How They Pulled It Off: Bringing Daylight Into a Dark San Francisco Victorian

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.

After several years of living in their 1906 Victorian townhome in San Francisco’s Russian Hill neighborhood, a young family decided to brighten things up. "Their basic criteria was for a modern, comfortable, and warm home," says Federico Engel, managing principal of San Francisco firm Butler Armsden Architects, who led the renovation alongside senior project manager Trisha Snyder. "To achieve that, we not only wanted to bring in more natural light but celebrate the light." So began an extensive interior update, which touched all four floors of the vertically oriented structure.

Because of the property’s historic nature, the architects couldn’t change the exterior and instead focused their efforts on the interiors. A tight lot also meant narrow floor plates and limited access to daylight, with adjacent structures to the south and west preventing any windows from being placed on those sides. "For us, creating a balance of light was an important consideration, especially because we were limited on where we could add openings," says Engel.

How they pulled it off: Bringing daylight in 

• One of the first moves was to emphasize the verticality of the structure with a new, light-filled stairwell that could draw daylight through all levels. 
• Engel kept the stair in the same location but opened it up with glass railings and slatted wood elements that allow daylight to spill down from the top floor, where the main living spaces sit. 
• On the second floor, which holds three bedrooms, Engel incorporated privacy glass on the walls surrounding the stairwell, allowing the primary bedroom to gather light during the day but switch to translucent at night.

• On the upper floor, the stairwell is edged by a wooden slat wall that frames a pantry adjacent to the open kitchen. "The slat wall helps extend the space visually and light-wise," says Engel. "We wanted to create an immediate vertical connection and circulation through the house, which you see right away with the stairwell when you walk inside."

• The central column of daylight from the stairs is enhanced by a new lightwell, which Engel added to the northwest corner of the home.

• Rearranging the layouts on the top floor and the bedroom level also helped maximize daylight. Replacing a fireplace with large operable glass doors and floor-to-ceiling windows was a tradeoff the owners were happy to make. "It’s always a bit of a sacrifice to remove a fireplace," says Engel. "But I’ll take windows, outdoor space, and natural light over a fireplace any day."

"We were essentially removing habitable square footage from the home and converting it to outdoor space, which took a leap of faith," says the architect. "But with the additional light, we thought the results were very worth it."

In the kids’ bedroom, a new lightwell gathers light from the building’s northwest corner. A restrained color palette throughout with soft white walls, ceilings, and kitchen cabinetry helps celebrate the natural light, while light oak floors, walnut casework, and slat walls emphasize a sense of warmth. 

All told, the renovated space welcomes the light in more ways than one. "We started with a relatively dark box," says Engel. "Our challenge was to open it up and turn it into a jewel box inside."

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Butler Armsden Architects / @butlerarmsden_architects

General Contractor: Bernard Brady Construction

Structural Engineer: FTF Engineering

Cabinetry: Demiurge LLC

Related Reading:

How They Pulled It Off: A Ceiling That Conceals Recessed Lighting

How They Pulled It Off: Floor-to-Ceiling Modular Shelving in a New Studio Extension