A cantilevered house in Portola Valley is proof why architecture is transcendent

Megumi Aihara and Dan Spiegel of the San Francisco-based firm SAW helped a local couple design their dream house in Portola Valley, California. They didn't anticipate that it would change them forever

BY DAVID NASH

Secluded along the eastern slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains and surrounded by old-growth woodlands in a rolling valley of greens and gold, Portola Valley, California is a community nothing less than idyllic. It’s also the setting for a thoughtfully conceived architectural gesture of ultimate liberation.

When Megumi Aihara and Dan Spiegel, cofounders of award-winning San Francisco-based cross-disciplinary design firm Spiegel Aihara Workshop (SAW), were approached by their friends and clients Aruna and Sanjiv Gambhir to design a new home, they knew it would be one of their most meaningful and ambitious collaborations.

Following the loss of their teenage son, Milan, to cancer in 2015, the Gambhirs were intent on having a space for reflection and a new beginning. ‘It was an interesting exercise in what it means to honor a memory and build upon what he contributed to their lives,’ Spiegel explains. ‘But also, how to just manage their own lives going forward.’

The site they found was a breathtaking three-acre plot of land on a bluff with views stretching all the way to San Francisco on a clear day. And what they envisioned—a retreat consisting of a 7,800 sq ft, four-bedroom, three-bathroom main house and 1,200 sq ft two-bedroom guest cottage integrated within the sloping site—would be, literally, transcendental.

But during the years-long permitting and approval processes, Sanjiv – a pioneer in molecular imaging and a professor in cancer research at the nearby Stanford School of Medicine – also passed away from cancer. Aruna, however, decided to press on with the project. ‘She wanted to see the project through for him,’ shares Spiegel. ‘He was passionate about design and Aruna now wanted to honor both Sanjiv and her son.’

Seeing the project as a continuation of her family’s story, Aruna suggested naming it Moksha – a Buddhist concept that refers to a release from the unbound cycle of life and death, offering a reflection of the home’s spiritual origin. It was a sentiment echoed from the very beginning. ‘Every decision we were making was about a kind of rebirth or renewal,’ adds Aihara. ‘There was the repurposing of redwood trees that were fell from fires and landslides, and the use of other materials that would change over time.’

Salvaged old-growth redwood used for siding and rainscreens soften the board-formed concrete walls that make up the main dwelling’s ground floor. The second cantilevered level is also clad in the same reclaimed wood that will silver with time to reveal a lustrous sheen. Inside, custom-milled, salvaged blue-gum eucalyptus flooring adds warmth and durability, while walls of windows allow sunlight to stretch throughout the home from multiple angles all day long.

‘The twisting of that cantilever was positioned for the views, but also to provide shade and relief from the sun,’ says Spiegel. ‘We wanted it to be animated by the amazing lighting conditions across different times of day.’

One of the challenges faced by the architects was how the home’s eventual inhabitants would feel the ‘bigness of the world beneath them’ while not feeling too exposed. To that end, they created introverted areas that offer a sense of coziness and solitude, like with the pool deck. ‘As you swim toward one end you can see the San Francisco skyline on your left and, straight ahead, you’re overlooking the Stanford campus and all the way across the East Bay to Mount Diablo,’ Spiegel notes. ‘But as you swim toward the other end, you’re deeply enclosed in a sort of private shell.’

Similarly, a nearby breakfast nook offers a quiet spot to enjoy the morning sun before taking a dip. Another such area, visible only from windows in the primary suite and a connected sauna, is a contemplative garden courtyard enclosed by redwood siding reclaimed from the house that previously stood on the site. ‘You can look way out over vineyards on the neighbouring hillside,’ Aihara says.

It’s in these meditative nooks nestled amongst majestic Valley Oak trees, vines, and native grasses – and the seemingly endless vistas – that SAW’s clients hoped to envisage their future together. But sadly, Aruna never saw the home to completion – she died just a few months before the home’s completion, five years after her husband.

The house today represents something else – the potential of creativity and compassion; the home was completed and sold last year, with the proceeds funding endowed professorships for cancer research at both UCLA and Stanford in the name of the Gambhirs’ son. ‘A young tech entrepreneur who’d been a student at Stanford bought it,’ Spiegel says. ‘He didn’t know the backstory [at the time] – aside from the charitable purpose of the sale – and loved the design, as well as the fact his money would go to the endowments.’

‘In some ways it was one of the most exciting projects we’ve worked on and, in many ways, the most difficult,’ he reflects. ‘It challenged our thinking about the nature of what we do, why and for whom – and what it means to make something in the world.’