design Services

1014 Alma Street, Menlo Park | 650.462.1600

Far fromOrdinary

forging bonds - | palo alto online · forging bonds modernizing a palo alto home i page 4 from lawn...

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