House on the Ridge
What Does an Architect’s Dream Home Look Like?
by Camille Dodson, Editorial Assistant
While architects are so busy creating designs for others, what happens when they have the chance to design their own home? Tucked away in the quiet hills of Southern California, Zoltan Pali, Founder and Design Principal of SPF:a, alongside his wife and architectural partner Judit Fekete-Pali, had the chance to explore their own ideas for their home.
Purchased several years ago for its spectacular views and secluded location, the work on turning the Palis’ home into their dream location was slow to start. The original building had been developed in the 1980s, and while the house had been perfect for its previous tenants, it was definitely a bit outdated. It had a unique oblong octagon shape and poorly applied stucco walls, including foam architectural elements such as columns, capitals, and frieze. The structure was not well built and was structurally outdated. Leaks after wet weather had damaged its integrity. Demolishing and starting anew was out of the question as that would have voided all previously obtained entitlements. A significant renovation approach was required.
“To us, everything starts with a plan,” said Pali. “It took us about five years to figure out what we wanted to do and how to do it. We had to maintain the footprint of the building, and once we acquiesced to the fact that we would need to keep the original shape of the house, it became a lot easier for us to finally get moving with the process. It was a learning experience on how to make something new out of something old, and we achieved that.”
Another concern was any potential danger from California wildfires. In the same year that they had purchased their home, there was a massive fire only a mile away from their new residence. With both the wet weather and the potential threat of fire as a concern, they chose to get creative with their solution.
“We are very technical architects,” said Pali, “but we have been particularly interested since the beginning of the practice with an emphasis on a building’s skin. If you look at our work, it has largely been about expressing a building’s identity through its façade or skin.”
After building in new layers of insulation and waterproof underlayment, they chose to install Class A fire resistant hexagon-shaped asphalt shingles as the building’s new skin. Not only did this give the home the fire and weather protection, but it also gave it a modern yet classic look.
Despite the dark black color of the shingles, heat was not something that the Pali’s were concerned about. “If you were doing a more traditional home and putting down black shingles like this directly onto a more typical structure, I can see why homeowners might be concerned about their power bill,” said Pali. “However, with the composition of our wall assembly, the walls being over a foot thick and double insulated, heat transfer was not a concern to the interior.”
To top off the impressiveness of the project, everything was completed with the Palis acting as their own general contractors. Though that is not typical for architects, and would not have been the case for a client’s house if this had been a request made to SPF:a, the Palis needed the extra time to plan and work on the project. With the plans alone taking close to four years to draft, it would have been unreasonable to consider hiring someone for an unspecified amount of time and labor.
“We have a lot of experience working alongside some very experienced contractors in the past, and a lot of them have been some incredibly professional high level general contractors,” said Pali. “We have renovated every building that we have ever occupied, so we had a pretty good idea of what we were doing. The thing with this project was that we wanted to take our time with it. We were able to slow down, think things through, and plan out our subcontractors while working to our schedule and not involving another general contractor in a more typical process.”
Now that the house is nearing completion, what is left is the final touches and landscaping. “We still have a lot of things to do,” said Pali. “We would like to do something with the concrete that surrounds the property, renovate the grounds, and plant some more trees. Aside from that, the 90% of it that we have done is something that we are very happy with so far.” After years of hard work and planning, it is nice to see that the old, outdated house has become something that The Palis would be proud to call home.
