Sausalito hillside garden — lounge chairs and a round concrete table on the terrace beneath a preserved live oak, the bay hillside beyond
DeBell Design  /  Projects  /  Sausalito Residence
Sausalito

Sausalito Residence

The house looks over the treetops of Richardson Bay to the San Francisco skyline.

The project

Planted low so the skyline stays the view.

The house sits high on the hill, looking over the treetops of Richardson Bay to the San Francisco skyline. Before, this was a formal Mediterranean property — a tile roof, a gated entry courtyard built around a tiered fountain, stone-faced walls and a wrought-iron stair rail. The remodel took it apart and replanted the whole property in a cooler register: a birch grove, paperbark maple, tree ferns and hellebores where the formality had been.

The palette is deliberately quiet — pale stucco, weathered Kebony, dark metal, gray limestone underfoot at the entry. Thin steel planters carry the planting where the spaces are tight, and the back terrace is a garden built over structure.

Low planting keeps the building edge soft, so the skyline across the bay stays the thing you look at. A green roof and upper-deck planters carry it up to the house.

Dining and lounge terraces sit under a preserved live oak, and an Eva Rothschild sculpture anchors the scheme. I was project manager on this, at Arterra Landscape Architects.

The green roof looking south — a stacked black sculpture against the bay, the San Francisco skyline on the horizon
The Eva Rothschild sculpture on the green roof, with the San Francisco skyline across the bay.
The entry court — paperbark maples and grasses in dark steel planters against the white stucco house and open steel stair
The entry court: paperbark maples and grasses in thin steel planters against pale stucco.
The house from below at dusk — lit glazing above a planted bank, the terrace running the length of the living room
From below, the planted bank under the terrace that runs the length of the house.
The entry under the steel stair — paperbark maple and grasses either side of the door, ferns in the shade
The entry under the steel stair, ferns in the shade.
Paperbark maple — cinnamon bark peeling in sheets above a fine green groundcover
Paperbark maple, its bark peeling above a fine groundcover.
Project credits
Design team — Arterra Landscape ArchitectsKate Stickley (founding partner), Natasha Libina, Kira Maritano, Sharon DeBell
ArchitectJohn Lum Architecture
General contractorJetton Construction
Interior designerNICOLEHOLLIS
SculptureEva Rothschild
Landscape contractorHeritage Landscapes
Structural engineerAshley & Vance Engineering
Geotechnical engineerCraig Herzog Engineering
SurveyorDavid Harp & Associates
AVMarchand-Wright & Associates
PhotographyAdam Rouse
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