High Drive
Residential Remodel
The original home, high above the City of Laguna Beach, was designed by a well-known local home designer in the 70's. Almost 50 years later, it needed a thoughtful renovation to make it more comfortable and functional. The home descended into story levels, totaling 9 levels in all. Starting at the loft level: a half story down was a bedroom, another half story down was the main living spaces, another half story, another bedroom, and one more half story is the lower level that consisted of a combination of five more levels. Additionally, this could only be accessed from the lower level and descend another full-story staircase. As you can imagine it is difficult to functionally utilize and access all these different levels.
In order to ameliorate the functional confusion, we optimized circulation by adding a safer, more comfortable staircase and elevator, reducing the lower levels from 5 to 2, creating an open layout and lowering the lowest level by almost three feet for deck accessibility.
We preposed to bring the whole building into conformity with current energy and building standards. We have been committed to sustainability throughout this project by keeping the existing structure in its entirety, reducing energy use with improved insulation, and replacing all non-compliant fixtures, doors and windows, and mechanicals with code-compliant energy-efficient models. The owners are considering photo-voltaic solar panels for their electrical needs as well as a solar hot water system for heating the pool.
The house remained compatible with the neighborhood because the façade is virtually the same house as has been there for 46 years, but safer, more functional, comfortable, and aesthetically pleasing for the owners.
