Boston vs Bay Area

Walden Pond

Marin County has a lot of beautiful towns that I couldn't afford, so I narrowed my search to San Anselmo and San Rafael.  SA had a very upscale feel, with good looking, trendy types having lively conversations in outdoor cafes.  SR felt a little grittier, funkier, and more real.  Both towns had an actual downtown, which is totally absent from Lincoln.  At that time (2003) Marin County was about 20% more expensive than Metro West Boston.  There were many other obvious decision factors like friends, work, etc but in the end I became weirdly focused on one thing- where to swim.  I'm not a big swimmer, but one of my favorite activities is floating on my back in a pond looking at the clouds.  I was surprised to learn that there is no place to swim in Marin- the ocean is too cold, there are no ponds, and the Russian River is a pretty long drive. The luxury of going to Walden Pond for a quick dip started to seem pretty important.   It also seemed like a bigger deal to get into the city from Marin than it is from Lincoln.

Greene and Greene House

Another reason I considered moving to CA was the abundance of contemporary architecture, and therefore more clients who wanted me to design a modern house.  I was surprised to find that modern houses in Marin  are actually pretty rare.  Craftsman, Bungalow, and Victorian houses seemed to be far more common.  So the idea of uprooting to a new place and building a contemporary house that most people wouldn't like was starting to seem like a questionable plan.

an Eichler home

Just when the decision was pretty much made in favor of Lincoln, I found an Eichler house that needed work.  It was at the end of a dead-end street bordering a Eucalyptus forest, way up on a hill with a distant view of the Civic Center!  Though small, it had lots of light from the glazed gable-end and interior courtyard.  The post and beam construction was very similar to a Deck House, but it had a lighter feel which I found much more appealing. I was excited, and scheduled a return visit the next day.  On my return I brought some coffee and settled down on the rear deck to enjoy the sun and view.  I was surprised to see that my neighbor was able to keep a horse, despite his lot's small size and steep grade.  It was all falling into place when I noticed the sound.  It had been there all along, but I suddenly became aware of the drone of "the 101" down in the valley.  Would I get used to it?  People say you do, but I'm pretty noise-sensitive.  Then I struck up a conversation with the neighbor, who told me that the Eucalyptus forest burned about every seven years, and had come very close to consuming his house the last time.  It was only about fifty yards away, and it was not hard to imagine tall flaming trees landing on the roof.  I began to wonder if these might be factors in the house's appealing price.

Driving back to my motel after another exhausting day looking at houses, I was coming through the tunnel with the great first view of the Golden Gate when my phone rang.  My realtor in Lincoln said that they had finally accepted our offer on the dream home with the beautiful pond and buildable (?) lot.  So, it was finally decided.  I verified with the realtor that the owner had finally determined that the lot was buildable.   Well, actually not.  Verbal assurances had been given, but no one was willing to put it in writing, which was concerning.  This was getting crazy, I needed to make a decision and was tired of living in a motel.  We decided to make an offer on the other Lincoln house, and after a little back and forth, it was accepted.  We were moving to Lincoln!

Last Minute Detour

So we were in love with a house that we didn't know if we could buy, and in like with another that probably met our needs.  To make things more complicated I decided to throw a wrench into the works- what if we moved to San Francisco instead?  I figured if we were going to move from the house we had lived in for 17 years, we might as well look at all the options.  So while J held down the fort, I headed west to Marin County.

The San Francisco area has a few things going for it, like the Pacific Ocean, charming towns, great views from everywhere, friendly culture, Silicon Valley and on and on, but my favorite place turned out to be Wright's Marin County Civic Center.

You can't do this building justice in photos.  It looks something like a bridge or aquaduct spanning two hills.  From a distance the blue roof shimmers like a river, as you get closer the rhythm of arches recalls the Pont du Gard in France.  Like all Wright buildings, it's impressive in both form and detail. He invents a completely new vocabulary of details that make perfect sense in the larger context of the building, as opposed to the gratuitous doodads that "adorn" so many buildings.  The spire is breathtaking- designed to hide an antenna, it references a church spire to elevate government offices to an almost religious level (hard to image today).

What Gropius did for modern residential architecture, Wright did for modern commercial buildings, by creating a new functional vocabulary of forms and details.  He created an atrium by cutting away the center of each floor so light from the skylights could reach down to offices on every floor.  Every hotel, shopping center, or office building with an atrium owes a debt to Wright's ingenuity.  In addition, he designed a beautiful public cafeteria with a reflecting pool- by inviting the public into the seat of government, he expressed his belief in government accessibility and accountability.

civic center pics

This Time for Real

Even though we were happy in Lexington, the urge to move to Lincoln was getting stronger.  My son was in second grade, surrounded by kids playing "game boys" and other gizmos.  I wanted a more rural atmosphere where he would become less interested in electronics and more in fishing, hiking, biking, etc.  Also, having spent twenty-five years designing and building other people's homes, I wanted to design a home for us.  While I had completely renovated our house, it wasn't a clean slate where I could do anything I wanted.  And what I wanted was Modern, which is not all that popular in this neck of the woods (New England).  I figured if the house had any hope of resale at some point, I had better do it in a town where people still appreciated modern residential architecture. As I explored Lincoln I realized that Weston also valued open space (a lot) and modern design (some).

