In September 2019, Emlen Fischer and Ayla Christman saw a listing for a 1966 modernist home with a low roofline in Palo Alto, California that they couldn’t ignore.
The couple had been recreationally looking at houses on weekends simply out of curiosity and activity.
Designed by Aaron Green, an architect who was a close associate of Frank Lloyd Wright, and built by Eichler Homes, the 1,590-square-foot house was found to essentially be a time capsule. The home retained most of its original finishes and fixtures, including custom furniture Mr. Green designed for the house, still in place.
The untouched quality of the home was both positive and negative. Though the home hadn’t been botched by a clumsily done renovation, it was in need of upgrades, especially as certain features were found to be wildly inefficient. Single-pane windows, dated heating and electrical systems, failing appliances and an ant problem rang true through the property.
After purchasing the home for $2.7 million, the couple got to work.
According to The New York Times, They moved in to get a feel for the house as they began working with the architect Neal Schwartz, founder of the firm Schwartz and Architecture, on renovation plans. Hoping to retain Mr. Green’s design intent as much as possible, they started by considering piecemeal changes. Before long, however, the project grew into a complete overhaul of the main house, an addition and two new outbuildings.
“It’s one of those houses you look at and say ‘Oh, I wouldn’t change a thing,’” Mr. Schwartz said. “But then as you get to know it, you think, ‘Oh, well, we probably should change some things.’”
For instance, the ceiling at the front of the house was high enough to allow for a bright, airy living room, but it descended to only six feet at the back, creating a dark, claustrophobic kitchen. To make it more appealing, the architect cut the existing beams and added extensions to raise the ceiling at the back of the house.
