About a month on the market, 1465 Vista Road, designed by Henry Hill and built in 1960. Hill was best described by architecture writer Dave Weinstein as a "flamboyant Modernist", and he was probably the only Second Bay Tradition architect who's work could be described as witty. He worked in good company- partnered with John Ekin Dinwiddie and Erich Mendelsohn. The El Cerrito Hills neighborhood was a hotbed of mid-century extravagance, with houses by Walter Ratciff and Richard Neutra (now believed to have been renovated into near-oblivion) and a golf course in an expensive suburban eden, albeit one with cigarettes and Manhattans.
So what have got here? Besides that indoor swimming pool, there are three bedrooms and three baths. A chimney of folded copper (needs polishing!) echoed by outsized accordion doors. Entire walls of mirror, or stone, or glass. Early supergraphics decorating the pool, along with some sort of South Seas hanging planter. Fortunately no tiki. Polished slate inset with carpet, plus carpet inset with carpet. The guy was nuts. And we love him for it. Aside from having to live in El Cerrito, a bargain at $1.25M.
· 1465 Vista Road [Redfin]
· More Mid-Century FSBO [Curbed Archive]
· More Open Home This Weekend [Curbed SF Archives, 3rd item]
· Flamboyant Modernism [SFGate]
· Albert Henry Hill [PCAD]
· Woody, in El Cerrito [Curbed SF Archives]
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