How They Pulled It Off: Two Salvaged Wood Sculptures Custom-Made for a 116-Year-Old House

Welcome to How They Pulled It Off, where we take a close look at one particularly challenging aspect of a home design and get the nitty-gritty details about how it became a reality.

It was a request for a custom staircase runner that eventually led to the two wooden sculptures in a 1909 carpenter-style house in Berkeley: one, a threshold portal, and the other forming a reimagined fireplace mantel. The result is as singular as the request.

The project began when the owners, a pair of recent empty nesters, began to rethink their longtime family home—it’s where they raised their children and where they planned to live the rest of their lives.  Originally built in 1909, the residence had already been called "home" by several families. How could it evolve alongside this one?

When they first approached Elena Dendiberia and Homan Raja, cofounders of the San Francisco-based design firm Studio AHEAD, the couple weren't seeking out a custom mantel-slash-portal. Rather, they were in search of a  a runner that incorporated a number of antique rugs collected throughout years of traveling. But in the backyard, as the four spoke over ceramic plates of local tomatoes and the project grew.

The living room and library were rarely used as they were accessed through the dining room. These spaces, once utilized for bike storage and the daily detritus of working and raising a family, could now serve as venues for hosting dinners and relaxing. Dendiberia and Rajai saw the living room and library as an opportunity for an artist collaboration, which they describe as an essential part of their practice and process. The duo approached wood sculptor Ido Yoshimoto to collaborate on two pieces. Born and raised in nearby Inverness, Yoshimoto grew up around a community of artists including famed sculptor JB Blunk. Yoshimoto’s earlier work as an arborist is seen through his preservation of salvaged wood and all its imperfections. He was perfect for the project.  

How they pulled it off: Sculptures that merge with a century-old house

• To replace the bifold doors connecting to the library, Dendiberia and Rajai were inspired by Japanese tea ceremonies. They envisioned the threshold as a portal transitioning from the social living and dining space to the more introverted library. After approach Yoshimoto with the concept, he submitted several sketches. "It was very natural," says Rajai. "It wasn’t chaos."

• The form of the two pieces is as distinctive as the placement. "I kind of went a little heavier on the geometry that I usually apply very lightly," says Yoshimoto. The geometry he’s referring to is the archetypal, interlocking shapes found in wood. With that in mind, the sculptures’ curving forms begin to resemble something closer to the rings of an old growth tree trunk. "Doing something simple very finely and very well is sometimes harder than just doing some old, chiseled, organic, textured shape," he says.

• Yoshimoto sourced the wood from Arborica, Evan Shively’s lumber yard in Petaluma that specializes in salvaged wood. "I always feel like it’s a little sacrilegious to take some giant piece of beautiful wood and cut the small part that you need out of it," says Yoshimoto. He selected a charred piece of wood, likely from a wildfire, that was also the right scale. "We could mill it all out of one log. We carefully turned the log over and made our marks so that all of the material could come out of this one piece of wood without any waste." The redwood feels contextually appropriate to the historic house.

• "The hardest part was fitting this into an old house. Nothing was plum or square or level," says Yoshimoto. "I went to the house three or four times to take measurements." Ultimately it was installed without a hitch, although it did take four people to lift.  

• The portal is not actually attached to the wall. The two column pieces lock onto either side of the threshold; Yoshimoto created a peg for the top piece that achieves this. The mantle sculpture is also composed of several pieces: a sweeping base that supports the curving geometric shapes, which slide down and lock in the back via a large aluminum cleat. In theory, both sculptures could be removed, but Yoshimoto says it would be difficult to do without damaging them. "I love that [the clients] were honest…and that they didn’t think about resale value," adds Rajai. "They were open to enhancing [their home.] It’s their shell. It’s their cave…. Everybody’s become so transient and ungrounded that they don’t even create home anymore. Or if they do, it’s like they want to be able to take it or sell it."  

So far no one has made any mention of removing the custom art pieces. The dinner parties the couple once dreamed of have become a reality; Dendiberia and Rajai have been to at least three (and counting).  

Project Credits: 

Interior Design: Studio AHEAD / @studioahead

Wood Sculptor: Ido Yoshimoto

Photographer: Ekaterina Izmestieva / @ekaterinaizmestieva

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