It’s easy to love this finely-crafted mid-century cabin. It could almost get me to move to Orinda.

The Basics: A three-bedroom, three-bath house in Orinda on a large, heavily wooded lot, and asking $1.15M. Not So Basic: In a suburban town full of mid-century houses, this one stands out. It was designed by architect David Boone and built in 1964, and this rural barn/treehouse is exceptional in its detailing and design. Plus it looks well-cared for and updated.  David Boone was a graduate of the architecture school at UC Berkeley and very much a part of the northern California modernist tradition, of which this house is an outstanding example. 

Above, light filtering down into the thirty-foot high living room. One exceptional detail is the horizontal planking on all the walls; somehow it escapes the fate of looking like a cheap Tahoe ski lodge. And curiously, some of the design elements, like the skylight and the angled wall around the patio and deck, are echoes of the (then) new Brutalist style, except the Brutalist details would have been done in poured concrete, cast in sawn-plank forms. Here we get the sawn planks.  Other design notes: deep overhanging eaves supported by brackets, and fireplaces, tucked neatly away.

Kudos to the owner for having the nerve to install a new cherry red kitchen, although why polished granite when you could have had something more sympathetic? The staging is unhelpful- this could become a seriously cozy modernist house, but instead it’s been furnished like an extended-stay facility.

There’s  the luxury of no immediate neighbors, plus great views over the coastal oaks to Mt. Diablo.

More about the career of architect David Boone here.

From www.californiahomedesign.com