san diego home garden/lifestyles magazine september 2011

56 San Diego Home/garDen LifeStyLeS • September 2011 September 2011 • sandiegohomegarden.com 57

HomeS

A Breeze Runs Through ITA new home design embraces San Diego Bay … and energy efficiency

by eva DitLer • pHotograpHy by martin mann

With a striking view of the bay and beyond, it’s no wonder that Pete and Jen Lobner decided to add a third level with a deck to their Point Loma home.



eat rises. so why is it that on an unusually sweltering day in Point Loma,

Pete and Jen Lobner are relaxing in the family room on the top

floor of their tri-level residence when they could just as easily

take their elevator down to the garage level and relax in the

library/den there?

“Passive cooling plays a big role,” says Tony Garcia, a design

principal at A2 Studios. “We have a pocketing multiple-leaf door

system. The opening is expansive bringing the indoors out and

pulling the exterior deck space, just off that family room, in. A roof

overhang provides protection to the interior and the deck space,

so you are able to have this open during summer months and get

an amazing breeze — and no heat accumulation — because the

entire interior space is being shaded.”

The energy efficiency of flow-through ventilation is a

great reason to be upstairs in the heat of summer, but it’s the

unobstructed 180-degree bay view that makes it the place

everyone wants to hang out — summer or winter, day or night.

“If you asked, ‘What’s the best feature of the house?’ the

upstairs space is it,” says Pete. “There’s a 650-square-foot deck,

and the upstairs family room and living space equal another 450

square feet, which creates a 1,100-square-foot area with a great

view.”

Creating this third level was the couple’s primary objective

when they bought the house. Originally a two-story home with

a ground level and a garage underneath, the house had a loose

Spanish Mediterranean look with peach-toned exterior and white

windows.

“Flow through the original house was poor, the result of two

renovations prior,” says Pete. “It had no street presence at all and

no real architectural style. We told Tony we wanted a modern

house, but a modern/contemporary house, not post-modern and

not edgy contemporary.”

An angled metal roof above the office gives the ordinary

square home some needed attitude from the exterior. Switching

the tired peach hue to a subtle gray green and stepping up the

old stucco to a siding combo of hand-troweled, smooth-finished

stucco and fiber cement with galvanized trim vamps the

residence with a more modern aesthetic — plus the materials are

low-maintenance and marine-environment friendly.

“Lighting on the building exterior is subtle to give it some

intensity and highlight the shapes and forms,” says Garcia.

“Narrow lights go down the entrance door, which is a dual door

system. The nice thing is, when both are open, you view the gallery

space and this provides a continuation of indoors to outdoors and

to the landing out there.”

What Garcia and the homeowners refer to as the gallery space

“we wanted a modern house, but a modern/contemporary house, not post-modern and not edgy contemporary.”

the entrance hallway connects all the main spaces, such as the dining area, and does double duty as a gallery for the Lobner’s art collection.•H


is actually an entrance hallway where inconspicuous, flexible

ceiling lights (“they can flip from 0 to 90 degrees, rotate 360

degrees and have dual-use movement,” says Garcia) showcases

artwork hanging on a strip extending the entire length of the

hallway. “With this clip system, when they want to change what

they have hanging, there’s no hammering and nailing into walls,”

says Garcia.

The dining/living space is on one side of the “gallery” and the

kitchen is on the other.

“You can see the kitchen via the gallery when you enter,” says

Garcia. “We created a seating area at counter height but integrated

a bar seating area that’s higher as well, so that from the gallery

you are concealing the working part of the island, like the sink for

example.”

Jen says they went about the interior design of the kitchen

up, lead to the office space and the home’s main attractions — the

top floor’s family/media room and bayside terrace — and, going

down, lead to the tertiary rooms, the “brains” of the integrated

home-audio system and the garage.

To the east of the stairway is the master suite, which can be

closed off from the rest of the house via a sliding door; to the

west are the elevator and the guest bedroom/bath. Beyond the

stairway to the south is a bright and cheery morning room. Both

the morning room and the master bedroom have sliding doors

leading to the backyard terrace.

“We wanted to create a secluded area, opposite to what we

created on the deck, which is exposed and open,” says Garcia. “In

this rear yard, the neighbors are at a higher elevation so they can

look down into the backyard. We provided a privacy shield with

fast-growing bamboo.”

backwards by choosing the Verdi Tropical granite before choosing

paint colors or cabinetry. “It has a strong green with red accents,”

she says. “We selected cherry cabinets because its slight reddish

tint brings out the red in the granite. We opted for gray floor tiles

and a gray-green paint cast because it also goes well with the

granite.”

Both the kitchen and the dining/living area offer bay views

that stretch from the Coronado Bridge to downtown and beyond.

“We didn’t want a separate room called a living room, but

we wanted a space, a lounge area where we could sit in comfort

downstairs,” says Jen. “We bought a contemporary two-piece

sofa that forms a semi circle when you put them together, so we

have those at the front window facing each other. Then I really

wanted a square dining table because that shape makes for easier

conversation than a rectangular table. The table is a perfect fit in

the space that we have and it can seat up to 10 people.”

At the other end of the hallway are floating stairs that, going

“We love that we have no grass,” says Pete. “We used to have

two acres and a lawn tractor and we vowed no grass here. Instead

we have accent landscaping and bamboo to provide a screen from

the neighbors.”

The backyard is divided into two areas by a sliding barn

door. One side is the utility area, which includes the inverter

for the solar system. It can be hidden from view by closing the

door. The other area is a sanctuary with a fireplace and breakfast

table.

“There’s accent lighting highlighting the horsetail and the

palm and it looks very nice at night,” says Jen. “Just before I go to

sleep, I look out to the backyard and it makes me feel like I’m in

a resort.” ◆

Where TO FIND IT, PAGe 124

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in contrast to the top-floor deck, the backyard is a calm, comforting space in which to escape the workaday world.

the upstairs family room encourages lingering and relaxing.

exterior lighting reveals the home’s strength of form. Jen and pete Lobner

Good Practice“When pete and Jen Lobner came to us,” says tony garcia of a2 Studios, “they were conscious of green-sustainable practices and wanted to introduce some of these practices where they could in design and layout.” Here’s some of what was done to make the residence more eco-friendly:

• fifty percent of the original footprint was maintained.

• the home was built in an appropriate size and scale, so there’s no energy waste due to overbuilding.

• passive heating and cooling strategies, which included high-value insulation, low-e windows, sliding doors for flow-through ventila-tion and large overhangs, were utilized.

• a 2.5 KW solar electric grid-connected system was installed.

• a design was incorporated to provide as much natural daylight as possible thereby rendering artificial light as unnecessary during daylight hours.

• energy Star-rated appliances were purchased.

• a tankless hot-water heater replaced a conventional water heater.

• Durable, low-maintenance materials such as Hardieplank fiber cement siding were installed.

• Drought-tolerant landscaping was introduced.

• Space was utilized to avoid waste — even a small connecting space between the gallery and guest bedroom was used for storage.

• an elevator accommodates sustainable longevity — a sort of aging-in-place idea.

san diego home garden/lifestyles magazine september 2011

Design