Explore a Modernist residence boasting panoramic ocean vistas in San Diego | House Tour

Part of the way architectural history worked in Southern California was most people went to big cities where they could get work. Some people left places like Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin or USC and they would come to San Diego where they could be small fish in a small pond versus in a big city like LA. So they could creatively extend themselves probably a little bit more and it was less competitive. That said, San Diego had a tough go economically after the war so the robust Hollywood money that built Palm Springs did not exist in San Diego. About 20 years ago I launched a website modernSanDiego.com. I have tried to write biographies of lesser-known architects that haven't been published or were not published since perhaps they were active. I like to collect vintage photographs of San Diego architecture and display them along with biographies of these architects who arguably are lesser known to the greater population. They learn about modern architecture and think San Diego is probably more important than people have in recent years and as a native San Diegan I find great joy in celebrating some of these lesser-known architects. My home that we're in today was built and designed in 1957 by architect Sim Bruce Richards. He was born in Oklahoma, studied with Frank Lloyd Wright in Wisconsin and Arizona, moved from Phoenix to San Diego and started a career. I have shared with a number of our visitors to our home that these are mid-century modern cabins. People think of Bruce Richards as a mid-century architect or this term mid-century modern and I find my home doesn't exemplify mid-century modern so I've pretended to or kind of coined this term the mid-century modern cabin. And the reason I talk about cabin architecture so so much with his homes is both from the outside and the inside 90% of the surfaces are wood, right? It's not just wood construction or wood cladding, it's wood walls, wood floor, wood ceiling. So with so much wood people often think about this cozy feeling of craftsman architecture of the early early 20th century often found in Pasadena with the likes of green and green but also when you're in my home and others by the architect you feel a sense of coziness and connections to the outdoors which I find very much growing up and going on a camping trip or staying in a cabin with my family is having this connection to to Southern California's native environments. In the early 2000s while we were living in a home that we loved very much I heard that there was this really interesting lady that had a really interesting house and myself and some friends were putting together a home tour for a non-profit to raise money and bring awareness to our fascination with 50s homes. So I was given this address and I knocked on the door in about 2003-2004 and this bright smile welcomed me at the front door and I said hi I'm Keith York and I'm putting a home tour together in the area to raise money for this non-profit and I've understood from others you have this really interesting home and an interesting story and she welcomed me in and I sat basically where I'm sitting today and she regaled me with stories upon our first meeting about her entire life with her architect husband and raising children in this beautiful home five or ten minutes in she's like oh well you know my my husband was with Frank Lloyd Wright you know him right and and then I was like wait oh and then I took and then it really like all my senses were alive like oh now I understand what what this house is about and she was very fond of sharing these decades of storytelling of all the houses he did of raising their family in this home and she couldn't have been a more warmer host. At some point we both agreed that a text a book of some kind needed to be written about her husband and so shortly after being in this home for the first time I found myself embarking on trying to catalog and tell his story. Janet and I after that first day she welcomed me into the living room we became friends and I would come back and visit this home regularly we'd have lunch together and we'd talk about architecture and her husband she passed away in 2017 and by that time I had engaged myself with the family and so I was not a friend not a member of the family but I was certainly somewhere in between I was very closely connected to her and her kids and this physical space I was here a lot so when she passed away the three children the three adult children that then inherited the home and they rationalized that that someone like myself and my wife that would honor the legacy and cherish the home would probably be a better fit than them trying to figure out financially how to keep or retain ownership of it so they came to my wife Jessica and myself and said hey would you consider buying the home from us we really have no use for it it's sort of what it came down to and we worked through the mechanics of purchasing the home at great peril at immense anxiety because my wife and I and our daughter June were very much ensconced and in love with a home that met all of our needs and more we had a home by a well regarded highly noted architect Craig Elwood it was filled with all the vintage furniture and art objects that we love and cherish and then we were presented with this even more significant opportunity to upgrade or whatever you want to call that and to this day we've been here five years now every day we don't skip a beat or skip a moment where we don't tell each other or ourselves how fortunate we are and how life-affirming a really great home can be and we get to cherish each day together the three of us living in in this home not without hearkening back to how it came into our possession and this wonderful family that made it possible for us. Bruce was very much a sensitive architect to landscape he designed landscapes he had favorite plantings right so this house really exemplifies his own joy in both the built and the natural landscape. Bruce both because he grew up in a rural environment and on a farm and with Frank Lloyd Wright this his own house probably best distills what he wanted to do which is engage his family and guests kind of walking in and outdoors every room almost every room in our house has a door to the exterior as we live here we sort of traverse from the inside to the outside throughout our day. I've had the great pleasure of being married in my backyard raising a child in what I consider to be fantastic architecture and I know not everyone gets to experience that but I find that even as a real estate professional there are homes within people's budgetary reach that can change the way they live in a modest way but in my world in my lifetime I've understood it to be very true and especially as a father the way you can bring a child into the world and have them experience from a very tiny frame at a young age that the outdoors is part of our indoor living space and that there were families that occupied your home before you those people engaged in artists and guests and neighbors came over and our house that we live in today was somewhat of a community gathering space for for a lot of people over decades and that legacy that my daughter grows up within I think propels her into an understanding of the world around her that might not have happened if we didn't live in this house and certainly her friends don't experience probably in the same in the same way. Life changing is a big statement but life affirming is every day we wake up in this house for sure.