Favorites

The Owenses’ home features offerings from Design Within Reach.

Floor plan of Casa MV by Rispoli Guerrera Architetti

A painting, from which Howorko looked to for inspiration when devising the color palette, brightens the living area, which stars an intimate dining table, a reading nook along the windows, and expansive storage.

Brian and Melissa's two young children spend hours playing in the yard. With Melissa's mother in a house on the same property, the kids have easy access to Grandma whenever she's in town. "It's such a unique experience having multiple generations together," Brian says. "If the kids get up early, they can just run over to Melissa's mom's and spend time with her."

As the sun sets each evening, the pink paint color on the exterior ties to the pink of the sky.

A black sink fixture accented with rose gold adds a contemporary note in the light-filled kitchen.

The pool features varying seating arrangements.

The new kitchen has custom walnut cabinetry throughout. “Walnut just creates that warmth and works well with a lot of mid-century materials,” says Lin. “It’s just a good base layer.”

Light-toned ceramic tile stacked vertically and white quartz counters are a neutral counterpoint to the pops of chartreuse in the cabinetry. Lin interspersed the closed cabinetry with sections of String shelving, from a Scandinavian modular system originally designed by Nisse and Kajsa Strinning in 1949.

Lin specified the String shelving across the walnut panel wall and had it surround a restored Paul McCobb credenza that the couple found at a garage sale twenty years ago. “Almost everything in our apartment has a story,” says Kitty.

Kitty and Charles have “great pieces to work with,” says Lin. “So, we built a good foundation for them.”

Though Jade had the backyard re-graded, the previous owner’s dirt bike tracks had really altered the landscape. When it rained one day, there was a bowl that remained and held water — which sparked an idea in Jade. “I come from a design practice where everything is rectangular and linear, but there was this opportunity to have a natural, seasonal pond,” she says. “It made me uncomfortable, but I still wanted to do it.”

The coral and sage green color palette is continued here, via wall and floor tile from the Tile Bar. A custom white oak vanity with a quartz counter is completed with a Rejuvenation mirror and wall sconces from Cedar & Moss.

The café’s polished concrete floors are ground down to “expose some of the aggregate,” Mike says. Vintage leather chairs balance a custom banquette, upholstered in a forest-green wool felt by Kravet.

Black-painted window and door frames contrast with the white-painted steel siding and offer a crisp, clean aesthetic for the exterior of the cottage.

Cristián created slots in the rear facade so that each home’s primary bedroom could have three exposures. The voids also allowed him to install skylights that illuminate the ground floor. The detailing of the ribbed exterior was adapted from a large institutional building designed by his father—“really almost a cut and paste,” says Cristián. The overhang at the rear of the building offers partial cover for the private walled patio that each family enjoys.