A hidden structural challenge inspired a striking solution in this San Francisco home: a custom indoor-outdoor fireplace framed in blackened steel, with views of Monterey Cypress trees visible through the flames.
The top-floor living room of our Japanese Treehouse project (recently covered in AD) features sweeping vistas of San Francisco and the Bay through walls of windows that meet at a seamless corner of glass—except for one section: the original fireplace, which was a visually heavy floor-to-ceiling mass of what I can only describe as *someone else's choice of* tile. Our clients' vision was to remove the fireplace completely, and replace it with windows to create an uninterrupted view into the Monterey Cypress tree, which I agreed was a great idea, even though I would miss having a fire feature.
But when we opened the walls, we discovered two massive steel structural pillars only several feet apart, which the old fireplace was hiding! It's very likely these pillars which made the corner window possible when it was built in the early 2000s. Discouraged but committed to the vision, our client requested we explore setting window panes between the pillars, but I felt (and I suspect we all felt) that doing so would look clunky and disruptive to the rhythm of the other windows.
Coming back to how much I love a fire feature, I thought of see-through fireplaces, which by then I'd only seen installed indoors. I was thrilled to find an indoor/outdoor option from DaVinci Custom Fireplaces! I proposed the largest unit that would fit in this space, inclusive of the exhaust clearances, as an alternative solution to the client's desire for a window here. They not only loved this idea, but also got very excited about the possibility of a cold-rolled steel fascia! While our contributions to the house were quite Japanese-inspired, the original architecture was more industrial-modern, so the materiality felt perfect. We worked with reUnion Creative to map ideal seam and fastening locations, and after a few different samples of steel pickling and waxing, we decided on a subtle, supple blackened fascia, a few inches narrower than the pillars to allow for a reveal of the drywall behind it (also making it a cleaner installation given the window frames).
The final fireplace and living room made our clients very happy, and apparently, they were even happier using the fireplace! They say that when the fire is lit, it's wild to sit on the sofa, seeing the Cypress trees through the flames.
This story is from Issue 9 of The Quarterly. Click here to see the full issue.
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