Search results for "Complex structure" in Home Design Ideas
Klopf ArchitectureBuilt for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out
The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape.
The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right.
What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time.
Where the House Meets the Ocean
The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it.
A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam.
Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore.
Welcoming Light
A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival.
With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the
existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof.
Two Suites, Two Views
At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room.
An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate.
The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest.
Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center
The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner.
Owners Who Picked Up the Tools
The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors.
The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should.
They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it.
The Landscape Holds Priority
Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building.
From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade.
Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA
Klopf ArchitectureBuilt for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out
The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape.
The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right.
What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time.
Where the House Meets the Ocean
The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it.
A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam.
Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore.
Welcoming Light
A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival.
With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the
existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof.
Two Suites, Two Views
At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room.
An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate.
The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest.
Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center
The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner.
Owners Who Picked Up the Tools
The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors.
The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should.
They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it.
The Landscape Holds Priority
Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building.
From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade.
Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA
Klopf ArchitectureBuilt for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out
The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape.
The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right.
What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time.
Where the House Meets the Ocean
The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it.
A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam.
Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore.
Welcoming Light
A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival.
With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the
existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof.
Two Suites, Two Views
At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room.
An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate.
The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest.
Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center
The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner.
Owners Who Picked Up the Tools
The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors.
The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should.
They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it.
The Landscape Holds Priority
Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building.
From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade.
Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA
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Klopf ArchitectureBuilt for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out
The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape.
The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right.
What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time.
Where the House Meets the Ocean
The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it.
A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam.
Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore.
Welcoming Light
A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival.
With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the
existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof.
Two Suites, Two Views
At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room.
An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate.
The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest.
Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center
The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner.
Owners Who Picked Up the Tools
The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors.
The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should.
They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it.
The Landscape Holds Priority
Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building.
From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade.
Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA
Klopf ArchitectureBuilt for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out
The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape.
The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right.
What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time.
Where the House Meets the Ocean
The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it.
A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam.
Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore.
Welcoming Light
A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival.
With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the
existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof.
Two Suites, Two Views
At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room.
An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate.
The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest.
Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center
The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner.
Owners Who Picked Up the Tools
The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors.
The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should.
They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it.
The Landscape Holds Priority
Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building.
From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade.
Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA
Klopf ArchitectureBuilt for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out
The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape.
The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right.
What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time.
Where the House Meets the Ocean
The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it.
A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam.
Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore.
Welcoming Light
A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival.
With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the
existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof.
Two Suites, Two Views
At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room.
An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate.
The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest.
Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center
The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner.
Owners Who Picked Up the Tools
The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors.
The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should.
They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it.
The Landscape Holds Priority
Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building.
From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade.
Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA
Klopf ArchitectureBuilt for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out
The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape.
The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right.
What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time.
Where the House Meets the Ocean
The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it.
A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam.
Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore.
Welcoming Light
A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival.
With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the
existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof.
Two Suites, Two Views
At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room.
An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate.
The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest.
Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center
The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner.
Owners Who Picked Up the Tools
The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors.
The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should.
They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it.
The Landscape Holds Priority
Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building.
From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade.
Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA
Sponsored
Columbus, OH
Structural Remodeling
Franklin County's Heavy Timber Specialists | Best of Houzz 2020!
Better BuildersThese clients enjoy cooking and entertaining, so their vision was to open and connect three separate rooms—the kitchen, sitting, and formal dining rooms—to create a single open and modern space where everyone could engage and participate in the activities.
Opening these spaces required complex structural engineering. The wall removals required supporting the loads from the second floor and meeting the engineering requirements for shear wall and lateral support. These beams and their connections to the posts they sit on were a challenge to install because of the complex nature of the home's original framed. All these loads had to be carried through the finished basement below and rest on new footings below the basement floor.
