When Adam and Karyn Bechtel began renovating their 1960 home in Woodside, California, south of San Francisco, with architect Emily Jagoda, they had a mantra to guide their design decisions: Could be then, could be now. For the Bechtels and Jagoda, this meant that nothing too trendy should be added to the residence, but the home also shouldn’t be a time capsule.

Adam, a tech executive, and Karyn, who previously worked in higher education, had lived in the home for six years along with their two daughters, Annabelle and Carmen, before they gave any serious thought to a renovation. The midcentury residence, designed by Palo Alto architect Leonard Lincoln, was in sound condition when the Bechtels purchased it in 2012.

Although the layout of the three-bedroom house largely worked for the family of four, the dark bathrooms and cramped kitchen—where Annabelle developed a passion for baking—were long-standing pain points that eventually became the couple’s impetus to remodel. “Adam said, ‘Why don’t we do it while the kids can enjoy it?’” Karyn recalls.

The couple met with several design-build contractors and one architect, who all suggested the owners gut the space. “I didn’t want that,” Karyn says, noting that one of the couple’s goals was to preserve much of what they liked about the existing home.

It wasn’t until they walked through the house with Jagoda, a friend of Karyn’s, that the owners finally felt their vision aligning with a designer’s. “I wanted to maintain the integrity of what was there,” says Jagoda. “For the most part, we kept anything that was original to the house and in good condition.”

Keeping the natural wood finishes, from the tongue-and-groove, knotty pine ceiling to the mahogany-panel walls, meant the team needed to brighten the interior. Jagoda added seven skylights: one in the family room (which the architect dubbed “the rumpus room”), above the entry, in the laundry room, and in each of the two bathrooms, plus two in the kitchen.

Throughout the home, new, bold colors draw attention to added features dreamed up by the owners to reflect their outdoorsy lifestyle, which includes lots of climbing, biking, and hiking. A yellow steel bookcase ladder connects the living room to a lofted art space for the kids—most frequently used by Carmen—while a climbing wall in the rumpus room, one of Adam’s favorite features, is made from a plywood T-nut wall with bright-green holds. “I just think it’s fun,” says Karyn. “Fun but not silly. Nice but not shiny.”

“We were trying to be respectful of the original house but also feel free to make changes.”
—Emily Jagoda, architect

Treehouse3000—Jagoda’s “retro futuristic” name for the project—is a nod to the home’s aspirational timelessness. “I love the ambiguity of not being able to tell instantly what era it’s from,” she says.

“That was the goal,” Karyn adds, “to have that feeling of ‘It could last forever because it’s cool.’”

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Jagoda Architecture and Jesse Ososki Art

Cabinetry: Ralph King Furniture and Cabinetry

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An Outdoorsy Family’s Bay Area Midcentury Gets an Era-Defying Update