Domestic landscapes

Pro tips on customizing your interior, from mosaic tile to hand-painted flowers

Hello from Northern California, fresh off an entire, proper art + design week that has sprung up around the FOG fair. My one-sentence review? Refreshingly legit, and focused enough that the tackiest parts of the fair circuit were nowhere to be found. Still gathering thoughts on what it all means, but my snap conclusion is that it felt pretty true to how people make, respect, and consume culture in the Bay Area. (Also, I have never seen so many people I know in one room, at least since moving to California, as I did at Evan Kinori’s party at the Headlands Center for the Arts last Friday.) Unrelated, but spiritually akin, I was included last weekend in a New York Times Styles section dispatch on big sweaters, aka “soft armor.”*

On the market

I haven’t done this in awhile (Instagram + savvy marketing from real estate agents has made this kind of coverage slightly irrelevant) but there are two homes for sale that I can’t help pointing out.

The Sea Ranch—siting, landscape, design bona fides—is true paradise, but… $1500/sf for a second home is steep. I’d love to borrow this house for the weekend, though, so let me know if you buy it! Archival images from Berkeley CED.

One, an Obie Bowman-designed Walk-In Cabin at The Sea Ranch. This is Third Bay modernism distilled into an economical 567-square-foot package. It’s listed for $850,000 (California!) and last sold ten years ago for just north of $300K. But we can look, and admire the execution of the original Sea Ranchers, who master-planned the entire development with a series of repeated home types. In addition to the Walk-In Cabins, you can still see evidence of this approach at TSR: Joseph Esherick’s Hedgerow Houses, William Turnbull’s Binker Barns, Esherick and George Homsey’s Mini-Mods, and the Cluster Houses at White Fir Meadow and Madrone Meadow.

Blagraves, in the County Durham in the UK. I lost count of all the fireplaces (sob) but here’s a floorplan.

Two, a 15th-century stone home once owned by Richard III, can you even imagine! It’s already been renovated according to the UK’s strict heritage laws and the interiors are everything you’d hope for if you have a thing for beams, floral wallpaper, stone fireplaces, and modernized kitchens. The cottage, listed for £550,000, has three bedrooms and is located in the north of England between the Yorkshire moors and the Lake District.

Behind the paywall —> An inside scoop on the delicious CRAFT details of a virally popular, just-published house on Martha’s Vineyard, plus three more HOME HACKS for the aesthetically inclined.