The center kitchen island was expansive, with a single slab countertop that would provide both workspace and counter seating. This slab, at 64x120 and 789 lbs., required careful planning for on-site labor, transfer routing, and precision installation. Natural daylight now floods the space from all directions. Recessed can lighting runs throughout the space, all on dimmers for maximum control of ambiance.
The Better Builders design team guided the selection of hardwoods, staircase details, cabinetry, countertops, tile, and color. The muted palette and clean lines work well with our couple’s eclectic furnishings and artworks. Now, traffic and activities flow better, and every inch of the previously divided space is utilized and enjoyed. The outcome is exactly as our homeowners envisioned…and as we intended.
RWH Architect PLLCRWH Architect presents the Whistle Hill Lot 8 Residence, a statement home that reflects a bold shift toward modern, refined design. This contemporary residence is defined by its clean lines, dramatic vertical expressions, and a sophisticated mix of architectural forms that culminate in a truly forward-thinking home. From the moment visitors step into the central courtyard that connects the detached garage to the main house, the project introduces a new level of architectural intention rarely seen in the region.
The detached garage, featuring an expansive 18' x 8' door, creates a strong street presence and anchors the courtyard entry sequence. Passing through the courtyard leads to a welcoming entry foyer designed with built-in hooks and a bench, creating a comfortable—and functional—moment of arrival. Just beyond the entry is a private study with custom built-in bookshelves, a space tailored for work, reading, or quiet focus. The main floor unfolds into a sophisticated open-concept layout where the kitchen, great room, and dining areas flow effortlessly together. The kitchen includes a walk-in pantry, a pot filler for convenience, and a dedicated dog-feeding station that integrates seamlessly into the cabinetry. The great room stands as the heart of the home, featuring a built-in wood-burning fireplace and oversized sliding doors that extend the living space out to a covered patio. A centrally located half bath near the kitchen completes the first-floor program.
All bedrooms are located on the second floor to preserve privacy and capitalize on natural light. The master suite is designed as a luxurious retreat, offering a screened-in porch, a spacious walk-in closet, and a unique bathroom where the walk-in shower wraps around a freestanding tub, creating a spa-like environment that blends innovation with comfort. The laundry room is conveniently positioned on the same floor. Two additional bedrooms share a well-appointed bathroom, completing the second-floor layout.
Several design challenges shaped the evolution of this project and ultimately elevated its architectural clarity. One of the primary challenges was organizing the home around a detached garage while maintaining a cohesive architectural experience. RWH resolved this by creating a courtyard that acts as a transitional outdoor room, visually linking the structures and providing a dramatic yet functional entry sequence. Another challenge involved balancing large modern window systems with the bold vertical elements that define the façade. By carefully proportioning the glazing and framing it within thoughtful material changes, RWH maintained a strong contemporary identity while ensuring visual harmony. Integrating the built-in fireplace, open-concept layout, and large patio openings required complex structural solutions; RWH overcame this by using discreetly integrated structural steel that allowed for wide spans without compromising the home’s clean, minimalist interior aesthetic. Designing the master bathroom’s combined shower-and-tub layout also presented a unique challenge, requiring careful grading, waterproofing, and spatial planning. Through strategic detailing and 3D modeling, RWH delivered a seamless spa-like experience that feels both inventive and intuitively functional.
The Whistle Hill Lot 8 Residence stands as a testament to a new architectural direction in the area—one that embraces innovative forms, curated materials, and a lifestyle-driven floor plan. With its modern massing, intentional interior flow, and elevated details, this home reflects RWH Architect’s commitment to pushing residential design into its next era.
Blanco Interior Design
In the singular architectural landscape of Dubai, investing in a villa is a pursuit of the extraordinary. Navigating the financial architecture of such an investment is not merely a budgetary exercise, but a masterplan for excellence. At Blanco Interior Design we understand that designing in Dubai means commanding the finest resources of the world, ensuring that every square meter resonates with a level of opulence that seamlessly fuses timeless beauty with rigorous precision.
