Project Description
Project Highlights & Clients’ Wants/Needs: The client’s goals for this extensive whole house remodel were to upgrade with modern features and add an upscale elegance to this 14,000 sq. ft. French Tudor, originally built in 1977. New features include an expansive kitchen and family room; a grand loggia with alfresco dining, BBQ, and seating areas; and a four-car garage with a movie theater/media room on the second story above. Additional luxury amenities include an infinity pool and spa, wine cellar, exercise room, and all new landscape. Coffered ceilings accented by walnut beams in the ceilings of the living room, office and grand room echo the exterior’s Tudor decorative timbering aesthetic. New flooring throughout, including dark French oak and two types of limestone imported from France—one for interior spaces that flow into exterior spaces and another for exterior patios—adds the opulence the owner desired. Elaborate stone masonry work adorns the exterior and the steeply pitched roof, made of 5/8” American slate, is punctuated by dormer windows and copper gutters. In addition to meeting new building code requirements, structural upgrades included new footings and five steel beams – two in the new grand room (see Challenge #2) and three in the roof, required to support six separate HVAC units along with the new slate roof. An existing 1,300 square foot guest house was also refurbished and echoes the main home’s aesthetic. Challenges: • Installing two 27’ long, 15” thick, steel bent beams in the center of the grand room, required for structural integrity after the exposed, post & beam trusses were removed, was extremely challenging in the existing and expansive two story space. A portion of the roof was removed to allow crane access. To disburse their weight, the set beams are supported by two 3”x3”steel columns sitting over a 4’x4’x6’ concrete slab on top of a 3’ round caisson extending down 26’. • In compliance with local fire requirements, an 8” waterline was installed from the fire hydrant approximately ¼ mile down the driveway to the main house. The driveway is shared with a neighbor requiring 24/7 access for health reasons. Trenching the driveway, the only access to the site, would have disrupted construction for three weeks. A coring system was used that was not only less invasive, but took less time and cost less money. The equipment cut through large sandstone boulders, up to five feet in diameter, rather than digging them out. Coring allowed work on the project to continue on schedule and saved the cost of reconstructing the road. • When flooring stone arrived from France, the client looked at individual tiles: “it wasn’t the right color.” The contractor created a sample tile mix to help the client better understand the color pattern and texture. The stone was not sent back to France, saving both time and expense. • Numerous caissons were drilled for the grand loggia and outdoor BBQ. One challenge, how to get heavy drilling equipment and cranes in with numerous native coastal oaks along the driveway and near the house. Working carefully, trimming only when necessary, addressed the coastal oak conundrum. Special drill bits were required to drill through underground boulders, making things more challenging, more expensive and taking longer. How the Project Exemplifies the Requirements of This Award Category: Every inch of this home was touched during its remodel. The end result transformed the 50 year old structure from a dated and worn living space to an elegant hillside estate.