The Phoenix house is named for the mythical bird that rose from the ashes of the fire to start a new life. Phoenix House on a hillside site looking across San Francisco Bay to a panoramic view of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge is a rebuild following a tragic fire on the site. The original house was built in 1952 by Berkeley architect Henry Hill for the family of a local lighting fabricator who collaborated with many important Bay Area artists, artisans, and architects, from early masters such as Julia Morgan and Bernard Maybeck to the region?s mid-century modern masters. With this legacy, the original home was filled with works of art and craft from local craftspeople and the family?s travels in Asia and the Middle East, much of which was lost in the fire. Photography by © Anthony Vizzari
Now in the hands of the fourth generation of the original family, the owner charged the architects with the design and construction of a new building on the original courtyard footprint, not a copy of the original, but a new design that collaborates with the ideas of the original architect, an important experimenter in mid-twentieth century Bay Area architecture.
Photography by © Anthony Vizzari
Synthesizing many ideas of the original architect, the new architects “Anderson Anderson Architecture” used the same local materials and traditional carpentry forms while experimenting with new methods of construction. Employing off-site prefabrication of modular component...