Sometimes the big draw of a property is obvious. Other times, it’s harder to predict.
“It’s always interesting to see what draws a particular buyer to a property, what they fall in love with first,” says Lafayette Realtor Dana Green.
Architect Robert Swatt
Consider, for example, the Bella Vista Estate that Green just listed on Lafayette’s Upper Happy Valley Road.
“The Bella Vista property has spectacular features – from the views and interior amenities to the vineyard, but I expect a big draw is going to be that it’s a Swatt home,” says Dana Green, referring to Robert Swatt, the renowned architect of the California Modern Architectural Movement.
Lafayette Home for Sale is a Swatt Transformation
Lafayette-resident Swatt works out of the Swatt-Miers architectural studio in Emeryville, CA. In addition to multi-family residential projects, Swatt has designed over 100 single-family residential projects in his career, including new homes and what he calls “transformations” or significant remodels.
10 of the Swatt projects are in Lafayette, including Swatt’s own home and the residence on the Bella Vista Estate, which is one of Swatt’s transformations.
Swatt single-family homes rarely come on the market so we reached out to Robert Swatt via email in mid-January to ask bout the Bella Vista project, lessons he took from its transformation and local trends in the California Modern Architectural Movement.
Below is the resulting Q & A:
Q: What are you most pleased about with regard to the Bella Vista project, the thing that still makes you smile?
Swatt: “I am particularly pleased that the renovation completely transformed the look and feel of the home, most importantly from the view from the west, which is the entry to the home and property. Some renovations are virtually invisible, and that can be a good thing. But sometimes a renovation can take a property to a whole new level of design quality, and I think that is the case with the Bella Vista residence. The second floor addition, combined with subtle changes to the entry and extensions of the architecture into the garden (in the form of garden walls), transformed virtually everything that a visitor sees when entering the property. An architect once mentioned to me, after visiting the owners, that he was excited to see this new home that we had designed in the Lafayette hills. I smiled, explaining that this in fact was an older home that we transformed.”
Q: What lessons did you learn from the Bella Vista project that carried forward to subsequent projects?
Swatt: “Every transformation project has its own goals. Sometimes the new design matches the old, becoming architecturally invisible. At other times, that transformation can be a dramatic contrast to the existing architecture. Both attitudes can be successful, depending on the nature of the existing architecture. In this case, something very special happened – the architectural language (design) of the addition is very new, obviously very different from the original home yet, while much of the existing home was not changed, the overall look and feel of the house is unified composition that seems very modern… current… of our time.”
Q: What evidence do you have that the California Modern Architectural Movement is making an impact in the East Bay generally and Lafayette specifically?
Swatt: “It is clear to me that California Modern Design is experiencing a resurgence in our region, including the Lamorinda (Lafayette, Orinda, Moraga) area mainly because this is work that I do and our firm continues to be very busy with new, modern homes throughout the region. While the architectural profession continues to suffer through the economic downturn, our firm has actually doubled in the past few years. We currently have 6 modern homes under construction in the region, and even more in the planning stages on the boards.”
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