In fact, one of my favorite houses, and an inspiration for what I would eventually build, is an International Style house on Sudbury Road. I love the corner windows, cascading flat roofs, and pristine white walls.  So we expanded the search to include both Lincoln and Weston.

We fell in love with a house on Baker Bridge Road in Lincoln, a short walk from the Gropius house.  The property included a Deck House overlooking a stunning private pond, and a buildable (maybe) lot on the opposite side of the pond.  It seemed like the perfect situation- live in the Deck House while we built the new house, then move across the pond and sell the Deck House.  However, it wasn't entirely clear that the lot was buildable.  This was my introduction to the somewhat murky world of conservation commissions, whose rules seemed a little less clear than the planning, zoning, and historic boards that I was used to dealing with.

As we tried to get something definitive about whether we could in-fact build on the other lot, a new house came on the market.  It wasn't much to look at, just another Deck House surrounded by tall Pines.  Being used to the openness and views in Lexington, it was definitely not love at first site.  But, like the mature middle-agers we had grown to be, we made a sober assessment of its merits.  It was on a conforming two acre lot, so building a new house seemed relatively straightforward.  It also overlooked a pond- not a pristine swimming pond like at the other house, but more than a swamp.  It was also on a dead end road that led to a trail to Cat Rock in Weston.  It was in relatively bad shape, which would make it affordable to buy and a good candidate for renovation or demolition down the road.  And so we "fell in like" with the house.  We didn't want to "let the perfect be the enemy of the good", and we didn't want to spend the rest of our lives looking at houses.

I finally make the move- almost

In my early thirties I was renting the first floor of a Victorian in Lexington.  I had saved enough money designing and building to buy a starter home in North Lincoln.  It wasn't my dream house, but it was a beginning.  As I was walking out the door to sign the P&S agreement, my phone rang.  I debated whether to get it, but thinking it might be the realtor or attorney, I went back in and grabbed it.  My landlord said "I just want to tell you I'm selling the house, so please clean your apartment".  Normally this would have been fortuitous timing, but the truth was I loved that Victorian and wanted to stay.  I asked him how much he wanted for the house, and a negotiation began.  A few minutes later, the attorney from the closing called  to find out why I was late.  I put him on hold for a moment, completed the deal with my landlord, and then gave the attorney the bad news that I was backing out of the deal.  In ten minutes I had gone from buying a house in Lincoln to buying one in Lexington instead.

As can be seen at left, the Victorian had been hacked at and added to over the years.  The cornices were boxed in, the wooden columns and rails replaced by wrought iron, the clapboards covered with asbestos siding.  But glimpses of the old grandeur remained, particularly the massive granite stair leading down the long slope to the pond across the street.  Thus began a 15 year labor of love, and a 15 year delay before I would put a down payment on another house in Lincoln.

My favorite part of the house was the west-facing water view.  I still miss those spectacular sunsets, and getting the last bit of light every day.  Often I would bike through wooded Lincoln until it began to get dark.  Coming home to my hilltop, I would have another full hour of daylight.  So one of the principal goals of the renovation was to open the house up to the view, and build a deck to enjoy it.  I opened up the west face with a band of windows in the living room on the second floor (my office occupied the first floor), and a composition of windows in the gable end (master bedroom). The new deck off the kitchen featured a half-round parapet where I could stand and call my son to dinner, when he was playing down at the pond.  I also added a shed dormer on the third floor that we used as a guest room.

Modern Architecture seals the deal

Gropius House- Lincoln MA modern landmark

The first time I rode past the Gropius house I literally stopped in my tracks.  I was in my early twenties and had been designing and building for about six years.  I was beginning to develop a style, or at least get a better feel for what I liked and wanted to copy.  People were always giving me Frank Lloyd Wright books, so I was familiar with "modern", but not this kind of modern.

Cantilevered pergola over sundeck on Gropius House

It's uncanny how formative this house was and is to modern architects and builders.  It's like the original seed that modern residential design sprouted from.  So many of the forms, details and materials that comprise the vocabulary of modernism started here in 1938!  The banded windows, cantilevered roof, glass block, pipe railings, vertical siding, etc. are commonly seen throughout houses in Lincoln.

For me, touring the house (the interior looks like a Crate and Barrel store) was as close to a pilgrimage as I will get.  It reinforced the feeling that someday I would make my home in Lincoln.

How I got started with Lincoln

Hawk Hill Road, site of my future house

Like a lot of people, my first experience of Lincoln was probably biking through it.  And like others, I thought- How can a place this rural and beautiful be so close to Boston?  At least I think that's how it started, it was probably over thirty years ago.

I lived in Arlington back then, near Spy Pond, and while Lincoln was close enough to ride to, it was quite a ways away financially.  So it remained a place to visit, both physically and psychically.  I thought of it as a "someday, when"... place.










 A few years later I was invited to the Pierce House for my girlfriend's brother's wedding.  It was a beautiful early fall day, and as we dined on the side porch I got that nagging Lincoln feeling again.