The Limestone Pavilion

Perched on a Pacific Heights hillside, the Limestone Pavilion began with a single ambition: to dissolve the boundary between the living room and the garden. We gutted a dated 1970s layout and reorganized the plan around a central travertine hearth that reads as a freestanding sculptural volume rather than a wall.

Full-height steel-and-glass doors on the garden elevation allow the main living space to extend onto a sheltered terrace. A continuous limestone floor runs from inside to out, so the threshold all but disappears. Cabinetry in fumed oak anchors the perimeter, while a hand-finished plaster ceiling softens the acoustics and the raking western light.

The palette is intentionally restrained — travertine, fumed oak, limewashed plaster, and a single accent of patinated brass at the bar. Every fixture was specified for its quality of light rather than its silhouette, so the architecture reads as a calm, continuous backdrop to the family's daily rituals.