1. The Scope of Investment (Cost per Square Meter) :
In Dubai's market, professional design services and execution are generally categorized into three tiers. At Blanco, we specialize in the Luxury and Elite segments, ensuring that your investment reflects Design Mastery:
- Premium / Standard: AED 1,500 – AED 3,000 per sqm. This includes high-quality ready-made furniture and standard refined finishes.
- Luxury / High-End: AED 3,500 – AED 6,000 per sqm. This tier involves bespoke joinery, imported marbles, and sophisticated lighting systems—the hallmark of Blanco’s Executive Precision
- Ultra-Luxury (Elite): AED 7,000+ per sqm. This is the realm of limitless design, featuring rare materials, designer brands, and complex structural modifications managed through our Operational Accuracy.
2. Key Cost Drivers: The Blanco Perspective
To budget effectively, homeowners must consider the four pillars that influence the final invoice. At Blanco, we ensure we truly listen to your priorities to optimize these factors:
- Bespoke Joinery and Millwork.
- Material Selection.
- Smart Technology.
-Civil and Structural Works.
3. Professional Design and Management Fees:
Engaging a reputable firm like Blanco involves a structured approach to fees to ensure transparency:
1. Concept and Detailed Design Fee: A fixed fee for the creative vision, 2D layouts, and 3D renderings that bring your dream to life.
2. Supervision and Management Fee: To ensure the execution matches the approved blueprints perfectly, a management fee is applied, covering our rigorous quality control and Operational Accuracy.
Investing in a villa interior with Blanco offers unique advantage. Our position as a global hub provides access to the finest international materials with shorter lead times, managed through our Turnkey Solutions.
Investing in the interior of a Dubai villa is an investment in a lifestyle of distinction. While costs are influenced by the scale of ambition, the true value lies in creating a space that harmonizes unparalleled luxury with long-term functional excellence. With Blanco Interior Design, we turn your financial investment into an architectural legacy.
Blanco Interior Design: Your Vision, Perfectly Executed.
Roka Projects IncFull home renovation of a Burnaby single-family home completed over nine months. The project involved a complete structural rework of the main floor to create an open-concept layout, including steel beam installation to remove load-bearing walls, a full kitchen renovation, 4.5 bathroom renovations, new HVAC throughout, and structural repairs across the home.
The scale and complexity of this project required careful sequencing — structural work, mechanical systems, and finish trades coordinated across an occupied neighbourhood site over a nine-month build. Every scope was managed under one process by Roka Projects, from engineer coordination and permit applications through to final finishes. Photography by Tracey Ayton Photography, interiors by JJ Interiors.
Roka Projects IncFull home renovation of a Burnaby single-family home completed over nine months. The project involved a complete structural rework of the main floor to create an open-concept layout, including steel beam installation to remove load-bearing walls, a full kitchen renovation, 4.5 bathroom renovations, new HVAC throughout, and structural repairs across the home.
The scale and complexity of this project required careful sequencing — structural work, mechanical systems, and finish trades coordinated across an occupied neighbourhood site over a nine-month build. Every scope was managed under one process by Roka Projects, from engineer coordination and permit applications through to final finishes. Photography by Tracey Ayton Photography, interiors by JJ Interiors.
Roka Projects IncFull home renovation of a Burnaby single-family home completed over nine months. The project involved a complete structural rework of the main floor to create an open-concept layout, including steel beam installation to remove load-bearing walls, a full kitchen renovation, 4.5 bathroom renovations, new HVAC throughout, and structural repairs across the home.
The scale and complexity of this project required careful sequencing — structural work, mechanical systems, and finish trades coordinated across an occupied neighbourhood site over a nine-month build. Every scope was managed under one process by Roka Projects, from engineer coordination and permit applications through to final finishes. Photography by Tracey Ayton Photography, interiors by JJ Interiors.
Sponsored
Columbus, OH
Structural Remodeling
Franklin County's Heavy Timber Specialists | Best of Houzz 2020!
