It’s unexpected, that view. While driving to the Rancho Santa Fe home owned by architect Salomon Daniel and his wife, interior designer Dalia Feldman, there’s no indication from the road that the most powerful impact when you walk through the front door will be the expanse of valley and hills below and beyond the house itself.
When the couple — who together founded and operate SD Design Studio — initially saw the 4,400-square-foot space, with its five bedrooms and five bathrooms, they thought the house needed a complete gut renovation that would not only engage the view and the 2.11 acres the house sits on, but also reflect its natural surroundings. It was already undergoing a disaster of a renovation by the previous owners, which gave the couple pause but also an edge in offering to purchase it, which they did toward the end of 2019.
The house, which appears to be a single story from the street but actually has a full lower level, dates back to the 1960s. The “before” photos show that it was still trying to live in that era.
“The house was very dated,” said Daniel. “There was lots of brown-toned carpet from the living areas to some of the bedrooms, old travertine flooring, as well as some rustic-looking laminate floors. The walls were painted in all sorts of horrendous colors ranging from browns to yellows and even purple.”
The house’s entrance leads straight into a 24-foot-by-35-foot great room that used to have a soaring, albeit yellowish-brown stained, wood-and-beam vaulted ceiling that, at its apex, reaches close to 16 feet. The room now contains the kitchen on the immediate left of the entry, a living room space straight ahead and a dining area alongside the living room to the left. The back wall is all windows.
But when Daniel and Feldman first saw it, there was a partial wall at the entrance of the kitchen that reached to the top cabinets, with a second partial wall a few feet away, which held cabinets, ovens and a countertop as part of an angular island. The gap between the two walls was the entry to the kitchen.
The effect of the walls was to block the kitchen and the view. The kitchen floor was tired travertine tile bordering brown carpeting for the dining and living spaces. Above was dated track lighting perched from beams. Only two glass doors, one by the living room and the other by the dining room, offered access to the spacious balcony. The rest of the house held dated, dark maple cabinets, dark polished granite countertops and weird layouts. For some reason There was little access to the balconies and decks outside.
The couple, whose family consists of their 1- year-old son Abbie, and Paco, their 2-year-old Boxer, bought the home as a getaway from city life in Banker’s Hill. They started construction in spring 2020. While they didn’t change the footprint of the house, they did re-stucco and paint the exterior and replaced all the exterior doors and windows.
For the design, Daniel and Feldman were adamant about “respecting the original mid-century/California ranch-style vibes, while drawing inspiration from Scandinavian design and making sure the styles could work in harmony” as a new modern home, Daniel said. Because a Scandinavian country home deeply connects with its natural surroundings, the couple always had in mind the old stands of eucalyptus trees, orchards and other earthy elements in their Rancho Santa Fe neighborhood when they redesigned with a palette of neutral tones, clean spaces and minimal clutter.
Most of the remodeling focus was on the great room. While Feldman is not a cook, Daniel is at home in the kitchen and wanted one that would accommodate all of their extended family and friends.
Walking past the threshold now is to experience a bright and totally open, expansive room. The couple collaborated with Baja-based fabricator VR Cabinets & Architectural Millwork on all of the home’s cabinetry. Instead of walls hiding the kitchen, Daniel designed and the fabricator built an 11-foot-long peninsula that extends from the wall by the entry using white oak, with drawers and doors he described as “Skinny Shaker.” The kitchen countertops are all Antolini Calacatta Lincoln satin-finished porcelain, with the peninsula having a waterfall effect at the end. The duo created an entry by placing a half-wall across from the peninsula. The other side of the wall is where the stairway descends to the second level.
The kitchen is a brilliant white punctuated by the massive black entry door (also built by VR Cabinets), the black pantry door, black matte faucets — including a pot filler faucet over the Wolf range — and the graceful natural light tones of the white oak cabinets that make up the deep 10-foot-long island. The island also houses a white porcelain farm sink and wood-paneled Cove dishwasher. Against the wall, along with the range, is a Sub Zero French door refrigerator covered in white panels. Windows above the kitchen wall bring in even more light. To keep that wall from looking bulky, there’s only one upper cabinet. Instead, Daniel placed white oak shelves above the counter, the top two framing the stove vent, which is also enveloped in porcelain to recede from view.
The couple painted the walls and the ceiling, including the beams, white and replaced the track lighting with slim, recessed WAC lighting. Gone are the tile and carpeting. Instead, they maximized the sense of space with Journey light wide-plank white oak flooring by Provenza. They created a striking accent wall in the living room area, using Lagos Light Grey 24-inch-by-48-inch porcelain tile from Arizona Tile for the wall housing the wood-burning fireplace.
The pair also brought the outdoors in by redoing the windows and doors. Instead of just two glass doors, there’s now a bank of custom Milgard sliding doors that open up. Daniel and Feldman were so exacting about the symmetry between the upper windows and the doors below that the couple made sure that when the sliding doors were closed, the edges lined up with the mullions above.
Because the couple enjoy entertaining and wanted each bedroom to have its own bath, they replaced a closet with a powder room in the hallway. They also created a large walk-in closet for Abbie’s bedroom by adjusting the layout and moved the room’s entrance so that it is now literally across the hall from the bathroom.
In the primary suite, which originally had a purple wall where the bed was placed, the couple installed a window facing the grassy slope of their yard and reoriented their bed against the adjoining wall to face the balcony and now enjoy the view. They replaced French doors that lead to the balcony, which they extended, with a sliding door.
The couple remodeled all of the bathrooms, using almost all the same materials in each one.
“You’ll see a pretty consistent theme in the bathrooms,” said Daniel. “It had to fit the budget.”
The bathroom countertops are Cosentino Silestone in Eternal Stataurio. The primary bathroom has large-format Marbella white porcelain tile throughout and contains a 61-inch Boyce Acrylic Tub by Signature Hardware. The other full baths are covered in Maximo’s Regency Gray large-format porcelain tile.
There is a detached, 800-square-foot guest house on the property, but, in the main home, Daniel and Feldman also designed on the level below a guest suite at the foot of the stairs, with a sitting room, bedroom and full bathroom. The suite leads out to a patio.
The project was completed within a year, with some unexpected delays resulting from the pandemic.
“From a design and spatial perspective, we had a challenge in keeping things as light and open as possible,” Daniel said. “We wanted the house to feel open, airy, comfy, calm and relaxing from every corner by maximizing every opportunity for natural light and to connect with nature from the inside out, while taking advantage of the beautiful setting and context of the house surroundings.”
Caron Golden is a freelance writer.