Redwoods and Possibility Envelop This Spirited California Retreat
Making the move from urban to suburban, one young family traded San Francisco city life for a more idyllic existence just 14 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, settling into a world of their own in the heart of Mill Valley, California. The lifestyle swap was an easy one, considering what they found—a private refuge, surrounded by old-growth redwoods, with an abundance of charm and possibility. And thanks to a page torn out of a magazine for design ideas, the homeowners completed their vision with the help of the San Francisco–based designer Noz Nozawa.
“For inspiration they’d been collecting pages from magazines for months, and that’s how they found me,” explains Nozawa, whose eponymous firm is known as much for its bold use of color as for its attention to subtle detail. “When they showed me the page, it had a note that read ‘Call her.’ It was the first time having one of my projects published in a physical magazine led to a new client.”
Built in 1929, the property’s original structure—a mostly wood-clad Coastal Traditional—had seen myriad updates over the years but was never expanded; instead, a series of smaller structures was built on the generously shaded two-lot property. “There are five [structures] altogether, including two main houses—the family’s two-story home on one side and a pool house on the other—and a cool little guest cottage,” the designer notes.
Still, most of the property remains usable outdoor space, complete with the tranquil sound of flowing water from Old Mill Creek, which runs through it. “It’s something really special and, honestly, it’s one of the most extraordinary residential properties I’ve ever seen in the Bay Area,” Nozawa says. “The grounds are just magical.”
Apart from highlighting the home’s lush surroundings, Nozawa’s clients—a dynamic couple with three children under the age of 14—wanted their new space to feel both elevated and, more important, youthful. “As their kids get older, the husband explained that he wanted this to be the house in which he grows younger,” she says. “So there was a very deliberate intention for it to read ‘spirited’ through a casual mixing of colors, shapes, and design eras.”
In fact, the Northern California project included a series of other firsts for Nozawa—from completely removing windows throughout the home and making the primary bathroom smaller, to incorporating the work of several makers she’d been admiring for years—that transformed this family’s modest compound into a swoon-worthy retreat.
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