Helliwell + Smith | Blue Sky ArchitecturePhoto by Gillean Proctor
Example of a trendy u-shaped terra-cotta tile and orange floor open concept kitchen design in Vancouver with an undermount sink, shaker cabinets, medium tone wood cabinets, red backsplash, mosaic tile backsplash, stainless steel appliances and a peninsula
Example of a trendy u-shaped terra-cotta tile and orange floor open concept kitchen design in Vancouver with an undermount sink, shaker cabinets, medium tone wood cabinets, red backsplash, mosaic tile backsplash, stainless steel appliances and a peninsula
Klopf ArchitectureBuilt for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out
The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape.
The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right.
What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time.
Where the House Meets the Ocean
The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it.
A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam.
Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore.
Welcoming Light
A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival.
With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the
existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof.
Two Suites, Two Views
At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room.
An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate.
The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest.
Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center
The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner.
Owners Who Picked Up the Tools
The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors.
The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should.
They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it.
The Landscape Holds Priority
Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building.
From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade.
Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA
Klopf ArchitectureBuilt for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out
The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape.
The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right.
What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time.
Where the House Meets the Ocean
The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it.
A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam.
Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore.
Welcoming Light
A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival.
With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the
existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof.
Two Suites, Two Views
At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room.
An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate.
The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest.
Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center
The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner.
Owners Who Picked Up the Tools
The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors.
The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should.
They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it.
The Landscape Holds Priority
Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building.
From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade.
Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA
American Classic PaintersIn Bellevue, WA, our local painters masterfully handled an exterior painting job on a challenging multi-level home. The finished look, with pristine white walls and refreshing light orange decks, speaks to our commitment to quality. We specialize in handling complex structures and offer bespoke painting solutions at affordable rates. Plus, every project includes a 5-year warranty. Reach out for a consultation and free estimate for your home painting needs.
Sponsored
Columbus, OH
Hope Restoration & General Contracting
Columbus Design-Build, Kitchen & Bath Remodeling, Historic Renovations
Klopf ArchitectureBuilt for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out
The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape.
The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right.
What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time.
Where the House Meets the Ocean
The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it.
A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam.
Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore.
Welcoming Light
A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival.
With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the
existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof.
Two Suites, Two Views
At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room.
An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate.
The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest.
Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center
The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner.
Owners Who Picked Up the Tools
The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors.
The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should.
They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it.
The Landscape Holds Priority
Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building.
From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade.
Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA
Cuono Engineering PLLCThe project consisted of the structural design of a new guest house structure at a private property in Bedford Corners, New York. The design Includes both the foundations and superstructure gravity and lateral framing.
A second project on the property involved renovating and enclosing an existing barn structure to house various recreational activities, including a batting cage. Cuono modified the existing wood roof trusses with steel framing to achieve a greater head height in the new finished space.
Better BuildersThese clients enjoy cooking and entertaining, so their vision was to open and connect three separate rooms—the kitchen, sitting, and formal dining rooms—to create a single open and modern space where everyone could engage and participate in the activities.
Opening these spaces required complex structural engineering. The wall removals required supporting the loads from the second floor and meeting the engineering requirements for shear wall and lateral support. These beams and their connections to the posts they sit on were a challenge to install because of the complex nature of the home's original framed. All these loads had to be carried through the finished basement below and rest on new footings below the basement floor.
The center kitchen island was expansive, with a single slab countertop that would provide both workspace and counter seating. This slab, at 64x120 and 789 lbs., required careful planning for on-site labor, transfer routing, and precision installation. Natural daylight now floods the space from all directions. Recessed can lighting runs throughout the space, all on dimmers for maximum control of ambiance.
The Better Builders design team guided the selection of hardwoods, staircase details, cabinetry, countertops, tile, and color. The muted palette and clean lines work well with our couple’s eclectic furnishings and artworks. Now, traffic and activities flow better, and every inch of the previously divided space is utilized and enjoyed. The outcome is exactly as our homeowners envisioned…and as we intended.
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