Gable House

The Gable House, a 3,000 sqft renovation and expansion is a seamless homage to modern Scandinavian aesthetics. Sourcing not only aesthetically from the region but also literally, the Dinesen Douglas Fir that the flooring a stunning highlight of the home was shipped in from Denmark, special ordered as extra long planks to maintain an utterly seamless living room. The architects call the individual spaces “stages,” each room made to showcase the client’s favorite objects: works by Vincent Van Duysen, Arne Jacobsen, Carl Hansen, and B&B Italia. Sharing a design sensibility with the client gave the architects a platform from which to depart from the aesthetic and spatial norms for Victorian renovations in SF, where clients often want to disrupt any divisions between kitchen/ dining/ living room areas to make one big, grand, open space. Instead, ELA opted for a series of carefully choreographed rooms that simply draw visitors through the house, with each room offering a different experience. These rooms are anchored by only the lightest of moments— what the architects call a “hearth cube,” tethered on the ground floor by the fireplace in the living room and pulled through the house by the staircase, tying the floors together with a delicate glass wall that winds its way through the house alongside the staircase.